• Slow Genocide Of 120,000 Armenian Christians Happening Under Azerbaijan Occupation: Report
  Slow Genocide Of 120,000 Armenian Christians Happening Under Azerbaijan Occupation: Report

  Authored by Raymond Ibrahim via The Gatestone Institute,

  The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level. Several watchdog organizations — including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention — are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

  Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to capture Artsakh. Although it had been Armenian for more than 2,000 years and its population still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to the Republic of Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region.

  

  Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, even though the dispute did not concern it. It dispatched sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya — including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned — to terrorize and slaughter Armenians.

  One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

  These Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (here and here). One included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging out her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

  The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan gaining control of a significant portion of Artsakh.

  Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor — the only route between Artsakh and the outside world. A recent report by the Dutch journalist Sonja Dahlmans summarizes the current situation:

  “In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicine for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors.

  “At the time of this writing [Aug. 24, 2023], a convoy of food and medicine has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to harvest the land…

  “[I]n all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel… Bakers can no longer heat their ovens. Last week, a 40-year-old Armenian man died of malnutrition. A pregnant woman lost her child because there was no fuel for transport to the hospital.”

  Separate reports tell of 19 humanitarian trucks “loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies” that have been parked for weeks and prevented from crossing.

  This is not the first time Turks starve Armenians to death (as this 1915 picture of a Turkish administrator taunting emaciated Armenian children with a piece of bread makes clear).

  On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, framed the situation:

  “There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.

  “The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’

  “There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.

  “Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976.”

  Similarly, after going on a fact-finding mission to Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback referred to the blockade as the latest attempt at “religious cleansing” of Christian Armenia:

  “Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s backing, is really slowly strangling Nagorno-Karabakh. They’re working to make it unlivable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground.”

  Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities, apparently to force them to abandon their properties and leave. A few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. “This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them,” said Diya Butrus Slewa, a human rights activist from Ainkawa. “Unfortunately, this is a blatant targeting of the Christians and a threat to their rights.”

  In Artsakh, the situation seems to be worse: just as no one can get in, apparently no one can get out. Azerbaijan is holding those 120,000 Armenians captive, starving and abusing them at will.

  Brownback, in his testimony, said that this latest genocide is being “perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO.” If the U.S. does not act, “we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland.”

  Nagorno-#Karabakh: The mystery of the missing #churchhttps://t.co/hsjclEwLwf#Artsakh #Armenia pic.twitter.com/lKZg1Qr4Fd

  — Ruzanna_A 🇦🇲 #StopArtsakhBlockade (@avaruza) March 25, 2021

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

  Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters by allowing the Azerbaijanis to continue their atrocities. According to one report:

  “[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan’s aggression….

  “For over eight months, the region’s 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition….

  “The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku [capital of Azerbaijan] tightened its blockade by establishing a military checkpoint at the Lachin Corridor. When Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.

  “This is the predictable consequence of Washington’s insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. It has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head…

  “Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan’s position by indicating support for Artsakh’s integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated during and since the 2020 war, and its own disastrous domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan’s rule.

  “For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace.”

  Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was “doing something” without actually doing anything — apart from allowing more savagery.

  Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis — since all are citizens of Azerbaijan. One report sheds light on this farce:

  “Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have declared that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, seeming to back prior statements of Azerbaijani authorities pledging to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians.

  “But actions speak much louder. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War three decades ago arose following waves of anti-Armenian pogroms. Azerbaijan is now one of the most repressive and autocratic countries in the world, scoring among the lowest in the world on freedom and democracy indexes—in stark contrast to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

  “Aliyev (who inherited his post from his father) has confessed to having started the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and proudly admitted that a generation of Azerbaijanis has been brought up to deeply despise Armenians (here and here). He denies the Armenian Genocide (alongside Turkey) and negates the existence of Armenians as a nation, including their history, culture, and right to be present anywhere in the region.

  “No Armenian, not even a foreign national of ethnic Armenian descent or anyone with an Armenian sounding name, is allowed to enter Azerbaijan.

  “The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated or murdered. None of these acts has ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive medals and are glorified in Azerbaijan. It is no wonder that Armenians are petrified and cannot fathom living under Azerbaijan’s authority.”

  Aside from the Lachin Corridor crisis, a recent 12-page report documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks on land — Artsakh — that historically belonged to the world’s oldest Christian nation, Armenia.

  One example is the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh. First, Azerbaijan bombed the church during the 2020 war, an act Human Rights Watch labeled a “possible war crime.” Then, after the war, with Azerbaijan having seized the area, officials claimed to be “restoring” the church, when in fact its dome and cross were removed, making the building look less like a church. As one report notes:

  “The ‘case’ of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses (“khachkars”), and historical tombstones.”

  Dahlmans also reports:

  “[A]n Armenian church in Artsakh… disappeared after Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020). During the victory, Azerbaijani soldiers pose on top of the church shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’… [T]he church has been completely wiped out and only a few stones remain as a reminder…

  “The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case. “

  One of the main reasons that Armenia finds itself standing alone against this genocidal onslaught is due to the West’s “desire to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner [and this] has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan’s aggression.”

  It is these same priorities that have made Russia, once the defender of all Orthodox Christian nations in the East, more apathetic than might be expected. According to another report:

  “Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so. The Russians are there as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The same agreement, inked by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, guarantees access along that now-blocked road. Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia’s patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia’s largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan’s largest natural gas field. It is not so surprising then that Armenians in Artsakh demonstrated against Russian inaction after the killings of their police officials.”

  Longtime Armenian-activist, Lucine Kasbarian, author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, sums up the situation:

  “We who are Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Coptic bitterly know just how this will end. It’s deja vu all over again. Again and again, we’ve seen the deceit and brutality, received the chilling reports, warnings, graphic videos, open letters and petitions from alarmed genocide scholars. But alas, NATO, Islamic supremacism, gas and oil are going to take precedence over life and liberty once again unless high-powered vigilantism can save the day.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/08/2023 – 02:00

• The Petro-Dollar's Shaky Future: How The Biden Admin Has Alienated One Of Our Crucial Allies
  The Petro-Dollar’s Shaky Future: How The Biden Admin Has Alienated One Of Our Crucial Allies

  Authored by Christopher LaBorde via GooldSeek.com,

  In late 1973 a deal was struck between the US and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that changed the future of both nations and the U.S. dollar for the next 50 years.

  The importance of the deal has been downplayed, and the Biden administration’s near destruction of this deal has almost been outright ignored.

  However, I have had a front row seat to the sentiment changes I am writing about, and I recommend that the reader consider this political game a concerning matter for the long-term stability of the U.S. dollar. 

  In summary, it appears that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is open for new alliances outside of the US that would have never been considered before this time.

  

  The History

  In October of 1973, the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada and Japan were the targets of an OPEC oil embargo that increased the price of oil from $3 a barrel to $12 a barrel in a matter of months after they chose to support the Israelis in the Yom Kippur War. In the four years prior, Nixon price ceiling policies had doubled our dependency on foreign oil and 83% of that oil came from the Middle East. To make matters worse, in the three prior decades, US industry and consumers had become drunk on stable cheap energy, built an entire infrastructure and prosperous economy that was dependent on prices remaining low, and had firmly closed the door on any form of alternative energy options (nuclear). The sudden 4-X spike in oil prices over a 3-month period from this embargo created a real shock to the US way of life and threatened to cripple the US economy. OPEC had our attention and its un-official leader, Saudi Arabia, was in a good position to listen to proposals from the US.

  In late 1973, A deal was made to end the embargo in early 1974 and pull the United States out of the Oil Crisis. Despite the US being in a tight spot, the negotiations created a deal that benefited both countries unimaginably over the following 5 decades that was described in a May 2016 Bloomberg article.

  The gist of this deal can be summarized in the following two reciprocal agreements:

  • Agreement 1.
    • The Al Saud family, the ruling family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, agreed to sell the US oil at a price that we could live with if we agreed to become their defender and supplier of military equipment – This helped ensure the family and the kingdom’s position in the region and provided a great customer for the US military industrial complex over the next 50 years.
  • Agreement 2.
    • The Al Saud family also agreed to buy an unfathomable amount of U.S. treasuries with some of the proceeds from the annual oil purchases – This helped back the Saudi Arabian currency with dollars while providing the U.S. economy with a very healthy and regular dose of liquidity.

  This two-part mutually beneficial deal allowed the US to continue to spend money and have the stability of OPEC’s energy reserves behind it, while providing support for the kingdom and its ruling family. This deal has been active for multiple administrations up until this very day despite some rough waters, but as you will read, it appears to be changing.

  Recent History

  In 2015, a freedom of information act was filed in the 9-11 investigations that sought reparations from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based on the participation of some of its citizens’ roles in the bringing down of the twin towers. During the following years the Obama administration maintained the position that the KSA government could not be held responsible for the action of a few of its people, and the treasury / petrol dollar deal maintained its mutually beneficial terms. The PR troubles of the deal were then inherited by the Trump administration, who quickly realized the value of maintaining the trade relationship and worked hard at continuing to have the kingdom recognized as a pro-US ally and one of our primary supporters in the region against the backdrop of an unstable nuclear Iran. Officials from the Kingdom suggested that the US get its political house in order rather than bring the 1973 deal to light for the full scrutiny of the general public to digest; and the Trump administration saw an opportunity to ask the kingdom to be the fulcrum for a “Peace in the Middle East” deal.

  In 2017, the then 32-year-old Mohammed Bin Salmon “MBS”, the emerging leader of the kingdom, was in the process of both fully securing his leadership position and managing a country-wide corruption clean-up campaign. In many discussions with Saudi nationals the prince’s cleanup exercise was seen as a god-sent action that put the country back on track. However, in the U.S. the press chose to cover the event from the point of view of an old-school coup playing out on live television, which served the press well and renewed U.S. / K.S.A. tensions. Despite another round of disturbances in the optics between the countries, the deal survived and continued on. 

  In 2018, after the “house cleaning exercise” was cooling down the young millennial prince emerged as the clear leader for the kingdom and the Trump administration vowed its support for him and the continued U.S. / Saudi alliances. The idea was to bring things back on track as quickly as possible and start working with the new normal. Unfortunately, it was later determined that someone in the young prince’s afterguard was not in favor of how he was being spoken about after the house-cleaning exercise and independently took matters into their own hands to quiet down the opposition.

  On October 2nd, 2018, the unfortunate result was a journalist and son of a powerful family that had been promised a diplomatic position in the pre-housecleaning KSA regime, entered into the KSA Embassy in Turkey and would never exit. As a result of the rogue actions of a staff member, the young prince became embroiled in a freedom of the press / human rights scandal with the apparent assassination of a reporter and outspoken critic of his administration. The PR situation only became worse in the US press as MBS appeared to not fully realize the crimes he was being accused of. The problem was that with each stab from the press, MBS felt as though he was being personally wronged, and with each response from the prince, the U.S. social media public gained a deeper split with the Kingdom. As the Kingdom was gaining new foreign eastward facing ties, this was quickly becoming a bigger problem for the US than it was for the Kingdom.

  In late 2019, a very exposed relationship between the Kingdom and the U.S. became a campaign topic for Trump opposition. There was no shortage of Western judgment for the Kingdom, and it became an important point for critics to associate Trump with, but the deal and its steady flow of cash that made the U.S. way of life possible was never up for discussion. This was clearly a challenging time to keep the full nature of how much the U.S. needed the kingdom under control and away from the press and the U.S. public. A win from the Arab region was needed and it was needed fast to cool down growing negative sentiments from the U.S. towards the kingdom if the deal was to remain intact. 

  In Q1 of 2020 the Abraham Accords campaign went into full force. With a renewed desire from both parties to refresh their relationship and get back on the “right foot” the idea of “Peace in the Middle East” was hatched as a new goal to focus on. The strategy was that such a grand goal could wipe clean the slate between the U.S. public opinion and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the two countries could find themselves looking at a new deal for new hope in the region. In short, the Abraham Accords aimed to reconcile centuries old tensions between Middle Eastern nations sharing Abrahamic religious ties. This deal had been discussed since the beginning of the Trump campaign, but its timing was needed and looked like it could possibly bring together the Arab world with Israel. For years the Arab world had not acknowledged Israel and Israel had not acknowledged Palestine. The deal was designed to slow tensions between the warring neighbors and to start to bring trade between Israel and all of the Middle East.

  On August 13th, 2020, the Abraham Accords were signed and Israel was free to trade technology with the Arab world and “the greatest peace deal” of all time was signed. However, in order for this concession to be made, the KSA prince would have to show weakness on some level with the people of the Arab world because it is widely understood that the Palestinians have long suffered at the hands of the Israelis. As a fierce young leader this was not a concession that would easily be made, so the concession deal that was struck was a deal for access to restricted US defense technologies. The U.S. would have to agree to sell full capability F35’s to the K.S.A. and the U.A.E. militaries, something that had never been allowed.

  On January 20th 2021, President Joe Biden took office and the “catch” to the deal was discovered. In this case the catch was that the deal was signed with the Trump administration, not the Biden administration, and after the administration change, no full capability F35’s would be allowed to be delivered to the K.S.A. or U.A.E. military. The Biden administration decided to not honor that part of the deal and then decided not to acknowledge MBS as the current leader of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The administration then decided to double down on declaring MBS personally to be a very unpleasant person and an enemy of human rights, despite the incredible changes taking place for women’s equality within his Kingdom at that very moment. As you may imagine this was not the prince’s G-20 membership welcome that he felt he was due, nor one that made much sense for what was at stake for the U.S. and its economy. Unfortunately, Biden’s political posturing also watered down the goodwill of the accords and prolonged the tensions in the relationship triangle between the Kingdom, Israel and Palestine, but Biden’s tone towards KSA was about to shift. 

  On February 24th, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the months following, Europe had to find a new energy supplier as Putin shifted Russia’s supplies East and the price of all energy climbed steeply. President Biden then made a plea to OPEC to increase its supply to help ease the price of oil that the U.S. was starting to experience because of the shortage, but as you can imagine, the plea fell on deaf ears and the execution of one of the fastest full Karma circles recorded in international history took place. 

  On March 3rd, 2022, in an Atlantic Article, MBS suggests that President Biden should be concerned about the cares of the United States as it is not something that he himself is worried about any longer. MBS also clearly communicated that he was no longer concerned about the U.S.’s view of him or his kingdom’s actions. He stated that he will still do business with the US as well as many other countries, but that the US should probably pay more attention to their own country than to his. The article also mentions that MBS felt snubbed by the U.S. for assuming he was responsible for the death of the reporter and that that Biden refused to acknowledge his position as leader of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the clear text of this article, it can be read just how much damage had been done by the president to the relationship between the two countries in the 14-months since he took office. 

  On March 15th, 2022, The Wall Street Journal announced in a headline, “Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan Instead of Dollars for Chinese Oil Sales”, which proved that MBS was remaining true to his statements that he was exploring trade relationships outside of the US and the petro-dollar. The article explains that there are many difficulties in a move like this but that some of these difficulties can be mitigated and will likely be considered. This act seemed to suggest that the Kingdom was actually willing to make moves away from the petro-dollar deal and that the Biden administration’s political posturing had consequences beyond the OPEC request being denied.

  On May 31st, 2022, the U.S. had imposed the final SWIFT sanctions on Russia and opened the door for Russia to negotiate oil deals with China – Also Not In Dollars. Had this been done at any time before the sanctions were initiated, this act would have been considered an act of aggression to the United States and a possible act of war against the United States of America and the “Petro-Dollar.” However, in this instance it became a basic chess move in response to the weaponization of the SWIFT system and the sanctions placed against Russia, a move that the US encouraged and opened the door for. As business dealings appeared to be moving more East, this weaponization of the SWIFT system forced the hands of OPEC members to also consider the possibility that the timing of a dollar exit may not be here, but an alternative may be wise to consider, and the news outlets started to report that many other countries were feeling the same.

  In July of 2022 the Arab news media started to cover stories of talks of the Kingdom moving into the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). In May of 2023 the story had progressed to a Bloomberg article with the title, “The BRICS Bank Wants New Members as Saudi Arabia Looks to Join”. Besides Saudi Arabia, it was also reported that eight other OPEC member nations have been reported to have applied for membership to the BRICS alliance, including: Algeria, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. When you include the existing BRICS countries, the OPEC countries that have applied and other oil producing countries that have applied to the BRICS alliance (such as Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina) the list includes 19 of the top 25 oil producing countries in the world. These countries also represent up to 78% of the world’s oil reserves and possibly 36% of the global GDP, at a time when the US GDP only represents 25% of the Global GDP. I don’t suffer from the idea that these vastly different cultures will suddenly be able to get along and sing in harmony, but it should be understood that the US led weaponization of the SWIFT system clearly signaled something to these countries. That message intended, or not, might have been that the US is willing to default on their promise to accept dollars your country holds in reserve for trade if they do not like your politics. If that was the understood message, you can see how this may be very upsetting to countries who hold large sums of dollars in reserve.

  On August 9th 2023 it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that the Biden administration had finally switched on to the gravity of the situation and was now working to repair relations with the kingdom, and that they had started trying to negotiate around the very topics that have been covered in this article. Ironically, 31-Months after the Abraham accords deal was damaged by the current administration; the administration is now trying to use this very deal as a vehicle to repair US KSA relations and move forward. On the cover of this updating of the Abraham Accords, it is being actioned to bring Palestine and Israel to more peaceful terms. However, the meat of this deal for the US may have more to do with Saudi Arabia’s growing Eastern relationships, possibly with the BRICS, and assurances that KSA will not include Chinese military bases within the kingdom or the pricing of Oil outside of the dollar. The Kingdom has clearly stated that they are not ready to fully agree to a deal with the US at this time, but that if they move forward, they will be requesting additional security guarantees and access to civilian nuclear technologies. The US has always refused sharing US nuclear technology with the region, but the Kingdom understands their current leverage with Biden’s prior actions towards the Kingdom.

  On August 22, His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, The Kingdom’s foreign minister and senior diplomat, announced that he would be attending the BRICS summit in South Africa on behalf of MBS. Now that this meeting has concluded, one can only wonder what was discussed in the hallways and side-venues…

  *  *  *

  Hopefully next time you are at the pumps you can reflect on our relationship with the Kingdom and how it has been part of a delicate balance that has helped facilitate the U.S. way of life for the last 50 years. Kings and presidents have come and gone but the support that these nations have had for each other have been part of the fabric that have made the existence and growth of both nations possible. However, it is under these very different times that these arrangements are changing, and these changes are not small changes. Many of you will read this and think that the U.S. needs to make itself more independent, and I would agree with you that there is great value in that; we just need to carefully consider the timing, the price of those actions, how this will shift the political landscape and where this will leave the US dollar.

  What to do in the meantime?

  In no way am I writing to say good or bad things about the United States or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I am writing to say that part of the bedrock that the US dollar has been built on over the last 50 years may be changing. I suggest that readers keep a keen eye on the headlines that involve OPEC and Eastern powers, as subtle headlines buried far off the front page may be the headlines that harken the news of a new trajectory for the dollar over the coming decade.

  As discussed in the last article, the US dollar has other pillars underneath it, but it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the bridge footings.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 23:40

• Fani Willis Scolds Jim Jordan For 'Illegal Intrusion' Into Her Trump Hunt
  Fani Willis Scolds Jim Jordan For ‘Illegal Intrusion’ Into Her Trump Hunt

  Fulton County, GA District Attorney Fani Willis (D) fired off a nastygram to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who she says is trying to ‘interfere with and obstruction [sic] this office’s prosecution’ of Donald Trump and 18 other defendants, after Jordan asked her to turn over all documents related to the case.

  Willis argues that Jordan’s federal powers to investigate are “not unlimited,” and that “there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”

  

  In Jordan’s original Aug. 24 letter to Willis, he suggested that Willis is trying to interfere with the 2024 election for which Trump is the front-runner for the GOP nomination, adding that her investigation might infringe on the free speech of Trump and other defendants.

  On Thursday, Willis accused Jordan of peddling “inaccurate information and misleading statements” which improperly interfered with a state criminal case.

  “Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations,” Willis wrote of Jordan’s letter. “As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”

  According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jordan’s letter came 10 days after a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 other people for their roles in an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 US election.

  Trump faces charges in four separate criminal cases even as he solidifies his place as the leading Republican candidate for president next year. Many Republicans believe the prosecutions are political.

  In recent days, some Georgia Republicans have pushed to impeach or sanction Willis, though Gov. Brian Kemp has rejected such proposals. In Washington, Jordan’s committee has launched an investigation to determine whether federal and Fulton County authorities have coordinated their Trump prosecutions.

  In his letter, Jordan noted that Willis began her investigation of Trump in February 2021 but “did not bring charges until two-and-a-half years later, at a time when the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is in full swing.

  “Moreover, you have requested that the trial in this matter begin on March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday and eight days before the Georgia presidential primary,” wrote Jordan. “It is therefore unsurprising many have speculated that this indictment and prosecution are designed to interfere with the 2024 presidential election.”

  Read the letter to Jordan below:

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 23:20

• Leading The Charge On Civics Education
  Leading The Charge On Civics Education

  Authored by Thomas Kelly via RealClear Wire,

  The need for stronger civics instruction has never been clearer. As recently released test scores revealed, American students simply do not possess the civics knowledge they need to become thoughtful and engaged citizens. Knowledge of basic facts is important; knowledge of our nation’s story and founding ideals—which gives meaning to these facts—is more so.

  

  Unfortunately, many K-12 civics teachers do not have the necessary training to succeed in the classroom. Schools of education do not typically afford aspiring teachers an opportunity for in-depth study of key texts in the American tradition. High levels of polarization and a lack of trust in public schools mean many teachers are unsure how to teach about key figures and moments in our history or how to discuss controversial political issues in a nonpartisan way.

  That’s where my organization, the Jack Miller Center (JMC), comes in. We are a non-partisan, nationwide network of scholars and teachers dedicated to teaching the American political tradition. Our scholars have the expertise teachers need to navigate our current divisions and build trust. They can help teachers understand the contours of our most fundamental debates and squarely address the failures in our nation’s history while fully appreciating our achievements.

  To that end, JMC introduced a Founding Civics Initiative in 2016. “Founding Civics” has clearly resonated with teachers. In just eight years nearly 2,000 teachers have participated in this initiative. In fact, this year we’ve reached an all-time high for summer programs: JMC has completed 24 teacher education programs across nine states this summer alone, training nearly 500 teachers for the upcoming school year and beyond.

  These programs offer in-depth explorations of some of the most challenging topics in civics today by avoiding simple left-right narratives and focusing on primary sources.

  This year, multi-day programs were held in partnership with nine campuses. Programs like the “Civic Literacy and Citizenship Symposium” with the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered teachers the opportunity to discuss the importance of virtue for liberty, the evolution of the First Amendment, and the development of judicial review. The “Summer Civics Institute on American Principles and Debates” at American University saw teachers digging into the roots of contemporary ideologies and examining them in relation to the American founding.

  Programs at Baylor University and the University of North Texas allowed teachers to confront race and American politics head-on through sessions on slavery and the American founding, Lincoln and the Civil War, and African American political thought. “Investigating Foundational Questions in American Civics,” in partnership with North Greenville University, encouraged teachers to think more carefully about concepts such as American exceptionalism and whether the Declaration was really for all Americans.

  Florida is a state on the frontlines of education reform, so JMC made our work there a strategic priority. We offered six programs across the state and continue to play a leading role in statewide civics reform with nearly 800 Florida teachers having participated in JMC programs since 2020.

  At the University of West Florida program, special attention was paid to dissent in American politics—from the Anti-Federalists in the ratification debates, to the dissents in the Dred Scott case, to anti-slavery advocates such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. At Florida Atlantic University teachers considered the American founding in 21st century contexts by examining Hamilton the musical in light of Alexander Hamilton’s actual writings and considering issues of free speech and civil discourse on social media.

  In St. Petersburg, we also commenced our second year of the competitive-admission year-long American Political Tradition Institute, which consisted of a five-day residential program and will continue with virtual curriculum-development sessions during the academic year. Teachers loved the summer sessions, with one tweeting that she “walked away exhilarated” while another described it as “truly empowering.”

  Summer institutes and workshops such as these are tremendously important, but credit-bearing graduate courses in American political thought and history are also essential. Graduate courses can help public school teachers rise in district pay scales while offering the rigor of a formal class structure and graded assignments.

  We sponsored four graduate courses for teachers this summer, including “Teaching Civics in an Age of Controversy” and “Political Thought of the American Revolution” through the University of Chicago, “Alexis de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’” at Tufts University, and “The American Constitutional Experience” at Lake Forest College. All courses offered deep dives into crucial primary sources while also considering prominent secondary sources that shape the way we understand the American story.

  The mission of the Jack Miller Center is to help teachers and students connect with and safeguard our nation’s ideals. Improving K-12 teachers’ knowledge of America’s history and its founding will help preserve that vital knowledge for future generations. This is an urgent mission all educators should share. As JMC’s founder and chairman, Jack Miller, says, “The battle for the soul of our nation will be won or lost in our classrooms.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 23:00

• Morgan Stanley Created 2015 Hunter Biden Dossier Highlighting "Fraudulent" Looking Schemes And "Suspicious" Transactions
  Morgan Stanley Created 2015 Hunter Biden Dossier Highlighting “Fraudulent” Looking Schemes And “Suspicious” Transactions

  Whistleblowers at Morgan Stanley raised the alarm over what they thought looked like “fraudulent” schemes and “suspicious” transactions all the way back in 2015, eventually escalating his concerns to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just a few days before Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, according to documents obtained by Just the News.

  

  “Due diligence on involved parties reveals less than clean records,” one Morgan Stanley investment bank compliance presentation from May of 2015 states.

  The bank even created a dossier about Hunter Biden’s history, including his expulsion from the US Navy, his association with Ukrainian energy giant Buisma, and photos of the Bidens.

  In a May 8, 2015 presentation deck titled “Overview of Wakpamni Series 2014 Bonds Potentially Suspicious Structure & Transactions,” the bank warned that some activities – such as the Native American tribal bond scheme, required the bank to take compliance action.

  “No clear illegal activity is being accused, but authors of this presentation determined activity was suspicious enough to warrant escalation of review by appropriate internal Compliance representatives,” reads the presentation, which singled out several business partners, including Devon Archer and Hunter Biden.

  

  “The Navy Reserve discharged Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter this year after he tested positive for cocaine,” it states.

  The dossier also flagged an August 25, 2008 NYT article noting that Hunter had been “Caught Up in Hedge Fund Trouble,” stating “A son and a brother of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware are accused in two lawsuits of defrauding a former business partner and an investor of millions of dollars in a hedge fund deal that went sour.”

  See below (via Just the News):

  As JTN further reports:

  The presentation is one of the earliest known whistleblower activities to raise serious questions about Hunter Biden and his foreign business exploits. It triggered suspicious activity reports (SARS) filed by banks and a SEC complaint that would eventually lead to the 2016 indictment of several Hunter Biden business partners in a bond fraud scheme and later FBI and IRS investigations targeting Hunter Biden himself for tax evasion.

  While SARS reports are frequently generated by compliance officers in the financial industry, the step of independently reporting information directly to the SEC is much more rare.  

  The documents obtained by Just the News chronicle the efforts by at least one vice president inside the Morgan Stanley investment bank to blow the whistle on companies affiliated with Hunter Biden and one of his chief business partners, Devon Archer. The concerns included that the firms may have been involved in a fraudulent bond scheme with the Native American Wakpamni tribe and may have improperly benefited from tax dollars in a separate technology investment.

  After some time, two Morgan Stanley officials filed whistleblower complaints against Hunter Biden with two federal agencies.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 22:40

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Whips Out Race Card To Dismiss His "Slow Start" And Other Criticisms
  Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Whips Out Race Card To Dismiss His “Slow Start” And Other Criticisms

  By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

  Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday night lambasted critics, arguing that he’s being held to a “different standard” as a black man, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

  

  From the Tribune: “There is a different standard that I’m held to. There is,” Johnson said. “And that’s not something that I’m mad at, but that’s just the reality. I’m not the first person of color, particularly a Black man, that will be held to a different standard than other administrations.”

  Johnson apparently doesn’t like being called “slow,” which he says is a “microagression.” He has been criticized for a slow start as mayor.

  “You all read the press. I don’t. But you all look at these dynamics. You all know how there’s been a certain, particular coverage of me, right? Think about it. You know, there’s coverage of me being slow, right?” Johnson said. “These are microaggressions, that if you don’t have the lens of those who have lived through these experiences, you would just miss it. You would, because the same — some of the folks who would call me slow, do you understand what that term means? Particularly (toward) the Black community. So you have these forces that perpetuate a particular view of Blackness.”

  He also blamed racism for concerns about subservience to the Chicago Teachers Union, which helped elect him and where he previously was a political organizer. When asked about that, he said, “You think I’m going to suddenly be surprised or get upset because now all of a sudden, oh my goodness, the world is oppositional to a Black man on the left who leads with love?” Johnson responded. “And that the only rationale that can be possible for any of my decisions is that somehow a Black man is being controlled?”

  Same for criticism over his firing of Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s former public health commissioner. She crossed swords with the teachers’ unions by trying to get schools open during the pandemic.

  When asked about that, Johnson said, “Perhaps things should go without saying, but as far as this dynamic that a Black man executive can’t make decisions on his own,” Johnson said, and he ripped “the same forces” that he said didn’t believe he could balance a budget, unite the City Council or win the election. “Well, let me just offer news for the city of Chicago: The people of Chicago elected me as mayor, and if anybody has a problem with it, come see me in four years.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 22:20

• Former FTX CEO To Forfeit $1.5 Billion, Pleads Guilty To Federal Campaign Finance And Money-Transmitting Crimes
  Former FTX CEO To Forfeit $1.5 Billion, Pleads Guilty To Federal Campaign Finance And Money-Transmitting Crimes

  With Biden’s weaponized Dept of Justice intending to seek a second indictment of Hunter Biden after the catastrophic disaster that was the government’s first sweetheart plea deal, which revealed the corruption of “special counsel” David Weiss, who now is scrambling to slap Hunter’s wrist for the second time over a, drumroll, gun charge which will lead to the president’s crackhead son not spending even a minute in prison for being, along with his senile father, a bought and paid for Chinese muppet, the US Department of “Justice” needed a big enough distraction and got that today when SBF’s former right hand figurehead and former FTX CEO Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty Thursday in New York federal court to campaign finance and money-transmitting crimes, and agreed to forfeit more than $1.5 billion. Yup, Salame had $1.5 billion in cash just hanging around courtesy of the epic criminal syndicate that was FTX, and is about to part with it.

  

  According to CNBC, Salame, during his plea, admitted that from fall 2021 to November 2022 he steered tens of millions of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans – but really mostly Democrats…

  

  … in his own name when in actuality the money came from Alameda Research, the hedge fund arm of the cryptocurrency exchange owner FTX. Those contributions were made at the behest of then-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Salame said, making SBF the second biggest Democrat donor during the 2022 midterms, only behind George Soros…

  

  … in which the Dems managed to avoid getting steamrolled thanks to Biden draining the SPR. Oh and, according to Vox, it was SBF who was “one of the people who is most responsible” for Biden being “elected” president.

  

  “From at least in or about 2020, up to and including in or about November 2022, Ryan Salame, the defendant, engaged in multiple conspiracies to advance the interests of Samuel Bankman-Fried … and the cryptocurrency companies Bankman-Fried founded and controlled — including FTX.com (“FTX”) and Alameda Research (“Alameda”) — through the operation of an unlawful money transmitting business and violations of the federal election law,” the charging document filed against Salame says.

  That document says that Salame, in a private message to a confidant, wrote that “the purpose of these bipartisan donations would be ‘to weed out anti crypto dems for pro crypto dems and anti crypto repubs for pro crypto repubs,’ and that donations would likely be routed through Salame ‘to weed out that republican side.’”

  Salame, who was released on a $1 million bond Thursday, faces a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison for the campaign finance violation and charge of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. His sentencing was scheduled for March 6 by Judge Lewis Kaplan in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

  In addition to what must be a record monetary forfeiture, which will be paid to the U.S. government, the 30-year-old Salame will pay $5 million to debtors of FTX and $6 million in fines to the government. Salame also will surrender two houses he owns in Lenox, Massachusetts, and his 2021 Porsche automobile.

  Salame’s attorney, Jason Linder of the firm Mayer Brown, in a statement said. “Ryan looks forward to putting this chapter behind him and moving forward with his life.″

  A source told CNBC that Salame is not cooperating with federal prosecutors who are preparing for the criminal fraud trial of 31-year-old Bankman-Fried. But three other former executives who previously pleaded guilty in the same court are expected to testify against Bankman-Fried.

  They are Caroline Ellison, who had been CEO of Alameda; former FTX technology chief Gary Wang; and Nishad Singh, who was FTX’s engineering boss.

  U.S. Attorney Damien Williams, whose office is prosecuting the FTX cases, in a statement said, “Ryan Salame agreed to advance the interests of FTX, Alameda Research, and his co-conspirators through an unlawful political influence campaign and through an unlicensed money transmitting business, which helped FTX grow faster and larger by operating outside the law.”

  Meanwhile, SBF – who yesterday lost his appeal to get out of Brooklyn jail where they don’t serve adderall or vegan food. and is set to go on trial Oct. 3 on wire fraud and securities fraud charges related to his alleged looting of billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX courtesy of endorsements from some of the highest profile politicians criminals in the country.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 22:00

• FDA Refuses To Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data To US Senator
  FDA Refuses To Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data To US Senator

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

  U.S. officials are refusing to provide COVID-19 vaccine safety data to a U.S. senator.

  

  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the results of analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in January. The request came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said none of the safety signals it identified for the COVID-19 vaccines were “unexpected.”

  The two agencies have run different types of analyses on the system’s reports, which are primarily made by health care professionals.

  The CDC ran Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses, which involve comparing the number of reported adverse events to the number of adverse events reported after vaccination with other vaccines.

  The first time the agency ran analyses using the method for the COVID-19 vaccines, in 2022, hundreds of signals were triggered, files obtained by The Epoch Times show.

  The FDA in 2021 started a different type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining.

  The Proportional Reporting Ratio results “were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, told Mr. Johnson previously.

  Mr. Johnson demanded answers on that claim, prompting the CDC to point him to the FDA.

  The FDA recently responded to Mr. Johnson, telling him that it cannot provide the information he seeks.

  “FDA’s EB data mining analyses of adverse events contained in VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines are currently the subject of pending FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation. FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation or provide information or data that is currently being considered in pending litigation,” the agency told the senator.

  Mr. Johnson in a new letter told FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf that the claim was wrong.

  “As you are well aware, Congress has a right to information contained at U.S. federal agencies as it conducts its constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Mr. Johnson said.

  “It is outrageous that FDA would assert that pending litigation, and particularly FOIA litigation, would allow your agency to obstruct my congressional oversight,” he added. “Any pending litigation FDA may have relating to its EB data mining records has no bearing on its responsibility to comply with a congressional request.”

  Mr. Johnson said in the past he’s repeatedly received from the government documents subject to litigation, including from the FDA’s parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

  He urged the FDA to produce the EB data mining analyses by Sept. 20.

  The FDA declined to immediately provide a comment.

  The agency was sued in January over its refusal to provide the results of the EB data mining to The Epoch Times and the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, citing exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

  Children’s Health Defense, the litigant, said that the refusal to provide the records was illegal.

  In the last update in the case, the FDA said it has 150 responsive pages but that it has to do a “page-by-page, line-by-line review” to determine whether any information on the pages should be withheld, or redacted. The agency said it is “facing an unprecedented FOIA workload” stemming from federal courts ordering it to release information it had said would be made public on the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

  

  Ignored Questions

  In another new letter, Mr. Johnson pressed the HHS on the program it administers to provide compensation to people injured by the COVID-19 shots.

  Despite injections starting in December 2020, and more than 1.5 million reports being lodged with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. HHS has compensated just four people, paying $8,592 in total.

  Others have been approved for compensation but the money is still pending.

  Mr. Johnson in April asked for more details on the program as the agency has not been forthcoming, including whether there are caps on the amount of money an injured person can receive and whether the government has advertised the program.

  Mr. Johnson also demanded communications between HHS and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers regarding compensation claims.

  In a recent letter, HHS declined to answer many of the questions.

  Mr. Johnson on Sept. 5 urged HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to provide answers to all of his questions.

  He pointed to how Mr. Becerra, when being vetted by the Senate, told senators that he would commit to providing a prompt response to any questions addressed by Senate Finance Committee members.

  “As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and as ranking member of the Senate’s top investigative subcommittee, your agency’s June 23, 2023 response is completely unacceptable and calls into question the veracity of the commitment you made before the Senate during your confirmation hearing,” Mr. Johnson said. “I call on you to immediately revise HHS’s incomplete response and provide the requested information.“

  HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 21:40

• San Fran Is Officially America's Worst City: 1 In 8 Home Sellers Lose Money With An Average Loss Of $100,000
  San Fran Is Officially America’s Worst City: 1 In 8 Home Sellers Lose Money With An Average Loss Of $100,000

  In retrospect, it’s surprising that it took so long.

  With Case-Shiller reporting that the nation’s worst-by-far (not to mention feces-covered) real-estate  market is that of San Francisco, where prices have seen annual declines for the past 8 months, half of which have seen double-digit drops…

  

  …. overnight RedFin reports more bad news for those unlucky enough to be living in the socialist utopia that is San Francisco: home sellers in this liberal bastion are four times more likely than the average U.S. home seller to take a loss, as the Bay Area metro reels from an outsized drop in home prices. In fact, according to the report, the typical San Francisco seller who takes a loss sells their home for $100,000 less than they bought it for. And when they do, they have to walk on shit-covered streets, through crowds of homeless, to buy another home one which they pray won’t be burgled in the near future because, well, good luck calling cops in San Fran.

  Here are the details from Redfin:

  Roughly one of every eight (12.3%) homes that sold in San Francisco during the three months ending July 31 was purchased for less than the seller bought it for, up from 5% a year earlier. That’s a higher share than any other major U.S. metro and is quadruple the national rate of 3%.

  

  Next came Detroit (6.9%), Chicago (6.5%), New York (5.9%) and Cleveland (5.8%). 

  In San Francisco, which tied with New York for the largest median loss in dollar terms, the typical homeowner who took a loss sold their home for $100,000 less than they bought it for. Nationwide, the typical homeowner who sold their home for less than they bought it for lost $35,538.

  Homeowners were least likely to sell at a loss in San Diego, Boston, Providence, RI, Kansas City, MO and Fort Lauderdale, FL. In each of those metros, roughly 1% of homes sold for less than the seller originally paid.

  * *  *

  Turning back to San Francisco, just because it’s both terrifying and amusing to watch a formerly great city implode under the weight of Soros-funded DAs, here home sellers were most likely to lose money because the region has experienced outsized home-price declines. It was one of the first markets to see prices sink when high mortgage rates triggered a slowdown in the housing market last year. By April 2023, San Francisco’s median home sale price was down a record 13.3% year over year, more than triple the nationwide drop of 4.2%. As of July, it was down just 4.3% year over year to $1.4 million, but that compared with a national gain of 1.6%. The total value of homes in San Francisco has fallen by roughly $60 billion since last summer, a separate Redfin analysis found.

  Prices in the Bay Area have fallen fast for a few reasons:

  • First, it’s home to the most expensive real estate in the country, meaning housing costs had a lot of room to come down. It has also been hit hard by layoffs in the technology sector.
  • Additionally, it’s not as popular as it once was; remote work has allowed scores of people to relocate to more affordable areas.

  Next, read the following sentence and see if you can spot the common thread:

  “San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and New York, which top the list of metros where home sellers are most likely to take a loss, all rank among the top 10 metros Redfin.com users are looking to leave.”

  If you said these are all traditionally Republican-controlled bastions… you failed.

  

  “Some condos in the Bay Area are now worth less than their owners bought them for in 2018 and 2019, in part because commuting from Oakland and other outlying areas into downtown San Francisco isn’t really a thing anymore,” said local Redfin Premier real estate agent Andrea Chopp, who focuses on Oakland and other East Bay neighborhoods. “There are buyers out there, but they’re a lot more cautious and picky than they were when mortgage rates were low. The Bay Area housing market was unsustainable before, so this correction is probably healthy, but the unfortunate thing is prices remain unaffordable for a lot of people—especially with rates now above 7%.”

  But while the liberal bastion of San Francisco is now officially America’s worst city, the vast majority of U.S. home sellers are still reaping gains, especially those

  Even though home prices have fallen from their peak, a majority of home sellers are still reaping significant financial gains. Nationwide, 97% of home sellers sold for a profit during the three months ending July 31, with the typical home that sold going for 78.4% ($203,232) more than the seller bought it for.

  Today’s home sellers are making money despite an ongoing housing downturn in part because a scarcity of homes for sale is fueling bidding wars and propping up home values. Most people who bought when home prices peaked would lose money if they sold now, so they’re not selling. Many of the homeowners who are selling today have owned their homes for long enough to make a profit regardless of month-to-month fluctuations in housing values.

  In Boise, ID, Redfin Premier agent Shauna Pendleton has clients who will likely have to take a $100,000 loss on their home because they’re selling it after only about a year. They’re moving back to Seattle because their employer is requiring them to return to the office. Pendleton noted that it’s not common for homeowners to sell at a loss in Boise, but when it does happen, it often involves homes selling for upwards of $750,000.

  More in the full Redfin report available here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 21:20

• 2 Million Guns Sold In August, 49th Straight Month Of Over 1 Million Sales
  2 Million Guns Sold In August, 49th Straight Month Of Over 1 Million Sales

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

  Gun sales in the United States exceeded 2 million last month—the 49th straight month in which firearm sales crossed a million.

  

  In August, 2.04 million checks were conducted through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), according to an analysis by Guns.com. Though this is a 16.4 percent dip from the 2.45 million checks conducted in August 2022, the numbers are still higher when compared to the years before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, it said.

  This August registered the fifth highest NICS checks for any August in the past 25 years. This was also the 49th consecutive month that gun sales crossed the 1 million mark.

  Data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) showed around 1.1 million background checks last month, down 13 percent from the same month last year.

  While NICS numbers include checks conducted for reasons like clearing concealed carry permit applications, the NSSF adjusts these numbers. As such, NSSF data is seen as a potentially truer depiction of retail gun sales.

  In a statement to Guns.com, Mark Oliva, public affairs officer with the NSSF, said that the 1.1 million gun sales figure shows “the desire for lawful firearm ownership is far from over.”

  “Americans, literally by the millions, are investing in exercising their Second Amendment rights. This has happened every month for more than four years continuously.”

  “While the Biden administration proposes rules to infringe on fundamental American rights and certain governors, attorneys general and district attorneys general and district attorneys refuse to lock up criminals that prey on communities without consequence, Americans are sending a clear and unequivocal message that their personal safety, and the free exercise of their rights, is non-negotiable.”

  According to safety research organization Safehome, around 17.4 million guns were sold across the United States in 2022, a lower number compared to 2021 and 2020.

  The organization attributed the decline to “consumers reducing their spending and the economy experiencing inflationary pressures that have led to a slowdown in discretionary expenses overall.”

  Gun sales saw a 64 percent increase in 2020, the biggest annual rise in two decades. The current downward trend “indicates a return to the typical sales figures seen in the years prior to 2020.”

  The sales boom in 2020 was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to which people spent more time in outdoor activities, Safehome said while pointing out that 2020 was also a presidential election year.

  “Traditionally, election years can spark an increase in gun buying as customers may worry new leaders could change laws regarding gun ownership. There were similar smaller increases in gun sales in 2016 and 2012, both presidential election years.”

  In 2022, states like Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska had the highest estimated gun sales per capita. In contrast, this figure was the lowest in Iowa, Oregon, and the District of Columbia.

  Biden’s Gun Crackdown

  While gun sales continue to exceed a million on a monthly basis, the Biden administration is proposing a rule that would essentially classify any American who sells guns as a firearms dealer, thereby tightening gun control measures in the country.

  At present, individuals can engage in selling firearms without having to be a registered firearms dealer. The new rules would classify gun sales under business activities and require that individuals get a license as well as undertake background checks.

  Randy Kozuch, executive director of the National Rifle Association–Institute for Legislative Action (NRA–ILA), called the move a “war on the Second Amendment.”

  The Gun Owners Association said the proposed rule is “virtually outlawing private firearm transactions to ensure the government gets its hands on your personal information and transaction records for their illegal gun registry.”

  The Biden administration had also introduced a law that would make Americans felons if caught possessing an unregistered braced firearm.

  Multiple federal judges have issued preliminary orders blocking the rule from being enacted. However, these rules only apply to members of the groups who filed lawsuits and in the jurisdictions of the judges who issued the verdicts.

  Guns Promote Safety

  President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are also pushing for a nationwide ban on “assault weapons.” In a statement to Fox News, the NRA criticized such attempts.

  The organization pointed out that the AR-15 rifle, which which many gun control advocates refer to as an “assault weapon,” is one of the most popular self-defense rifles in America.

  “A testament to this is the 8-month pregnant Florida mother who, with her AR-15, defended her family from two armed intruders who brutally assaulted her husband,” NRA spokesman Billy McLaughlin told the outlet.

  He was referring to an incident from 2019 when a pregnant woman shot an armed intruder and sent a second intruder fleeing. “Joe and Kamala ought to speak to the many ignored and forgotten law-abiding Americans who rely on AR-15s for their safety.”

  “They’re playing politics with human lives and are blind to the fact that their pro-criminal policies drive more people to buy guns,” he said.

  A CNN poll from May showed that Americans are divided on how the availability of guns affects public safety.

  While 36 percent of respondents said the presence of guns would make public places less safe, 32 percent argued that allowing gun owners to carry their firearms would make public places safer.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 21:00

• "Davos In The Desert": UAE Becomes Global ATM As Western Finance Dries Up
  “Davos In The Desert”: UAE Becomes Global ATM As Western Finance Dries Up

  Five years ago, virtue-signaling American finance executives peeled out of a Saudi Arabian event in Riyadh following the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

  

  Now, with Western financiers hampered by rising interest rates and a reduced appetite for dealmaking, private equity, venture capital and real estate funds have come back with hats-in-hand to tap into the Middle East’s vast wealth – which has been bolstered by higher energy prices thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  It turns out nothing heals old wounds like money… as major Western financial firms scramble to set up offices in the Middle East to win local investments.

  While the Middle East steps on the gas, the traditional backers of investment funds—pension plans and college endowments—are in retreat. The global shift to higher interest rates caused losses in the biggest parts of their portfolios—especially stocks and bonds.

  Investors put $33 billion toward U.S.-based venture capital funds in the first half of 2023, less than half the $74 billion in the same period in 2021, according to PitchBook. Global fundraising for all private funds fell 10% last year to $1.5 trillion, according to Preqin—a decline many expect to continue.  -WSJ

  “Fundraising has become much, much harder over the past 12 months,” said Brenda Rainey, an executive vice president at Bain & Co. who advises private-equity funds, in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

  But not in the Middle East…

  To wit, this year’s Future Investment Initiative Institute, known as “Davos in the Desert,” will take place on Riyadh, and is expecting so much demand that it’s charging $15,000 per head to attend, the Journal reports.

  Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has seen commitments rise to $56 billion in 2022, a significant jump from $33 billion last year.

  “Now, everybody wants to go to the Middle East—it’s like the gold rush in the U.S. once upon a time,” according to fundraising advisory firm CEO Peter Jädersten of Jade Advisors. “It’s difficult to raise money everywhere.”

  Gulf funds now have the upper hand in negotiations, able to be “very thoughtful and selective” about things such as stakes in the fund managers themselves, or side-by-side investments, as per Ibrahim Ajami of Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala.

  All eyes on Abu Dhabi

  One of the most influential dealmakers to emerge in the last few months is Abu Dhabi’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has been using the country’s $1.5 trillion investment war chest to make runs at buying Standard Chartered and Lazard, as well as recent deals to buy a $1.2 billion UK healthcare giant and a nearly $6 billion Columbian food company, according to Bloomberg.

  

  In March, Tahnoon was handed control of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) following a March reshuffle. The $993 billion wealth fund is among the world’s largest, and now ranks as the second-largest spender on deals among regional peers since the beginning of last year.

  

  Born in the late 1960s, just after the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan has graduated from the close-knit circles of the UAE’s royal family to become one of the world’s most potent financial juggernauts.

  Over the past few months, he has been on a capital-injecting spree, drawing billionaires like Ray Dalio into his vortex. According to Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, “The UAE leadership has recognized its most important source of statecraft is financial. Sheikh Tahnoon is now the strategist behind multiple economic statecraft tools.”

  Over the past few months, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan has gained control of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates, expanding the assets he oversees to almost $1.5 trillion. He’s proceeded to bankroll billions of dollars in deals via an expanded empire of private and state entities. Drawing in titans of finance such as Rajeev Misra and billionaire Ray Dalio, Sheikh Tahnoon — one of Abu Dhabi’s two deputy rulers, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother to its president — has sought to invest in everything from technology to finance, with varying degrees of success.

  Known to be a fan of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, cycling and chess, Sheikh Tahnoon now helms two wealth funds, the region’s most important private investment firm, the country’s largest lender and its biggest listed corporate. That’s made him the defacto business chief of the wealthy Al Nahyan family, with access to seemingly endless reserves of cash in OPEC’s third-largest producer — an unusual amount of financial firepower even in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

  Other notable deals Tahnoon has been involved with include an investment in TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance, a $10 billion fund targeting tech opportunities, and a deal to bankroll Softbank Vision Fund’s key architect Rajeev Misra’s new $6.8 billion fund. Another of Tahnoon’s entities, G42, is partnering with Nvidia competitor Cerebras Systems, which just completed the first of nine AI supercomputers aimed at taking a run at Nvidia.

  

  That said, it’s not all a cakewalk for Sheikh Tahnoon. Navigating the intricate labyrinths of international regulations has proven to be a challenge. As Abu Dhabi inches closer to Beijing, with intentions of joining the BRICS bloc, it’s raising eyebrows across Washington corridors.

  Lynn Ammar, an Abu Dhabi-based partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb warns, “The broad geographic scope is likely to continue to attract attention from FDI authorities, such as CFIUS, who may be concerned about potential information flow to China.” This comes as the United States puts foreign investments under the microscope, tightening scrutiny over deals tied to the Chinese government.

  What’s more, Tahnoon isn’t just the de facto business chief of the wealthy Al Nahyan family, he’s also the UAE’s national security adviser, wearing a dual hat that integrates economic and geopolitical strategy. Recent reports indicate significant UAE investments in Asian and African economies, marking a clear orientation toward emerging markets.

  Wonder if this would be happening under a second Trump term and no Ukraine invasion?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 20:40

• Judge Skeptical As Prosecutors Claim Trump Georgia Trial Could Take Four Months
  Judge Skeptical As Prosecutors Claim Trump Georgia Trial Could Take Four Months

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Georgia judge handling the trials of former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants appeared to be skeptical of prosecutors’ proposals to bring all the co-defendants together for a trial starting next month.

  “It just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 in forty-something days,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee told the court in a Wednesday hearing in regards to motions to sever that were brought by co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell. The judge denied the request to split the two cases.

  

  During the hearing, prosecutors estimated the trial would take four months and that they’d call more than 150 witnesses. “That is our time estimate,” prosecutor Nathan Wade told Judge McAfee during the hearing, which was also broadcast live on television and on the judge’s YouTube channel.

  But Mr. McAffee told prosecutors that he believes the trial would take twice that—or eight months. “It could easily be twice that,” he said, noting the number of defendants in the case.

  “We’re on an expedited timeline with these statutory speedy trial demands,” Judge McAfee said, while adding that he plans to press forward and “make that October 23 trial date stick” for Mr. Chesebro and Mrs. Powell. It’s not clear when the other co-defendants will go to trial.

  The judge also suggested that any trial he conducts could be rendered moot if a defendant successfully appeals to a higher court. Already, a federal judge held a hearing in former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who is charged in the case.

  “It could potentially even be a six-month turnaround just for the 11th Circuit to come up with a decision,” Judge McAfee said of the appeals process. “Where does that leave us in the middle of a jury trial?” the judge asked.

  Mr. Wade, who provided the four-month estimate, said that did not include jury selection and added that whether or not defendants choosing to testify could affect timing. But he said he expects a trial to take that long regardless of how many defendants it includes, arguing that because the trial was brought under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law prosecutors would seek to prove the entire conspiracy against each defendant.

  Another prosecutor, Will Wooten, argued that under the state’s RICO—or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—statute, the defendants should be tried together. All 19 defendants were accused of participating in the alleged scheme under Georgia’s RICO law last month.

  “Anytime a person enters into a conspiracy they are liable for all of the acts of all of their co-conspirators, and that’s it. Evidence against one is evidence against all, and that’s it,” Mr. Wooten said.

  

  The hearing was also broadcast live on television and on the judge’s YouTube channel, a marked difference from the other three criminal cases against Trump, where cameras have not been allowed in the courtroom during proceedings.

  Whenever and wherever any trial in the case ultimately takes place, jury selection is likely to be a significant challenge. Jury selection in a racketeering and gang case brought last year by Ms. Willis began in January and is still ongoing. In another large racketeering case, Ms. Willis tried nearly a decade ago against former Atlanta public schools educators, it took six weeks to seat a jury.

  On Tuesday, Ms. Willis’ team asked the judge to allow the use of a jury questionnaire that prospective jurors would have filled out before they show up for jury selection, writing in a court filing that it “will facilitate and streamline the jury selection process in many respects.”

  Prospective jurors may be more comfortable answering personal questions on paper than in open court and lawyers for both sides could agree that certain jurors aren’t qualified without additional questioning, prosecutors said.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Meadows was in federal court last week arguing that he was acting in his capacity as a federal official and his case should be heard by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones has yet to rule on that request. Four other defendants who are also seeking to move their cases to federal court have hearings set before Jones later this month.

  As for President Trump, the former president on Wednesday told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would “absolutely” testify in one of the four trials against him. He was charged in separate cases in Georgia, New York, Florida, and Washington, D.C., pleading not guilty to all the charges.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 20:20

• How Did SK Hynix's Chips End Up In New Huawei Smartphone?
  How Did SK Hynix’s Chips End Up In New Huawei Smartphone?

  US lawmakers have been infuriated with Huawei Technologies Co.’s ability to produce a new smartphone with a cutting-edge processor despite mounting US sanctions. The inquiry into Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro started when Bloomberg hired TechInsights to conduct a complete teardown of the smartphone, which released the report earlier this week. 

  Huawei uses an advanced 7-nanometer processor built by China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. But another report from TechInsights shows memory and flash in the Mate 60 Pro comes from SK Hynix Inc. 

  

  Bloomberg said Mate 60 Pro’s components are almost entirely sourced from domestic suppliers, “and Hynix’s hardware is an isolated example of materials sourced from overseas, according to TechInsights.” 

  South Korea-based Hynix told Bloomberg that it “no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the US restrictions against the company and, with regard to the issue, we started an investigation to find out more details.” 

  

  The mystery of how Huawei sourced the memory chips deepens, as Hynix said it “is strictly abiding by the US government’s export restrictions.” 

  Bloomberg offers some ideas of how Huawei might have procured the Hynix chips: 

  “Huawei may have procured the memory chips from Hynix, whose Chinese base cranks out an estimated one-third to half of its DRAM for global markets. One possibility is that Huawei may be tapping a stockpile of components it accumulated as far back as 2020 before the full set of US trade curbs had been imposed on it. International suppliers of advanced technology have been prohibited from supplying Huawei over the past three years by US trade curbs, implemented on fears of the hardware being used to aid China’s military.”

  News of the Bloomberg/TechInsights report enraged some US lawmakers who have spent the last several years slapping China with sanctions to curb its progress in chip technology. Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Competition with China, said Wednesday the US should end all its exports to both Huawei and SMIC: 

  “The time has come to end all US technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC to make clear any firm that flouts US law and undermines our national security will be cut off from our technology.” 

  How Huawei obtained the memory chips from Hynix remains unclear. However, given this week’s developments, US lawmakers will likely not be done imposing tech sanctions on Beijing.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 20:00

• Snyder: 'Mad Max' Conditions Are Coming
  Snyder: ‘Mad Max’ Conditions Are Coming

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  How far would you go to feed your family? 

  Hopefully that is a question that you will not have to answer any time soon, but right now we are seeing millions upon millions of people become more desperate as economic conditions rapidly deteriorate and food costs soar.  At this point, most Americans are just barely scraping by from month to month, and in poorer countries on the other side of the world there are people that are literally starving to death. 

  

  As I have detailed previously, the UN has reported that 2.4 billion people did not have enough food to eat last year, and 900 million of them were facing severe food insecurity.  Sadly, those numbers will inevitably be even higher for 2023.  A global rice crisis has erupted, and the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal has greatly restricted the flow of agricultural goods from that part of the globe.  Food costs are spiking all over the planet, and that is really bad news for all of us.

  For those of us that live in the United States, the good news is that nobody is starving at this stage.

  But food prices have become extremely oppressive, and economic conditions are quickly moving in the wrong direction.

  670,000 full-time jobs have been lost in just the past two months, and on Friday we witnessed the worst unadjusted payrolls report for the month of August since the Great Recession.

  Yes, things really are that bad.

  One recent survey discovered that 61 percent of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, but I expect this number to go even higher in the months ahead…

  Inflation, mortgage rates over 7% and credit card APR’s north of 20% have pushed all income brackets into living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new survey from Lending Club Bank.

  “In July 2023, 61% of U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck, unchanged from June 2023, but 2 percentage points higher than July 2022. Generally, more consumers of all income brackets reported living paycheck to paycheck in July 2023 than last year,” Alia Dudum, a money expert at LendingClub told FOX Business.

  Things are particularly dire for low income workers.  That same survey discovered that a whopping 78 percent of those that earn less than $50,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…

  Lower-income workers have been the hardest hit by higher prices, particularly for food and other necessities, since those expenses account for a bigger share of the budget, studies show.

  Now, 78% of consumers earning less than $50,000 a year and 65% of those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 were living paycheck to paycheck in July, both up from a year ago, LendingClub found. Of those earning $100,000 or more, only 44% reported living paycheck to paycheck.

  As I discussed last week, U.S. households that are feeling financial strain are increasingly turning to debt to make ends meet, and this has pushed debt levels to unprecedented heights…

  Total household debt climbed to a new high in the second quarter of 2023, reaching $17.06 trillion, with credit card debt exceeding $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As interest rates stay high, costs continue to rise for expenses like housing and cars, and student loan payments resume, the amount of debt may rise, according to economists who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

  “The amount of debt outstanding, and in particular the surpassing of the $1 trillion mark, is significant and worrisome,” Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. “It owes to a combination of several factors. The initial response to the pandemic, which prominently included the Fed setting policy (interest) rates at essentially zero for several years, made the amount of credit and the price of taking on debt extraordinarily cheap.”

  As economic conditions get worse, people are becoming more desperate.

  This is helping to fuel a crime wave all over the nation, and retailers are being forced to implement extreme measures.

  According to the Wahington Post, a Giant Food store in Washington D.C. is actually going to be taking all Tide, Colgate and Advil products off the shelves completely because theft has become such a problem…

  In the coming weeks, a Giant Food market in D.C. will clear its beauty and health aisles of all national labels. No more Tide, Colgate or Advil, only store brands. Shoppers also will have to present their receipts to an employee before exiting the store.

  It’s the regional supermarket chain’s most overt gambit against the rampant theft that’s plaguing retailers of all sizes. It’s also a potential last-ditch effort to avoid shutting down the unprofitable store on Alabama Avenue — the only major grocer east of the Anacostia River in Ward 8.

  An executive for the chain told the Washington Post that the company has “no other choice” and she noted that other stores in the area have done similar things…

  “We have no other choice,” Diane Hicks, senior vice president of operations said Thursday during a walk-through with officials from the D.C. mayor’s office, the Metropolitan police and fire departments, and Chamber of Commerce. She added that other nearby stores have locked up all their product on those aisles or removed them altogether.

  “I’ve been leaving it out for our customers and unfortunately it just forces all the crime to come to us.”

  This is where our entire society is heading.

  It is just a matter of time before we see armed guards stationed in grocery stores and on food trucks all over America.

  Desperate people do desperate things, and right now we are seeing things happen that are absolutely nuts.

  Just a few days ago, an extremely shocking incident that happened in broad daylight at a Home Depot store in California made headlines all over the nation…

  Brazen thieves were caught on camera casually walking out with $9,000 worth of goods from separate California stores as lawlessness in the state governed by Gavin Newsom continues.

  A group of masked thieves stormed into a Home Depot store in Signal Hill on August 27 and stole $5,000 worth of power tools in full view of shocked staff and customers.

  The seven men loaded two shopping carts with expensive goods and carried as much as possible in their arms before walking out.

  These sorts of robberies have become so common that I couldn’t possibly cover them all.

  We really are starting to become a “Mad Max” society.

  Of course the truth is that the entire world is moving in that direction.  Global supplies of food are getting tighter and tighter, and the recent spike in rice prices has created a tremendous amount of concern…

  Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production.

  Now, rice prices are soaring, and it’s putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk. Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high. Even before India’s restrictions, countries already were frantically buying rice in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and spiking prices.

  Civil unrest has already started to erupt in various parts of Africa, but if current trends continue things will get a whole lot worse around the globe in 2024.

  Are you prepared for what is ahead?

  Right now, a lot of people are apparently asking that question.  In fact, according to Zero Hedge the number of Americans searching for the term “live off grid” on the Internet has hit the highest level in years…

  What’s piqued our interest is the sudden panic by some Americans searching ‘live off grid’ on the internet, hitting the highest level in five years. The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while Democrat cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime.

  I have been relentlessly warning my readers that “Mad Max” conditions are coming for years.

  Anyone that took an honest look at the long-term trends should have been able to see that.

  Global leaders have been making absolutely disastrous decisions for a very long time, and now we are all going to reap the consequences.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 19:40

• 'Lee' Explodes To Category 4 Hurricane 
  ‘Lee’ Explodes To Category 4 Hurricane 

  Update (1920ET):

  In about a 12-hour timeframe, Hurricane Lee rapidly intensified from a Category 1 to Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. 

  The National Hurricane Center’s latest update said, “Lee becomes a category 4 major hurricane. Dangerous surf and life-threatening rip currents are likely in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Bahamas and along the east coast of the U.S.” 

  5PM AST Sep 7: #Lee becomes a category 4 major hurricane. Dangerous surf and life-threatening rip currents are likely in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Bahamas and along the east coast of the U.S. Visit https://t.co/tW4KeGe9uJ for the latest pic.twitter.com/Rg0Z5gAAwx

  — National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 7, 2023

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

  Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore said, “Another cat5 on the way… Almost a double rapid intensifier. Impressive to say the least.” 

  Cantore continued, “Still much to be watched into next week as steering sets up. Any potential direct USA impacts would be likely a week away.” 

  Well that didn’t take long. #Lee has gone from a 75mph hurricane 24 hours ago to a 130mph beast. Likely another cat5 on the way… Almost a double rapid intensifier. Impressive to say the least. Still much to be watched into next week as steering sets up. Any potential direct… pic.twitter.com/qI3jIv4sOR

  — Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) September 7, 2023

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

  Here are the latest spaghetti models of Lee’s possible paths.

  

  Cat 5 by tomorrow morning?

  *   *   * 

  The National Hurricane Center warned Hurricane Lee is intensifying, and computer models suggest it might reach “major hurricane” status by early Friday. 

  Lee is located 965 miles from the northern Leeward Islands in open waters with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. The Category 1 storm is moving west-northwest at 13 mph.

  

  “The environment around the cyclone looks ideal for rapid intensification. The models are in fairly good agreement that significant strengthening should begin later today and continue into the weekend, when Lee will likely reach its peak intensity,” NHC said. 

  NHC warned, “Fluctuations in strength are likely from days 3 to 5 due to potential eyewall replacements, but Lee is still expected to be a dangerous hurricane over the southwestern Atlantic early next week.” 

  Computer models show Lee “slowing down before making a turn to the north in response to steering currents around it, particularly a dip in the jet stream moving toward the East Coast,” said Axios. 

  Late next week, it’s possible that Hurricane Lee tracks close to New England and/or Atlantic Canada.

  The path out to sea may be blocked by a ridge of high pressure.

  A long time to go, but I’d say the trend is not our friend with regard to land impacts 😬

  Tracking @ECMWFbot 👇 pic.twitter.com/vNrZOhfSPQ

  — Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 7, 2023

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

  Possible Cat. 5?

  There is a chance that #Lee could be a Cat5 hurricane. We have one in the Pacific now called #Jova which has nearly doubled its wind speed in 24 hours.( 85 to 160mph). No threat to land with Jova. pic.twitter.com/knoCjsdF4c

  — Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) September 7, 2023

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

  Axios noted Lee is about “week to 10 days away from a potential threat to the U.S. mainland.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 19:20

• Will Hunter Go Full NRA? A Biden Indictment Could Bring A Surprising Challenge
  Will Hunter Go Full NRA? A Biden Indictment Could Bring A Surprising Challenge

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  After the spectacular collapse of his sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in court, Hunter Biden’s lawyer angrily told the prosecutors in open court to “just rip it up.”

  It appears, however, that the defense team does not want to shred one part of the deal: the diversion agreement to avoid any charge over his false statement to obtain a gun permit.

  The defense is now arguing that, since the two sides signed the agreement before the implosion in court, it is final and complete.

  

  The Justice Department thinks otherwise. It is arguing that neither the probation officer nor the Court agreed to the plea agreement to finalize it. Indeed, it was the sweeping immunity language buried in the gun charge section that led the Court to throw a flag on the play.  Accordingly, the Justice Department is now pledging to indict Hunter by the end of the month.

  Hunter, however, is insisting that the Justice Department will have to pry the agreement from his cold, dead fingers. Indeed, the President’s son may be channeling more from the National Rifle Association (NRA) than its catchline. If the court rejects the diversion agreement as executed, Hunter could be making an argument that will leave the Biden White House in something of a pickle.

  One obvious attack against a charge is to argue that the underlying law itself is unconstitutional.

  Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,” including marijuana, is barred from possessing a gun and can face up to 10 years in prison.

  However, recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the law violated the Second Amendment in United States v. Daniels. The case involved a man who was arrested in possession of marijuana and two loaded firearms. The Fifth Circuit relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association, which established that firearms laws must conform with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

  President Biden denounced Bruen as a virtual abomination and has been a vocal supporter of the underlying law. Hunter, however, may now find himself in strange company in seeking to avoid any federal charge.

  In the appellate opinion, Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote that “Our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage.”

  That sounds tantalizingly familiar, but is it enough for Hunter to go full Wayne LaPierre?

  If so, this would not be the first time that Hunter followed a path that his father has previously condemned in others. For example, for decades, Joe Biden has railed against “deadbeat dads” despite his son’s long effort to avoid paying child support to Lunden Alexis Roberts. Hunter spent years fighting support for his daughter Navy, even after a court confirmed that he was her father. Joe Biden himself only recently acknowledged the existence of Navy after routinely excluding her from the list of his grandchildren.

  Yet, the President may not be quite ready for his son to join actual hunters in advocating for sweeping gun rights protections, including for drug users.

  In making the argument, Hunter will have to claim that references to gun ownership by “law-abiding citizens” in past cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and Bruen should not be read to exclude everyone who breaks the law. Judge Smith cites a prior ruling in United States v. Rahimi, rejecting the federal ban on gun possession by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. In that decision, the court held that the phrase should be read as “shorthand” alluding to “people who were historically ‘stripped of their Second Amendment rights.’”

  The government has argued (and would likely argue in the Biden case) that there were laws from the 17th and 18th centuries barring people from publicly carrying or firing guns while intoxicated.

  However, the Fifth Circuit rejected the historical claim and noted that “under the government’s reasoning, Congress could ban gun possession by anyone who has multiple alcoholic drinks a week…based on the postbellum intoxicated carry laws. The analogical reasoning Bruen prescribed cannot stretch that far.”

  The government has tried to use other laws barring guns to the mentally ill and dangerous individuals as historical analogs, but the court would have none of it.

  Indeed, Hunter could find himself arguing that people are too often denied rights by the government under claims that they are “insurrectionists.” Sound familiar?

  The government has pointed to how “Founding-era governments took guns away from persons perceived to be dangerous.”

  However, the Fifth Circuit noted that those laws targeted unpopular people, including Catholics, as akin to traitors to the Revolution. Judge Smith wrote that drug users “are not a class of political traitors, as British Loyalists were perceived to be. Nor are they like Catholics and other religious dissenters who were seen as potential insurrectionists.”

  So, a rejection of the gun diversion agreement could prove an even greater diversion for the Biden family as Hunter embraces the very decisions and rights long opposed by his father.

  In the meantime, the Justice Department would be citing historical precedent used against Catholics (like the Bidens) as potential insurrectionists who cannot be trusted with weapons.

  Of course, White House Press Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre could defend all of this by paraphrasing the NRA that the “only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun [case] is a good guy with a gun [case].”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 19:00

• Woke Bill Gates Foundation Becomes One Of Anheuser-Busch's Top Shareholders
  Woke Bill Gates Foundation Becomes One Of Anheuser-Busch’s Top Shareholders

  A new Form 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that one of the ‘wokest’ billionaires has put his stamp of approval on one of the wokest beers in America. 

  The filing showed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust bought 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Busch, valued at around $95 million, signaling Gates has confidence in the beer company that imploded its Bud Light brand after a disastrous advertising campaign in April with transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney. 

  

  Gates’ Seattle-based $69 billion trust bought the shares around the latest earnings report around $59.89 per share. Shares are currently trading at a 6% discount around $56.24. 

  

  Last month, Anheuser-Busch said US revenues slid 10% in the second quarter due to the consumer backlash of Bud Light. This allowed Modelo Especial, the nation’s new king of beers, to become the best-selling beer among US consumers. 

  Gate’s bet on Anheuser-Busch ranks him as the ninth largest shareholder. 

  

  Gates, who has previously said he’s “not a big beer drinker,” has bought other brewers, including a 3.76% stake in Heineken Holding NV earlier this year. 

  A former Anheuser-Busch executive told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Gates’ investment into the brewer is a “mistake.” 

  “Bill Gates is definitely making a mistake.

  “Earlier this year, he already made a $900 million mistake when he invested into one of Anheuser-Busch’s largest rivals, Heineken. He did that earlier this year. And since that investment, Heineken’s down about 10%, whereas the broader markets are up 10%.”

  “So if I was looking for advice on investing to software companies, tech companies, I might go to Bill Gates. But if you’re looking at the beer industry, he doesn’t have a great track record of investing in winners at this point,” former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks said. 

  Bill has put his stamp of approval on Bud Light. 

  

  Some on social media have called for a doubling down on the Bud Light boycott following the news Gates is now a majority shareholder of the brewer. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 18:40

• CDC Warns RSV Cases Are Rising Among Infants, Babies
  CDC Warns RSV Cases Are Rising Among Infants, Babies

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning physicians and caregivers about an increase in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases across some parts of the Southeastern United States in recent weeks.

  

  In a Sept. 5 health advisory, the health agency said the rise in cases suggests a “continued shift toward seasonal RSV trends observed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

  “Historically, such regional increases have predicted the beginning of RSV season nationally, with increased RSV activity spreading north and west over the following 2–3 months,” the CDC said.

  CDC data shows increases in weekly RSV levels since July but the agency said that nationwide, RSV test positivity had remained below the season onset threshold of 3 percent for two consecutive weeks.

  However, more recent data show test positivity has increased in Florida since late July, and the three-week moving average has been greater than 5 percent for the last month.

  RSV hospitalizations also increased in Georgia in August, the CDC said.

  From Aug. 5 through Aug. 19, the rate of RSV-related hospitalizations increased from 2 in 100,000 kids aged 4 and younger, to 7 per 100,000, with the majority of those hospitalizations being in babies less than a year old, the CDC said.

  In response to the rise in cases, the health agency urged clinicians to “prepare to implement new RSV prevention options” ahead of the 2023–2024 RSV season, including administering shots of monoclonal antibody products to patients as well as a preventative antibody treatment called nirsevimab.

  

  FDA Approves RSV Treatments

  “For all infants ages <8 months, and infants and children ages 8–19 months who are at increased risk of severe RSV, clinicians should start to offer Nirsevimab when it becomes available (expected by early October),” the CDC said.

  A panel of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously in July to approve nirsevimab for RSV in newborns and infants up to 24 months of age.

  Sold under the brand name Beyfortus, the treatment is made by AstraZeneca and marketed by Sanofi. The companies said the drug showed efficacy in several clinical trials.

  Regulators in countries including Canada and the United Kingdom have already approved Beyfortus.

  A month later in August, regulators with the FDA also approved the first vaccine to be taken by pregnant women to prevent RSV infections in babies and toddlers.

  Made by Pfizer, the Abrysvo single-dose injection was approved for use at 32 through 36 weeks of pregnancy. According to the pharmaceuticals giant, pregnant women who receive immunity from the shot will pass that immunity along to their unborn baby before birth, thus protecting them from lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD) and severe LRTD caused by RSV until at least the age of 6 months.

  In trials, a dangerous hypertensive disorder known as pre-eclampsia occurred in 1.8 percent of pregnant individuals who received Abrysvo compared to 1.4 percent of pregnant individuals who received a placebo, according to the FDA.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 18:20

• Fan Appeal: Could Basketball Kick Football Off Its Throne?
  Fan Appeal: Could Basketball Kick Football Off Its Throne?

  As the NFL season kicks off, millions of Americans will be glued to their television screens (or whatever screens their watching on), happy to finally see the return of their favorite sport.

  According to Statista Consumer Insights, American football – or just football depending on where you live – is still the clear number 1 sport in the United States. 77 percent of U.S. adults who generally follow sports said they follow football, putting it far ahead of basketball, followed by 59 percent of respondents, and baseball at 50 percent.

  But, as Statista’s Felix Richter reports, while football has been America’s true favorite pastime for decades (sorry baseball), that doesn’t necessarily mean things will stay that way forever.

  In fact, there are some signs that football’s reign could eventually come to an end, as the sport has struggled to resonate with younger fans in the same way that the NBA has.

  As the following chart shows, football has already lost its lead to basketball among 18- to 24-year-olds, while retaining a dominant lead in older age groups.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  With game times of around three hours that aren’t exactly action-packed, NFL games just aren’t ideally suited for younger consumers who are no longer used to pay attention to anything for that long.

  The NBA has been quicker to embrace the change in sports consumption, catering to an audience that is more likely to watch highlight clips on social media than sitting through entire games on ESPN. The fact that basketball is also easier to pick up and play casually adds to the sport’s popularity among young fans, not to mention the appeal of superstars such as LeBron James, who are deeply ingrained in popular culture.

  Whether this trend will continue long enough for basketball to kick football off its throne remains to be seen, but for now basketball is winning the battle for young audiences.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 18:00

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• European Nat Gas Prices Tumble After Chevron Australia LNG Workers Delay Strike
  European Nat Gas Prices Tumble After Chevron Australia LNG Workers Delay Strike

  A Bloomberg report that workers on Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects have delayed strike action until Friday is being viewed as a sign talks are going well, as strikes were meant to begin Thursday. The positive conclusion to last week’s talks between Woodside and unions is another indication the worst-case scenario is unlikely.

  The new deadline for industrial action at the Gorgon and Wheatstone plants is 6 a.m. local time Friday, a Chevron Australia spokesperson told Bloomberg. The unions previously threatened to start partial strikes on Sept. 7 and then escalate to full stoppages that would begin Sept. 14 and last two weeks.

  

  “We will continue to work through the bargaining process as we seek outcomes that are in the interests of both employees and the company,” the company said in the statement. “We will also continue to take steps to maintain safe and reliable operations in the event of disruption at our facilities.”

  “It really is essential to explore all avenues to avoid industrial action,” said Richard Pratt, a consultant for Precision LNG. “Once strikes start, the parties are driven further apart so this is a welcome development.”

  The two Australian LNG plants operated by Chevron made up about 7% of global LNG supply last year (see “Q&A On Australia’s LNG Strike Risks“). The extension of talks follows a compromise that another Australian exporter, Woodside Energy Group Ltd., reached with workers last month to prevent industrial action at its own plant.

  Meanwhile, Bloomberg notes that the impact of any industrial action may be limited at first because demand is muted in Europe and Asia, but a prolonged disruption may have sparked a bidding war between the two regions for alternative cargoes in peak winter season.

  The threat of strikes had roiled global gas markets since early August, when unions first voted for potential labor actions at the three plants. The European gas benchmark surged 40% at one point, highlighting the continent’s heavy dependence on LNG after the curtailment of Russian pipeline gas flows. Imports of LNG in Europe are recovering after a recent dip, helping offset reduced pipeline-gas flows from Norway amid maintenance there. Still, traders remain on high alert for any prolonged blips in supplies.

  In immediate response, Dutch front-month futures, Europe’s gas benchmark, traded 10% lower at €30.90 a megawatt-hour…

  

  … and with EU natural gas storage now above 93%, could fall further in the near-term unless the situation in Australia deteriorates.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 02:45

• To The Last Ukrainian
  To The Last Ukrainian

  Authored by Katya Sedgwick via AmericanMind.org,

  The war is a disaster in every sense…

  

  It was Vladimir Putin who initially noted that the West is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

  Well, it looks like it’s finally happening – we’ve run out of Ukrainians, or at least we ran out of the ones willing to die for their country. Ukraine is running short of the young, fertile, and productive.

  When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February, 2022, the media lit up with stories of bumbling, murdering Russkies and heroic Ukrainians.

  The legend of the Ghost of Kyiv, the mystery pilot destroying legions of Russian fighter planes—eventually debunked as propaganda—raised expectations of a quick triumph of the underdog.

  Many Ukrainians volunteered in these early days of war. Out of 6.1 million living abroad, some returned to defend their country. Martial law was swiftly imposed, barring able-bodied military age men from crossing the border. In the the rapidly aging post-Soviet nation, military age was defined as 18 to 60.

  In a piece I wrote last year for The American Conservative, I collected draft-dodging stories from the back pages of Ukrainian media. I took care to avoid Russian sources that could be dismissed as propaganda. I also found what was then a very unusual New York Times item that described popular Telegram channels that alert subscribers of real time locations of conscription officers issuing summons on the streets of Ukrainian cities.

  An interesting twist on the real time draft-dodging tools was a March 2023 post on a censored and hyper patriotic Kharkiv Live channel recommending this type of group chat to over a half a million of its subscribers. Vocally expressed nationalistic sentiments, as it turned out, don’t necessarily translate into willingness to take up arms — or even support of mass mobilization.

  A recent survey found that just 6 percent of respondents in Kharkov are planning to enlist if the situation deteriorates. This number is the lowest in the country, but other regions are not far behind. Kiev, for instance, is at 12 percent. Because this is a wartime poll conducted in a country under martial law, I’d take its findings with a grain of salt.

  A few weeks ago, Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged the problem of corruption in the armed forces and fired all regional recruitment chiefs. He intends to replace them with “warriors who have gone through the front or who cannot be in the trenches because they have lost their health, lost their limbs, but have retained their dignity and have no cynicism.” It’s an agreeable sentiment, but I strongly suspect that the returning fighters are quite cynical in many regards, especially when it comes to the way business is conducted in their country. Last week’s resignation of the Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov at the time of widely publicized military corruption scandals should be a clue that the problem is larger than the recruitment chiefs. Zelensky’s official explanation that the country is looking for “new approaches” amounts to an admission of failure.

  Ukraine is now insistent on drafting everyone. Since a large number of draft-eligible men fled abroad — 163,287 live in Germany alone — they need to be extradited. Poland already began the process of deporting Ukrainians back home to fill the trenches. Moreover, the Defense Ministry approved new drafting rules under which men suffering from disabilities ranging from slow progressing nervous system disorders to  hemorrhagic conditions are now eligible to be drafted. Morale and effectiveness of this kind of army is questionable. 

  This late in the war, Ukrainians are unlikely to change their mind about marching into the meat grinder. Ukraine does not publicize its casualties, but multiple videos circulating on social media show sprawling fresh graves under the national banners. The recent official U.S. estimate is 70,000 dead and 150,000 to 200,000 wounded out of 5.5 million military age men—more dead in 18 months than the U.S. lost in the Vietnam War. According to German medical supplier Ottobock, which makes prosthetics, the number of amputees now stands at up to 50,000. With characteristic German understatement Ottobock adds that the real figure is probably higher because it takes time to process cases. Meantime, Ukraine is preparing for 1.5 million disabled.

  The volunteers who answered the call early in the war were likely ideological and educated. Obituaries commemorated the flower of Ukraine—an activist, an actor, an astrophysicist. Men escaping the draft are wealthy and connected, educated, and living in large population centers. The ones dragged into combat now are poor and rural.

  The greatest loss to the country has been the departure of women and children. After the flight of refugees and the annexation of southeastern regions, Ukraine’s population dropped from 42 to about 30 million. Women from Kiev and Kharkov, the largest and most developed Ukrainian cities, are most likely to have left the country. These women are young and middle aged, and have college degrees and children. According to a report in the Italian newspaper Carrier De La Serra, educated refugees were able to find employment abroad and their children study in local languages. Some families crumble. It’s doubtful that those already growing roots will return after the war. More likely they will be joined by their equally well-educated husbands.

  Given Ukraine’s very low pre-war birth rate, the loss of millions of children and women of reproductive age can be catastrophic. So is the damage done to the Ukrainian village and cultural heritage, both Russian and Ukrainian.

  Ukraine’s greatest accomplishment in the war so far is the methodical erasure of every visible reference to Russian culture from its landscape — starting with monuments to the foundational Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and going down the list of literary and cultural figures.

  Ukraine has a storied martial tradition—the Cossack valor is legendary. Many of those drafted went into the meat grinder putting their faith into providence alone. But today’s Ukraine is urban; the nomadic steppe dwellers are gone and so are their large families. Too many only sons perished in the trenches and further losses are hardly acceptable to ordinary people. A positive outcome for Ukraine is hard to imagine even in the unlikely scenario that Russia loses on the battlefield.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/07/2023 – 02:00

• The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Extinction Itself
  The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Extinction Itself

  Authored by James George Jatras

  A version of this presentation was given to the Ron Paul Institute’s Scholars Seminar on Sept. 1st in Washington, DC.

  Today it’s hard for anyone under the age of 50 to appreciate how genuine and pervasive was fear of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War between the US- and Soviet-led blocs.

  Books, movies, and TV both reflected and stoked popular anxiety about the possible “end of civilization as we know it.” The heyday for this was in the 1950s and 1960s, with books like The Long Tomorrow(1955) and On the Beach (1957, with a 1959 film adaptation), and films like Fail Safe, Seven Days in May, Dr. Strangelove (all in 1964, while the real-life scare of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was fresh in people’s minds).

  There appeared to be a bit of a lull during the 1970s era of US-Soviet détente under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, perhaps also reflecting elite sympathy for socialism and an expected future convergence between the ideological groupings, which on a basic level shared the same globalist, materialist values. But nuclear terror returned with a vengeance in the 1980s – for example, The Day After (1983) and the animated When the Wind Blows (1986). And who can forget (certainly no male person!) the delightful Nena’s 1983 music video Neunundneunzig Luftballons.

  

  The Left, both in the United States and worldwide, was unanimous that Ronald Reagan, a self-confessed anti-communist, was a reckless cowboy who wanted to blow up the planet. As that great philosopher, Sting, put it in his 1985 song, “The Russians”:

  There is no historical precedent
  To put the words in the mouth of the president?
  There’s no such thing as a winnable war
  It’s a lie we don’t believe anymore
  Mister Reagan says, “We will protect you”
  I don’t subscribe to this point of view
  Believe me when I say to you
  I hope the Russians love their children too

  The irony is that Reagan’s own views were hardly different from the ones the song sought to promote. As he stated jointly with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that very same year, 1985: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a view that prevailed until the USSR imploded just a few years later.

  We live in a very different world now, where the prospect of nuclear annihilation barely registers with anyone.

  Just as big earthquakes are often preceded by foreshocks, major wars are frequently heralded by smaller conflicts. Before World War One: the Franco-German Morocco crises (1906 and 1911), the Italo-Turkish War (1911-12), the two Balkan Wars (1912, 1913). Before World War Two: the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-37) and, the most famous pre-conflagration rumble of them all, the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

  Today, we are looking at a possible regional war in West Africa, centering on American and French demands that “democracy” be restored in Niger. (As one Indian publication put it, “Death follows Victoria Nuland”) Then, of course, there’s China/Taiwan.

  But the obvious Spanish Civil War-rank conflict of the moment is Ukraine.

  I don’t think we need to go into all the details of how we got here, but just in brief:

  • Relentless NATO expansion after 1991;
  • The 2014 US- and EU-backed coup that overthrew Victor Yanukovich, followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the new Kiev regime’s launch of a war to repress rebellions in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country;
     
  • The 2015 Minsk agreements, which provided for Ukraine’s neutrality and decentralization, and for reintegration of the rebellious areas with protections of their language and culture – agreements that both Ukrainian and European former officials have admitted they never intended to implement, seeing them only as a delaying ruse for building up a force capable of conquering the Donbas;
     
  • A relentless program of Ukraine’s NATO-ization in all but name under Obama, Trump, and Biden; and
     
  • Washington’s peremptory rejection of Moscow’s 2021 ultimata to the United States and NATO to resolve the conflict diplomatically, with the hope that Russia, baited into an incursion into Ukraine, would be bled white in an Afghanistan-style insurgency and by crushing sanctions that would “turn the ruble into rubble,” pancake Russia’s economy, and lead to regime change in Moscow.

  Oops. Russia’s expected ruin didn’t happen. Even the mainstream media cheerleaders of only a fortnight ago now admit that Ukraine is losing, assigning the blame not to the geniuses that thought up this strategy (if it can be called that) but to Ukraine’s being too “casualty averse” – even as that country is turning into one vast graveyard. There’s speculation that some in Washington and other western capitals are seeking an “off-ramp” – if for no other reason than the need to focus on the really big show, a looming war with China. Some suggest that in the end, we’ll just walk away, consigning Ukraine to the Memory Hole along with Afghanistan. All that’s left then is for GOP neocons to whine that the Biden Administration was too stingy with their aid and “lost Ukraine” while they gear up for the main event in the western Pacific.

  Personally, I don’t think that will happen. Nobody cares about Afghanistan but the Afghans, but if Washington walks away from Ukraine it’s effectively conceding that the US, through NATO, no longer is the security hegemon of Europe. That means the effective end of NATO, in fact if not in name; and where NATO goes, its concubine, the European Union, won’t be far behind.

  More to the point, though, the notion that this will soon end with a whimper misses the whole point. None of this is really about Ukraine, which is just an expendable tool to hurt Russia. (Maybe the Poles or Lithuanians or Romanians are eager to volunteer for the job once we’re fresh out of Ukrainians.) Ukraine is just a variable; the constant is Ruthenia delenda est. Russia must be destroyed.

  Gilbert Doctorow, a noted observer of Russian affairs, likens the current situation to that of Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign depicted by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. Today as then, what happens next will be less due to this or that policymaker making this or that bad decision. Rather, “the precondition for war is the near universal acceptance of the logic of the coming war.”

  What is that logic today? It’s simple: the ruling circles in the United States (needless to add, with their sock puppets in western capitals) are utterly, unselfconsciously convinced that they are the living embodiment of all virtue, truth, and progress in what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as the “replication of the experience of Bolshevism and Trotskyism” – to cite Reagan, morphing ourselves into a new Evil Empire in place of the old one. As neocon kingpins William Kristol and Robert Kagan put it in their 1996 manifesto, the policy of the United States in the coming era must be one of “benevolent global hegemony” intended to last – well, forever. Its moral content is exemplified, on the one hand, by US support for subjugation of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and, on the other, the spectacle of a transgender US serviceperson acting as a PR official for the Ukrainian military declaring that “we’re human,” and the Russians “most definitely aren’t.”

  As I like to say: there’s no Transatlanticism without transgenderism.

  Unsurprisingly, regarding their alleged lack of human-ness, the Russians disagree. But who cares what they think? Our leaders see not only Putin but Russians in general as an obstacle to the radiant future, where every knee will bow before the sacred rainbow flag.

  Sun Tzu says “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” The Russians more or less know themselves. They kind of know us, but not as well as they think they do, with rather a tendency to project normalcy onto fundamentally abnormal people. On the other hand, our rulers – dangerous people whose levels of arrogance and ignorance defies description: monkeys with nuclear hand grenades – know neither themselves nor the Russians.

  On top of that, as Doctorow further observes, the mechanisms that lent some stability and restraint to the US-Soviet standoff are now all but gone, rendering the once-“unthinkable” of the 1950s’ nuke horror films all-too-thinkable today:

  ‘… no one wants war, neither Washington nor Moscow. However, the step-by-step dismantling of the channels of communication, of the symbolic projects for cooperation across a wide array of domains, and now dismantling of all the arms limitation agreements that took decades to negotiate and ratify, plus the incoming new weapons systems that leave both sides with under 10 minutes to decide how to respond to alarms of incoming missiles—all of this prepares the way for the Accident to end all Accidents.  Such false alarms occurred in the Cold War but some slight measure of mutual trust prompted restraint. That is all gone now and if something goes awry, we are all dead ducks.’

  “No one wants war.” A similar thought was expressed by Hermann Göring, when he was on trial at Nuremberg:

  Of course the people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. … But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

  So I guess Doctorow is a bit off the mark in suggesting that “no one wants war.” Clearly, somebody wants war. A lot of very important “somebodies” wanted this war in Ukraine. They wanted war in the Balkans in the 1990s. They wanted war in Afghanistan, Iraq (twice!), Libya, Yemen, Syria, and a dozen places in Africa where we have almost no idea what’s going on.

  “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked…” I can’t help but think of the meme with two blank-face NPCs, one wearing a pink knit hat mindlessly repeating “Russia! Russia! Russia!,” the other with a red MAGA hat chanting “China! China! China!” Between them is the seal of the CIA with the eagle saying, “Yes, yes, my pretties. That’s it. That’s it.”

  Here we are, 60 years after the fact, with the growing recognition by even the most spoon-fed normies that the CIA had something to do with the assassination of Jack Kennedy. In fact, we have here today perhaps the foremost authority on the topic, Mr. Jacob Hornberger. Yet doubting our rulers’ truthiness still is treated as a thought crime. A little while ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was the target of a media hate fest for (in the words of The New Republic) “spout[ing] conspiracy theories about January 6 and 9/11.” Oh no! “Conspiracy theories”! (Or, as they are known when they turn out to be true, “spoiler alerts.”) The heretic Ramaswamy evidently believes – shocking as this sounds – that our government has not been entirely honest about these matters. He must be a dupe for the Russians! Or for the Chinese! – which The New Republic also implies.

  You may have heard some people compare the “lawfare” being directed against Donald Trump, with the evident aim of eliminating the likely opponent next year of the desiccated-husk-of-Hunter-Biden’s-dad (assuming ol’ Joe will be the Democratic nominee, which I don’t), to the behavior of a banana republic. This is a gratuitous insult to the friendly spider-infested nations to our south!

  I recently suggested to a sober observer of public affairs that the strategic goal is keeping Trump off the ballot in one or more must-win states for him, like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, to which he responded: “That’s a recipe for civil war.” (I tried to imagine what Republicans taking to the streets would look like. A mob of decrepit Boomers rolling their motorized wheelchairs down to the corner and burning down the post office?) Anyway, taking him out via lawfare seems to be Plan A. If that fails – well, Plan B would get us into Mr. Hornberger’s area of expertise.

  The term “cold” civil war, a war that might possibly turn “hot,” has become a commonplace in American discourse. So has the expression “national divorce.” In 1861 Americans both North and South worshipped the same God, read the same Bible, honored the same Founding Fathers, claimed fidelity to the same Constitution. In today’s America, we can’t even agree on our pronouns or on what a “woman” is, much less on what it means to be an American. We are moral aliens to one another, indeed enemies. What actually holds the former American republic together? “Muh Constitution”? “Muh democracy”?

  Keep in mind, we’re not talking about a mere political crisis that will get solved in an election or two. Not even about political and constitutional collapse, or even a financial and economic calamity – that’s coming too, in part because of the impact of the Ukraine war on the dollar-denominated global system – but a fundamental challenge to the social fabric itself, and not just in the United States.

  A watershed was passed with covid and the measures – the lockdowns, the masks, social distancing and monitoring, the clot shot, censorship of dissent, all combined with a pervasive, inescapable external and internal panopticon: as the troubadour of transhumanism Yuval Harari writes, “we are seeing a change in the nature of surveillance from over the skin surveillance to under the skin surveillance” – supposedly intended to deal with a virus, accomplishing within a few short months what decades of climate hysteria could not, summed up under the moniker “the Great Reset” and its ubiquitous slogan “Build Back Better.”’

  Taken together what we’re experiencing has all the appearance of a controlled demolition of all established human interactions in anticipation of their replacement by something we are assured by our betters will be an improvement. The contours of the “new normal” in the post-American America hurtling in our direction have already become so familiar as to need little elaboration:

  • Infringement of traditional liberties based on “keeping us safe”;
     
  • “Cancel culture”;
     
  • Blurring of the lines between Big Government, Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Data, etc., amounting to corporate state capture; and, not directly based on supposed anti-virus measures but closely tracking with them,
     
  • Joint government and corporate promulgation of socially destructive, historically counterfeit ideologies (“intersectionality,” LGBTQI+++, feminism, multiculturalism, “critical race theory,”), with principal targeting of children subject to sexualization and predation by those expressing what were once quaintly known as abnormal appetites and identities.

  These so-called “values” – which, remember, are effectively the official ideology of the West, which we seek “benevolently” to impose on the rest of the world, by force if necessary – in turn accelerate longstanding trends towards infertility and demographic collapse pointing to thinning the human herd and replacement via post-human society, transhumanism, and bio-engineering. This is not just “political” but a strike at the heart of human existence: the spiritual, moral, and even biological basis for marriage, family formation, and production of the next generation. In a word: depopulation.

  A few years ago, His Royal Highness, the late Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, perhaps half in jest delivered this thigh-slapper: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, to contribute something to solving overpopulation.” Some of you may have heard of groups like Extinction Rebellion and BirthStrike: “Are you terrified about the future that lies ahead for contemporary and future youth? Do you want to maximize your positive impact on the Climate Change Crisis? You can protect children while fighting climate change and systematic corruption by refusing to procreate!” Makes perfect sense: preserve a better planet for future generations by eliminating future generations. It reminds me of Otto von Bismarck’s comparing the idea of preventive war to committing suicide out of fear of death. (That’s not as abstract as it might sound. Recently a young woman in Canada seeking help for depression and suicidal ideation was advised by hospital staff that she might be interested in their tried and Trudeau-ed “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)” euthanasia program. Tempted to kill yourself? Let us help you!) 

  But why stop at half measures? The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, VHEMT (pronounced “vehement,” according to their website): “We’re the only species evolved enough to consciously go extinct for the good of all life, or which needs to. Success would be humanity’s crowning achievement. May we live long and die out.”

  Maybe they’re on to something! In his landmark work The Socialist Phenomenon, the late Russian mathematician and student of history Igor Shafarevich took note of what he believed is a collective human death impulse:

  The idea of the death of mankind—not the death of specific people but literally the end of the human race—evokes a response in the human psyche. It arouses and attracts people, albeit with differing intensity in different epochs and in different individuals. The scope of influence of this idea causes us to suppose that every individual is affected by it to a greater or lesser degree and that it is a universal trait of the human psyche.

  This idea is not only manifested in the individual experience of a great number of specific persons, but is also capable of uniting people (in contrast to delirium, for example) i.e., it is a social force. The impulse toward self-destruction may be regarded as an element in the psyche of mankind as a whole. [ … ]

  In the Freudian view (first expressed in the article “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”), the human psyche can be reduced to a manifestation of two main instincts: the life instinct or Eros and the death instinct or Thanatos (or the Nirvana principle). Both are general biological categories, fundamental properties of living things in general. The death instinct is a manifestation of general “inertia” or a tendency of organic life to return to a more elementary state from which it had been aroused by an external disturbing force. [“Dust thou art, unto dust shalt thou return.”] The role of the life instinct is essentially to prevent a living organism from returning to the inorganic state by any path other than that which is immanent in it.

  Marcuse [Shafarevich refers here to Herbert Marcuse, theorist of the Frankfurt School, known for his adaptation of the theory of class conflict in classical Marxism to other social divides, notably in the area of sex, setting the stage for “intersectionality”] introduces a greater social factor into this scheme, asserting that the death instinct expresses itself in the desire to be liberated from tension, as an attempt to rid oneself of the suffering and discontent which are specifically engendered by social factors.

  With the failure of the Ukrainian offensive, Moscow now faces a dilemma. Do they move decisively to impose a military solution that ends the war, or do they continue to show restraint in the hopes that somebody, somewhere – Kiev, Washington, London, Brussels – decides it’s time to sue for peace? Keen not to take a precipitous step that might bring about a direct clash of NATO and Russian forces, so far they’ve opted for the latter – I repeat: so far.

  The West faces its own dilemma. Do our rulers concede defeat, which effectively means the end of the Global American Empire (the GAE)? Or do they drag things out as long as possible, hoping Moscow will fall for another Minsk-type ceasefire, with the Kremlin playing the part of Charlie Brown taking another run at kicking the football, having been promised that this time we’ll keep our word? Or, mistaking Russian restraint for weakness, do they push the envelope by inserting a “coalition of the willing” into western Ukraine, challenging Russian naval forces in the Black Sea, encouraging and equipping the Ukrainians to step up attacks on Moscow and other Russian cities, staging some sort of false flag of the type that has proved so effective in other conflicts? In other words, do we double down? That’s in addition to opening up other asymmetrical theaters in the Balkans, Syria, Iran, the Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere.

  In mistakenly projecting a rational actor mentality onto their opponents, the Russians seem to be acutely aware of the legitimate concern that decisive military action on the ground could panic NATO and trigger an uncontrolled escalation. They seem oblivious to the contrary concern, that, by holding back and waiting for a reasonable dialogue that will never take place, they are in effect encouraging their adversary to stage one reckless provocation after another – in the sustained belief that some deus ex machina can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – resulting in the very uncontrolled escalation that Moscow seeks to avoid.

  Even these speculations assume that the miserable specimens of humanity calling the shots in Western capitals would only risk a direct conflict but would not deliberately choose it. But is that assumption correct? As Doctorow notes, the old Cold War restraints have broken down. Maybe demonstration of a teeny-tiny, low-yield nuke is just the thing to show that non-human Vladof Putler that the GAE is serious!

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Recently on his podcast Judge Andrew Napolitano showed part of a computer simulation of a US-Russia nuclear exchange in which the initial toll on the US population was only (“only”!) about nine percent, while on Russia it was around 62 percent. (Given that Russia has more warheads than we do, I don’t know how they came up with that, but I didn’t conduct the simulation.)  Is it so impossible that somewhere, somebody might look at those data and decide it’s a tolerable tradeoff? (Later on, the simulation has pretty much everyone on earth starving to death from nuclear winter, with agriculture in the northern hemisphere unviable for several years. Now there’s a way to resolve both global warming and supposed overpopulation with one stroke! Hey, VHEMT, have we got a concept for you!)

  Whether or not these dolts manage to kill us all, either by deliberate action or through sheer incompetence, it’s hard to escape the notion that we are approaching the edge of some profound historical moment that will have far-reaching, literally life and death consequences, both domestically and internationally. In the period preceding World War I how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed—and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?

  Which brings us to my parting admonitions to your predecessors in this seminar, which I see no need to change:

  My young friends, the impact any one of us can expect to have in the face of world-historic trends before which the fates of nations and empires fly like leaves in the autumn winds is vanishingly small. Already baked into the cake will be, I believe, hardships for you that we’ve become accustomed to think only happen to “other people” in “other countries” far away, not seen here since the Revolution and the Civil War, or maybe in isolated instances during the Great Depression: financial and economic disruption and, in some places, especially in urban areas, collapse; supply chains, utilities, and other aspects of basic infrastructure ceasing to function (what happens in major cities when food deliveries stop for a week?), even widespread hunger; rising levels of violence, both criminality and civil strife. These will be combined, paradoxically, with the remaining organs of authority, however discredited, desperately cracking down on the enemy within – no, not on murderers, robbers, and rapists, but on “science deniers,” “religious fanatics,” “haters,” “conspiracy theorists,” “insurrectionists,” “gun nuts,” “purveyors of “medical misinformation,” Russian or Chinese “stooges,” and, of course, “racists,” “sexists,” “homophobes,” and so forth. It’s the late Samuel Francis’ “anarcho-tyranny” nightmare come to life with a vengeance.

  Nevertheless, for what it is worth, I put before you three practical tasks for your consideration.

  Firstly, be vigilant against deception, in a day when assuredly evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. Admittedly, this is a tough one, given the ever-present lying that surrounds us and the suppression of dissent. Try to sift truth from falsehood but don’t become obsessed because, in many cases, you won’t be able to be sure anyway. Focus most on what’s proximate to you and on the people most important to you. … Be skeptical – about everyone. … There may be a cost. As Solzhenitsyn said, “He who chooses the lie as his principle inevitably chooses violence as his method.”

  Secondly, as stewards of every worldly charge placed on us by God and by other people—as fathers and mothers, as husbands and wives, as sons and daughters, as neighbors, as students, as workers, as citizens, as patriots—we must prudently care for those to whom we have a duty within the limited power and wisdom allotted to us. Start with yourselves. Be as self-sufficient as possible. Get involved in your community; that leftist slogan is actually a good one: think globally, act locally. Befriend your neighbors. Learn a real skill – electricity, plumbing, carpentry. Farm! Don’t go to law school, for goodness’ sake. Get in shape. Eat and sleep right. Have plenty of the essentials: food, fuel, gold, ammunition. Learn to shoot. Limit computer and phone time. Experience nature. Cultivate healthy personal relationships – real ones, not virtual ones. Marry young, have kids, lots of them – especially women, don’t get seduced by all that “career” nonsense. Nobody on his or her deathbed ever said, “Gosh, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Read old books. Cultivate virtue. Go to church.

  Simply being what used to be considered normal and leading a productive life is becoming the most revolutionary act one can perform. With that in mind, find the strength to be revolutionaries indeed! In the face of the culture of death and extinction, choose to affirm life.

  You’ve seen the meme: Hard times create strong men; Strong men create good times; Good times create weak men; Weak men create hard times. Well, take it from the weakling Boomer generation that brought them to you: the hard times, they is a-coming. But they won’t last forever. If you live through them – and some of you will not – we’ll see what possibilities, as of now literally unimaginable, might then exist. But you will need to be personally fit to take advantage of them. You will also need to be part of some kind of sustainable community of likeminded people.

  Thirdly, for those of you who are believers, particularly Christians, we must pray without ceasing, firm in faith that, through whatever hardships may lie ahead, even the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and the final triumph of Truth is never in doubt.

  Thank you, and good luck. You’re going to need it.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:45

• China Launching $40 Billion Investment Fund To Subsidize Its Semiconductor Industry
  China Launching $40 Billion Investment Fund To Subsidize Its Semiconductor Industry

  It looks as though the competition in semiconductors between the U.S. and China is only getting started.

  And hey, when it doubt: nationalize the industry! That seems to be China’s strategy after it was announced this week that Beijing is going to be launching a new, $40 billion investment fund backed by the government, to help boost and subsidize its semiconductor industry. 

  This investment will be the largest of three that have been launched by China’s “Big Fund”, the nickname for the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, according to Yahoo Finance. Its focus is going to be on “investment on equipment used in manufacturing advanced chips”.

  Other “Big Fund” funds were launched in 2014 and 2019, with funding provided by companies like China Development Bank Capital, China National Tobacco Corp. and China Telecom. 

  

  Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Semiconductor have been beneficiaries of the “Big Fund” in the past, as has flash memory chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies, Yahoo reports. 

  The fundraising process “may take months”, according to the report, and it is unclear when China may launch the fund. 

  China is aiming to be self-reliant when it comes to chipmaking at the same time the U.S. has tried to limit the country from accessing advanced chips. 

  Chinese President Xi Jinping’s domestic push for semiconductors comes after the U.S. government’s CHIPS act was launched, providing $39 billion in manufacturing subsidies specifically targeting high end chip production in the U.S.

  The global semiconductor industry remains weighed down by regulation: as of now China has imposed restrictions on Micron and the U.S. has put into place export controls that have caused some companies difficulty in selling to China.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:25

• "It's Just Bizarre That Some People Still Want COVID Measures…"
  “It’s Just Bizarre That Some People Still Want COVID Measures…”

  Commentary by Anthony Furey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Let’s start off with a little pop quiz. Please read this headline from CTV News and tell me the year the story was published: “Ontario will not require masks in schools this fall despite uptick in COVID cases.”

  

  I’d like to think that it is from 2021, and that while people were still relatively concerned about the virus, the government determined that it should be up to parents whether or not their kids wore masks in class.

  Alas, this is not true. Ontario still mandated masks at that time.

  OK, so it must be fall of 2022 then? That sounds about right, because it is true that there were no mask mandates in Ontario schools at that point and the majority of kids chose not to wear them.

  It’s not from then, though. This is a news headline from just the other day—September 2023. Why is this considered news? Why is a media outlet even reporting about COVID and schools right now? Was the government even considering a mask mandate?

  These were all good questions that people asked on social media after the story went live. The last one is probably the most important one, because it would be very worrisome if the government was in fact considering such a mandate.

  “As is the case with every jurisdiction in Canada, masks will not be required in Ontario schools,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in an emailed statement to CTV. He then went on to talk about ventilation measures in the classrooms.

  Lecce did not give a press conference on this issue. The ministry didn’t even send out their own press release. While the story doesn’t spell this out, it seems like the intrepid reporter randomly asked the Education Ministry this question out of the blue for the sole purpose of writing this story. The fact that Lecce’s statement began with a nod to how nowhere else is doing this can probably be interpreted as a bit of an eyeroll at the news outlet for even asking the question in the first place. Good.

  It’s just bizarre that some people still want COVID measures right now, and the sprinkling of news stories currently cropping up seem to just play to that increasingly small and oddball base.

  A recent Toronto Star story discussed how small businesses are nervous about having to potentially face COVID restrictions this coming fall and winter. But the business advocates they quoted were just responding to random hypothetical questions put to them. It’s not like there was any government official or credible medical voice who was saying such things were in the works. It’s an entirely manufactured narrative at this point.

  The unfortunate part is that while most people won’t even notice these stories and just go about their daily lives, there will be a small number of people needlessly alarmed and frightened by them.

  Now I’m aware that my simply writing this column is in some ways playing into the efforts of those voices trying to get the COVID band back together again. They clearly want people talking about it as much as possible, even if it’s in opposition to them, just to get the discussion ramped up again. The best response is really just to totally ignore them and the whole narrative.

  One thing that we still haven’t received, though, is accountability when it comes to those who were so horribly wrong. Last fall, some alleged experts tried to claim that the back-to-school season would be a disaster without restrictions and children would suffer greatly from COVID. That didn’t at all come close to happening. So if you were an expert before you made such grandiose predictions—ones that came with calls to restrict the lives of children—the consensus should be that you are no longer an expert. Instead, too many people were encouraged to say ridiculous things and there was no follow-up to check in on how wrong they were.

  The good news, however, is pretty much everyone has tuned out all of this noise by now.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 23:05

• EU To Seize On Xi, Putin Absence At G20 To Woo Africa Closer
  EU To Seize On Xi, Putin Absence At G20 To Woo Africa Closer

  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s absence from the upcoming G20 Summit in New Delhi likely has a number of Western heads of state breathing a sigh of relief, given some sensitive agendas could more easily gain consensus in their absence.

  China’s new premier, Li Qiang, is taking Xi’s place, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is representing Russia. EU officials will reportedly move to endorse the African Union’s bid to become a permanent member of Group of 20, while presenting themselves as the more stable path forward when it comes to Africa investment and engagement.

  

  Bloomberg has reported that this will be the goal of a high-level meeting with African leaders on the summit’s sidelines. This comes at a very sensitive moment for Europe given the coup events in Niger.

  More broadly, the past years have witnessed a series of junta governments come to power voicing anti-colonial sentiment, aimed particularly at France. 

  Russia and China have at the same time made deep inroads across the continent, offering investment, infrastructure and security agreements as a favorable alternative to “Western hegemony”. Bloomberg details based on diplomatic sources: 

  Among those due to take part are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. From the African side, participants will include leaders from G-20 member South Africa as well as from Egypt, Nigeria and the Comoros, current chair of the African Union, the people said.

  What’s being billed as a “mini-summit” takes place as competition intensifies for global influence amid a US-China standoff and divisions over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

  If it goes through, this would result in the African Union having the same status as the EU (of “permanent membership”, rather than merely “invited international organization”).

  Bloomberg further says that G20 summit host PM Narendra Modi is behind the plan: 

  Among the goals of their meeting in India on Sept. 9, European leaders want to endorse the African Union’s bid to become a permanent G-20 member, according to the people. Giorgia Meloni of Italy was among those leading on the AU’s G-20 membership at the last G-7 in Japan, while it is also a priority of this week’s summit host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

  Map of African countries that have signed military agreements with Russia pic.twitter.com/CKlAC9zePv

  — The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) August 3, 2023

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

  But lest this be seen simplistically an ‘east vs. west’ issue, Russia in June said it backs the AU becoming a permanent part of the G20. Lavrov specifically said it has the “active backing” of Moscow.

  Of course, this entails contrasting visions for the path of African states, given also President Putin has recently said Russia and Africa are going to “combat neo-colonialism, the practice of applying illegitimate sanctions, and attempts to undermine traditional moral values,” according to Russian media. But at least for this year’s G20, the West will have the upper-hand of engagement given their heads of state, including President Joe Biden, will be there, but not Xi or Putin… a first in a long time.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:45

• This Is How Bad Things Have Become In America…
  This Is How Bad Things Have Become In America…

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  Can you imagine what tourists must think when they come to this country? 

  They spend a lot of money to fly all the way over here, and they are hoping to have amazing experiences that they will always remember.  But instead, they quickly realize that the cities that they have come to see are rapidly degenerating.  Today, our major cities are filthy, they are teeming with predators, and violent crime is completely out of control. 

  

  Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  New York City is the financial capital of the world, and millions of tourists still visit each year.  But now the Big Apple has such an enormous rat problem “that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry”…

  As the city grapples with a major rat problem – sightings doubled last year, prompting the mayor to advertise for a “somewhat bloodthirsty” head rat-catcher in December – the rodent issue is, according to some, New York’s latest must-experience trend.

  As visitors to New York demand rat action, some of the city’s tour guides have started to add stops at notoriously infested sites, the New York Post reported this week.

  It means that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry.

  One study concluded that there are about 3 million rats in New York City today.

  And with each passing day, the population grows even larger.

  The east coast may have rats, but if you want to really have an experience with the crime wave that is sweeping across America the best place to do that is the west coast.

  Some tourists from Malta recently found that out the hard way. 

  When they visited a beach in the San Francisco area, they had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicles within just 10 minutes…

  Numerous groups of tourists visiting a beach in San Francisco had all their belongings stolen from their cars, including their passports, while at the ocean for just minutes.

  On their second day in San Francisco, a group of tourists from Malta contemplated cutting their trip short and returning to Europe after the brazen smash and grab that occurred in broad daylight within a mere 10-minute window.

  Another group from Europe was able to top that.

  They had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicle within just 5 minutes…

  At the same beach, another European family enjoying a day by the ocean fell prey to a car break-in.

  Shocking footage captured by Matty Lopez on Instagram and shared by journalist Arisley T. Pacheco, who documents robbery victims, revealed their car’s trunk vandalized, with shattered glass scattered across the ground.

  The man recording the video questions the tourists, ‘So what happened – you went to the beach for five minutes?’ Their response is disheartening: ‘They took everything we had – passports, cameras, phones, iPads, laptops, luggage – everything.’

  Whether we like it or not, this is our country now.

  Once upon a time, Beverly Hills was world famous for the luxury retailers that lined Wilshire Boulevard.

  But now many of those iconic retailers have shut down permanently due to rising crime…

  A new video documenting the growing number of high-profile stores in Beverly Hills that have closed recently, places renewed emphasis on the crisis facing the retail sector in most major cities.

  The video, posted by an account called cody90210, shows some 11 popular Beverly Hills retail stops now entirely shuttered, including the iconic former Barneys location, Brooks Brothers, All Saints, and the high-end women’s fashion boutique Escada. Both Escada and Barneys filed for bankruptcy in recent years.

  The closed shops, which also include convenience retailers like Rite Aid and Chipotle, and even popular workout class option SoulCycle, have shuttered their doors on Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the area bereft of its former appeal. Their sad decline marks a departure from the area’s lengthy heyday, which even saw band Weezer pen a song with the lyrics ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be.’

  I don’t know why anyone would want to live in southern California at this point.

  Earlier today, I came across a story about a street vendor in south Los Angeles that was viciously assaulted by a group of thugs in broad daylight “in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter”…

  A group of masked males brutally attacked a street vendor in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter and stole all his money in south Los Angeles over the weekend, KTLA-TV reported.

  These criminals have no respect for anyone or anything.

  They just want to take what you have.

  Of course this isn’t just a west coast phenomenon.  In Washington D.C., carjackings are up more than 100 percent so far this year…

  Washington D.C. has witnessed a staggering 670 reported carjackings in 2023 so far, representing 100 percent+ increase in the offense across the U.S. Capitol compared to the same period last year. The city’s Democrat-dominated city council, however, remains on vacation until September 15 and has shown no signs of trying to return early to solve the matter. In 2018, there were 140 carjackings, jumping to 360 by 2020, with total of 485 in 2022. The city has also seen a 113 percent increase in carjackings involving a firearm compared to 2022. A total of 513 incidents involved a gun, representing 77 percent of all D.C. carjackings. Only 157 incidents did not involve a firearm.

  Things are even worse in Baltimore.

  One young mother in the city that recently spoke to FOX45 News is deeply frustrated because she can’t seem to find a way to keep her 14-year-old daughter from stealing cars…

  As another school year begins, a Baltimore mom isn’t scheduling after-school activities for her 14-year-old daughter; instead, she’s scheduling court appearances and trying to figure out what – if anything – will get her daughter to stop stealing cars and follow the rules of her home detention.

  Rae spoke with FOX45 News about her 14-year-old daughter on the condition of not using her last name or showing her face on camera. In return, Rae spoke candidly about her daughter’s behavior, experience with police, and the Department of Juvenile Services.

  Apparently this 14-year-old girl is really good at stealing vehicles, and authorities refuse to keep her locked up because she is not an adult.

  Hopefully she will find a way to turn her life around.

  But the reality of the matter is that there are millions of others just like her.

  Our cities are being overwhelmed by hordes of young people that are totally out of control, and meanwhile police departments are shrinking.

  In fact, some small towns have eliminated their police departments entirely because it has become so difficult to find people that are willing to serve in this environment…

  America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the two-fold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. From Minnesota to Maine, Ohio to Texas, small towns unable to fill jobs are eliminating their police departments and turning over police work to their county sheriff, a neighboring town or state police.

  What is going to happen if the number of police continues to shrink but the number of criminals continues to rise?

  I think that we all know the answer to that question.

  Great chaos is coming to this country, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

  Our society has been trending the wrong way for a long time, and now we have reached a major tipping point.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:25

• "Betrayed Customer Base": Backlash Erupts After Gun Safe Company Gives FBI Customer's Passcode 
  “Betrayed Customer Base”: Backlash Erupts After Gun Safe Company Gives FBI Customer’s Passcode 

  Liberty Safe, one of the leading gun safe manufacturers in the country, provided FBI agents with the combination of a safe belonging to an individual who attended the J6 protest, according to the Washington Examiner. This sparked instant backlash on social media among conservatives, calling for a ‘Bud Light-style’ boycott of the ‘not so safe’ company.

  Days ago, conservative comedians and YouTubers Keith and Kevin Hodge shared a lengthy post on X about a friend whom the Feds raided over “crimes related to January 6th.” They said the FBI could access his Liberty Gun Safe because agents called the manufacturer for the passcode.  

  🚨 Last week, a friend of ours was raided by the feds over J6, his name is Nathan Hughes and he’s from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Nate was raided by the FBI and arrested at gun point. His girlfriend (who just had a miscarriage) was held at gun point and put in handcuffs. The FBI… pic.twitter.com/LOpMQ28eUJ

  — Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) September 5, 2023

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

  Liberty Safe stated on platform X, “Our company’s standard procedure is to share access codes with law enforcement when presented with a legitimate warrant for a property.”

  The statement continued, “After receiving the request, we received proof of the valid warrant, and only then did we provide them with an access code.”

  pic.twitter.com/UD6gxErzHV

  — Liberty Safe (@libertysafeinc) September 6, 2023

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

  Liberty Safe further noted that its policies are regularly updated to comply with the law and remain committed to “preserving our customers’ rights.” 

  … and conservatives were livid with Liberty Safe for complying with the FBI’s order:

  Liberty Safe = Bud light. https://t.co/okeXSRSFNP

  — Catturd ™ (@catturd2) September 6, 2023

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  Liberty Not So Safe https://t.co/Qs3YV2NMW7

  — Ashley St. Clair (@stclairashley) September 6, 2023

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

  They finally shut replies off.

  This company is going under.

  Totally betrayed customer base. It’s impossible to earn back that trust. They had a moral duty to protect customers, and instead placated feds through a secret back door. Ugly, ugly stuff. https://t.co/xUtoH2IiaZ

  — Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) September 6, 2023

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

  And one more thing: absent a court order, you weren’t required to give them anything. You voluntarily gave out a combination over a warrant, per your own release, that didn’t apply to you or your property.

  Maybe start marketing your stuff as Bud Light storage. https://t.co/6YN0BDEGZd

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 6, 2023

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

  Hmmm. 

  i dont care that liberty safe gave the code to the feds

  i care that they had the codes in the first place

  Liberty safes are completely worthless https://t.co/Rn562z3NYH

  — Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 6, 2023

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

  Customers who own these safes and others should read the fine print of who can gain access to their safes.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 22:05

• Republicans Reject Motions To Dismiss Impeachment Articles Against Texas AG Ken Paxton
  Republicans Reject Motions To Dismiss Impeachment Articles Against Texas AG Ken Paxton

  Authored by Jana J. Pruet via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Texas Senate chamber was turned into a courtroom for the historic impeachment trial of state Attorney General Ken Paxton, which kicked off Tuesday morning at the state Capitol in Austin, Texas.

  

  After the swearing-in of the 30 senators who will decide whether or not to remove Mr. Paxton from office, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick began ticking off the pretrial motions before hearing opening statements.

  Mr. Paxton was impeached on 20 articles in late May by the GOP-led House of Representatives in a vote of 121–23. He is only the third sitting official to be impeached in the state’s nearly 200-year history. The last impeachment case was more than a century ago.

  The articles of impeachment include allegations of abuse of power and bribery, among others. Mr. Paxton and his lawyers have maintained that all of the accusations are false.

  The suspended attorney general is known as one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state of Texas. He has filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the Biden administration since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

  Dozens of Paxton supporters wearing red shirts showed up to witness the proceedings.

  Pretrial Motions

  The first half of the day was spent handling dozens of pretrial motions to dismiss the articles of impeachment, exclude certain evidence, and other matters as filed by Mr. Paxton’s legal team—all were denied.

  A simple majority, 16 of the 30 voting members, was needed to approve each of the motions. The most support Mr. Paxton received was 10 votes of 30 to dismiss one article. Many of the motions only garnered six to eight votes in Mr. Paxton’s favor.

  Mr. Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, watched from her Senate seat as the proceedings against her husband began. She is barred from voting or participating in the trial, according to the rules approved earlier this summer.

  Of the Senate Republicans, only six voted in support of Paxton to dismiss every article. They were Sens. Paul Bettencourt, Donna Campbell, Brandon Creighton, Bob Hall, Lois Kolkhorst, and Tan Parker.

  Five other Republicans voted to dismiss at least one of the motions: Sens. Bryan Hughes, Charles Perry, Charles Schwertner, and Kevin Sparks.

  The remaining Republicans, Sens. Brian Birdwell, Pete Flores, Kelly Hancock, Joan Huffman, Mayes Middleton, Robert Nichols, and Drew Springer, voted against every motion alongside the 12 Senate Democrats.

  In a summary judgment, Mr. Paxton’s attorneys argued that all of the impeachment articles lacked supporting evidence and, therefore, should be dismissed.

  The senators denied the first motion to dismiss all 20 articles in a vote of 24–6.

  In a win for Mr. Paxton, he was granted a request to preclude him from testifying, citing a defendent’s right not to be called as a witness in a criminal trial.

  “The attorney general cannot be compelled to testify,” Mr. Patrick stated, adding that the decision is “consistent with the reasoning and judgment” of the United States Supreme Court.

  Mr. Patrick also laid out the timing for the trial. Each side will be allowed one hour for opening and closing statements and 24 hours for each side to present evidence, questioning, and cross-examination of witnesses. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

  

  House Impeachment Managers’ Opening Statements

  House Rep. Andrew Murr presented the opening statements for House impeachment managers who say Mr. Paxton should be removed from office despite being re-elected to a third term in November.

  House impeachment managers have accused Mr. Paxton of using his position to protect real estate investor Nate Paul, who they claim had the “keys” to the attorney general’s office.

  They allege Mr. Paul helped Mr. Paxton cover up an extramarital affair and paid for a home renovation in exchange for the attorney general’s legal help.

  “Voters did not know the whole truth.” Mr. Murr said. “Mr. Paxton went to great lengths to hide his misconduct from the public.”

  Mr. Murr spent less than 20 minutes citing impeachable actions that included accusations that Mr. Paxton used burner phones, “ditched” his security detail, and set up secret email addresses to cover up his alleged misconduct.

  He claims the evidence will show Mr. Paxton’s “slow creep of corruption,” adding that the attorney general’s conduct does not have to be proven criminal for him to be removed from office.

  “We don’t have to show some type of quid pro quo to establish that his conduct warrants impeachment,” Mr. Murr said. “Wrongs justifying impeachment don’t have to be crimes. Wrongs justifying the impeachment are broader than that because they have the purpose of protecting the state, not punishing the offender.”

  Opening Statements for Paxton

  High-profile Houston attorney Tony Buzbee called the entire case a “whole lot of nothing” supported by no evidence.

  Mr. Buzbee and defense attorney Dan Cogdell used nearly their full hour pushing back against the accusations they say will be disproven beyond a reasonable doubt.

  They accused the media of fueling the falsehoods against their client and said the gag order issued by Mr. Patrick prevented them from responding to the “manufactured lies” leveled against their client.

  Now, the House wants 30 people to decide whether Mr. Paxton is allowed to serve his office despite the more than 4.2 million who re-elected him less than a year ago. Mr. Buzbee said.

  Mr. Buzbee pointed out the speedy impeachment process that occurred four days after Mr. Paxton called for House Speaker Dade Phelan’s resignation over accusations of drunkenness while presiding on the floor.

  The lawyer also pushed back against accusations that Mr. Paul gave a job to the woman Mr. Paxton allegedly was having an affair with, adding that they would present the woman’s job application, employee contract, and paystubs to disprove the allegations of bribery. He said the woman was hired to do real work and that she is still employed in that position.

  “You’re going to see her face,” Mr. Buzbee said. “You’re going to hear about the work that she did. And you’re also going to hear that she continues to do that work today. She’s doing real work.”

  He said the accusations of burner phones, secret email addresses, and other actions are false.

  Mr. Buzbee said his team will present evidence that the Paxtons paid for the repairs to their home after it sustained water damage. He said the chatter of $20,000 granite countertops is completely untrue, adding that the home still has “ratty” countertops after the couple shopped for new countertops but ultimately decided against them due to costs.

  House impeachment managers also accused the attorney general of hiring Brandon Cammack, a Houston lawyer, to investigate Mr. Paul’s “baseless complaint” that his home and businesses were improperly searched by federal officials. Mr. Buzbee said Mr. Paxton was within his rights to hire the outside lawyer.

  After wrapping up the opening statements, House impeachment managers called their first witness, Jeff Mateer. Mr. Mateer was second-in-command in Mr. Paxton’s office prior to his resignation in 2020, following his meeting with the FBI regarding the relationship between Mr. Paxton and Mr. Paul.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:45

• Philly PD Commissioner Danielle Outlaw To Resign Amidst Ongoing Crime Wave
  Philly PD Commissioner Danielle Outlaw To Resign Amidst Ongoing Crime Wave

  In what’ll likely come as a welcome relief to the city of Philadelphia, its police commissioner Danielle Outlaw – who has overseen years of surging crime, property destruction and violent attacks in the Northeast city – has had enough and is stepping down.

  She’s leaving her role in Philadelphia for “a new job with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey”, according to Fox News. 

  After overseeing a massive crime wave in Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney praised her work in the city, focusing not on the merits of her work (of which there are few), but her “reform” of “racism and gender discrimination”, stating: “Commissioner Outlaw has worked relentlessly for three and a half years during an unprecedented era in our city and a number of crisis situations, and she deserves praise for her commitment to bring long-overdue reform to the Department after years of racism and gender discrimination prior to her appointment.” 

  And why not focus on the merits of her work? Fox News broke it down:

  Crime data from the Philadelphia Police Department shows there has been a 21% drop in homicides this year to date compared to the same day in 2021, when the city recorded 562 homicides throughout the year. 

  But prior to Outlaw leading the department, the data shows Philadelphia annually recorded between 246 to 391 homicides each year between 2007 and 2019.

  In 2020, when she took over, there were 499 homicides, followed by 562 in 2021 and 516 in 2022.

  

  Her last day will be September 22, and she will then become Deputy Chief Security Officer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

  Outlaw, formerly the police chief of Portland during a time of “mass political protests”, was appointed to lead Philadelphia’s police at just 43 years old by Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney. “While I am new to Philadelphia, I am not new to the challenges of big-city, 21st century policing,” she said upon her appointment. 

  “I am appointing Danielle Outlaw because I am convinced she has the conviction, courage, and compassion needed to bring long-overdue reform to the Department,” Kenney had said at the time. 

  He continued: “With our support, she will tackle a host of difficult issues, from racism and gender discrimination, to horrid instances of sexual assault on fellow officers. These are issues that too often negatively impact women — especially women of color — within the Department. Commissioner Outlaw will implement reforms with urgency, so that racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination are not tolerated.”

  It doesn’t seem like any public officials are actually interested in their jobs in Philadelphia – perhaps, rather, just collecting their pensions. Recall in 2022 we wrote when Mayor Kenney said he was “looking forward to the time he will no longer lead the city”.

  When being interviewed by Fox 29’s Chris O’Connell, Kenney let it slip that he’s looking forward to no longer being mayor: “Everything we have in the city, over the last seven years, I worry about. I don’t enjoy the Fourth of July, I don’t enjoy the Democratic National Convention, I didn’t enjoy the NFL Draft. I’m waiting for something bad to happen all the time. I’ll be happy when I’m not here – when I’m not mayor and I can enjoy some stuff.” 

  Two peas in a productivity pod…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:25

• 3 Reasons There's Something Sinister With The Big Push For Electric Vehicles
  3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With The Big Push For Electric Vehicles

  Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

  25 refrigerators.

  That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs).

  

  Congressman Thomas Massie – an electrical engineer – revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030.

  The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load.

  Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread adoption of electric vehicles anytime soon is a dangerous fantasy based on political science, not sound engineering.

  Nonetheless, governments, the media, academia, large corporations, and celebrities tout an imminent “transition” to EVs as if it’s preordained from above.

  It’s not.

  They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

  Below are three reasons why something sinister is going on with the big push for EVs.

  But first, a necessary clarification.

  You no doubt have heard of the term “fossil fuels” before.

  When the average person hears “fossil fuels,” they think of a dirty technology that belongs in the 1800s. Many believe they are burning dead dinosaurs to power their cars.

  They also think “fossil fuels” will destroy the planet within a decade and run out soon—despite the fact that, after water, oil is the second most abundant liquid on this planet.

  None of these ridiculous notions are true, but many people believe them. Using propaganda terms like “fossil fuels” plays a large role.

  Orwell was correct when he said that corrupting the language can corrupt people’s thoughts.

  I suggest expunging “fossil fuels” from your vocabulary in favor of hydrocarbons—a much better and more precise word.

  A hydrocarbon is a molecule made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms. These molecules are the building blocks of many different substances, including energy sources like coal, oil, and gas. These energy sources have been the backbone of the global economy for decades, providing power for industries, transportation, and homes.

  Now, on to the three reasons EVs are a giant scam at best and possibly something much worse.

  Reason #1: EVs Are Not Green

  The central premise for EVs is they help to save the planet from carbon because they use electricity instead of gas.

  It’s astounding so few think to ask, what generates the electricity that powers EVs?

  Hydrocarbons generate over 60% of the electricity in the US. That means there’s an excellent chance that oil, coal, or gas is behind the electricity charging an EV.

  It’s important to emphasize carbon is an essential element for life on this planet. It’s what humans exhale and what plants need to survive.

  After decades of propaganda, Malthusian hysterics have created a twisted perception in many people’s minds that carbon is a dangerous substance that must be reduced to save the planet.

  Let’s entertain this bogus premise momentarily and assume carbon is bad.

  Even by this logic, EVs do not really reduce carbon emissions; they just rearrange them.

  Further, extracting and processing the exotic materials needed to make EVs requires tremendous power in remote locations, which only hydrocarbons can provide.

  Additionally, EVs require an enormous amount of rare elements and metals—like lithium and cobalt—that companies mine in conditions that couldn’t remotely be considered friendly to the environment.

  Analysts estimate that each EV requires around one kilogram of rare earth elements. Extracting and processing these rare elements produces a massive amount of toxic waste. That’s why it mainly occurs in China, which doesn’t care much about environmental concerns.

  In short, the notion that EVs are green is laughable.

  It’s simply the thin patina of propaganda that governments need as a pretext to justify the astronomical taxpayer subsidies for EVs.

  Reason #2: EVs Can’t Compete Without Government Support

  For many years, governments have heavily subsidized EVs through rebates, sales tax exemptions, loans, grants, tax credits, and other means.

  According to the Wall Street Journal, US taxpayers will subsidize EVs by at least $393 billion in the coming years—more than the GDP of Hong Kong.

  To put that in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 12,677 YEARS to make $393 billion.

  And that’s not even considering the immense subsidies and government support that have occurred in the past.

  Furthermore, governments impose burdensome regulations and taxes on gasoline vehicles to make EVs seem relatively more attractive.

  Even with this enormous government support, EVs can barely compete with gasoline vehicles.

  According to J.D. Power, a consumer research firm, the average EV still costs at least 21% more than the average gasoline vehicle.

  Without government support, it’s not hard to see how the market for EVs would evaporate as they would become unaffordable for the vast majority of people.

  In other words, the EV market is a giant mirage artificially propped up by extensive government intervention.

  It begs the question, why are governments going all out to push an obviously uneconomic scam?

  While they are undoubtedly corrupt thieves and simply stupid, something more nefarious could also be at play.

  Reason #3: EVs Are About Controlling You

  EVs are spying machines.

  They collect an unimaginable amount of data on you, which governments can access easily.

  Analysts estimate that cars generate about 25 gigabytes of data every hour.

  Seeing how governments could integrate EVs into a larger high-tech control grid doesn’t take much imagination. The potential for busybodies—or worse—to abuse such a system is obvious.

  Consider this.

  The last thing any government wants is an incident like what happened with the Canadian truckers rebelling against vaccine mandates.

  Had the Canadian truckers’ vehicles been EVs, the government would have been able to stamp out the resistance much easier.

  Here’s the bottom line.

  The people really in charge do not want the average person to have genuine freedom of movement or access to independent power sources.

  They want to know everything, keep you dependent, and have the ability to control everything, just like how a farmer would with his cattle. They think of you in similar terms.

  That’s why gasoline vehicles have to go and why they are trying to herd us into EVs.

  Conclusion

  To summarize, EVs are not green, cannot compete with gas cars without enormous government support, and are probably a crucial piece of the emerging high-tech control grid.

  The solution is simple: eliminate all government subsidies and support and let EVs compete on their own merits in a totally free market.

  But that’s unlikely to happen.

  Instead, it’s only prudent to expect them to push EVs harder and harder.

  If EVs were simply government-subsidized status symbols for wealthy liberals who want to virtue signal how they think they’re saving the planet, that would be bad enough.

  But chances are, the big push for EVs represents something much worse.

  Along with 15-minute cities, carbon credits, CBDCs, digital IDs, phasing out hydrocarbons and meat, vaccine passports, an ESG social credit system, and the war on farmers, EVs are likely an integral part of the Great Reset—the dystopian future the global elite has envisioned for mankind.

  In reality, the so-called Great Reset is a high-tech form of feudalism.

  Sadly, most of humanity has no idea what is coming.

  Worse, many have become unwitting foot soldiers for this agenda because they have been gaslighted into believing they are saving the planet or acting for the greater good.

  This trend is already in motion… and the coming weeks will be pivotal.

  That’s precisely why I just released an urgent report on where this is all headed and what you can do about it… including three strategies everyone needs today. Click here to download the PDF now.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 21:05

• Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System
  Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System

  The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) declared a statewide lockdown of all its correctional facilities on Wednesday morning, citing increased contraband-related incidents and drug-related inmate homicides.

  TDCJ said most inmate-on-inmate homicides “are tied back to illegal drugs … and over the last five years, the volume of illegal narcotics entering the system has substantially increased.”

  In response to the drug and murder epidemic in Texas jails, TDCJ is implementing the following strategies to restore order:

  • Systemwide Lockdown: Each facility will limit the movement of inmates and their contact with those outside the prison. Inmates and staff will undergo intensified searches to intercept and confiscate contraband.

  • Digital Mail: TDCJ is completing the rollout of the digital mail program. Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in paper soaked in K2 or methamphetamines coming into our facilities. The digital mail program will halt this contraband being sent through traditional mail. Effective September 6, 2023, all inmate mail should be addressed and sent to the Digital Mail Center. All mail received this week will be delivered to the digital mail processing center. More information about this program can be found here: TDCJ News – TDCJ Digital Mail Rollout.

  • Increased K9 Searches and Other Technology: To assist in contraband detection and outside funding related to contraband, TDCJ will be deploying additional resources. Specialized search teams and narcotic dogs will be deployed to units and staff will be subject to enhanced search procedures.

  • Comprehensive Searches: All persons entering our facilities at all locations will undergo comprehensive searches.

  “Due to the fact staff will be concentrating on these search efforts, visitation will be canceled until further notice. Inmates will still have access to the phone system and tablets,” TDCJ said. 

  #TDCJ is taking swift & immediate action to address a rise in dangerous contraband & drug-related inmate homicides. The agency is implementing an immediate lockdown & comprehensive search of all correctional facilities within TDCJ. For more info, visit: https://t.co/E4ufaah3s2 pic.twitter.com/3YPwo1aRBH

  — TDCJ (@TDCJ) September 6, 2023

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

  Once the drug searches are over, normal operations will resume at correction facilities. No timeframe has been given. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:45

• California School To Pay $100,000 Settlement For Keeping 11-Year-Old's Gender Transition Secret
  California School To Pay $100,000 Settlement For Keeping 11-Year-Old’s Gender Transition Secret

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A California school district that was sued over allegations teachers and staff at Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, Calif., coached an 11-year-old girl to socially transition to a male gender identity settled with the girl and her mother for $100,000.

  

  The lawsuit, filed on June 14 last year, named Spreckels Union School District, the principal at the school, and two teachers as defendants.

  Jessica Konen, the child’s mother, came forward after a leaked audio recording revealed the two teachers telling other educators about how they secretly recruited students into the school’s LGBT club at a California Teachers Association weekend conference in Palm Springs in October 2021. The CTA event was billed as the “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities.” The two teachers were later suspended and no longer work in the district.

  Ms. Konen told The Epoch Times she’s relieved that a settlement has finally been reached.

  “It’s a massive victory across America for myself, for my daughter, and for other parents experiencing similar situations,” she said. “Our voices made a difference.”

  While she is grateful to the Center for American Liberty for taking on the pro-bono case, she said the battle for parental rights has only begun.

  “I just feel social transitioning done in secrecy is the real evil. We need to get rid of it, period. So, the fight must continue,” she said.

  Her daughter, Alicia Konen, who is now 16, echoed her mom’s sentiments, saying she’s ready to put the experience, which she described as “evil” and “horrible,” behind her.

  According to the Center for American Liberty and allegations in the lawsuit, Alicia was recruited to join an “Equality Club,” where she was taught about bisexuality, transgender identities, and other LGBT concepts when she was in the sixth grade.

  Alicia began to use a male name and pronouns and wore a chest binder under boy’s clothes.

  School staff finally called a meeting the last day before winter break during Alicia’s seventh grade year and demanded that Ms. Konen refer to her daughter by a male name and male pronouns, she said.

  “I was definitely intimidated,” she said.

  Ms. Konen recalls feeling awkward and stressed when she was tagging Alicia’s Christmas gifts.

  She wanted to be supportive to her daughter but wasn’t ready to call her by a male name and pronouns, so she wrote “Baby” and “Sweetheart” instead.

  “I was an emotional wreck trying to process everything. I was scared to mess up or to use the wrong pronouns,” she said. “I never used the male pronouns, and I never used the name.”

  Ms. Konen warned parents to “be vigilant,” talk to teachers, and pay attention to what’s happening at local school board meetings.

  

  “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to show your values and your opinions,” she said.

  She also urged parents to get more engaged in their children’s lives.

  “We need to fight for our kids, because if we don’t fight for our kids, they’ll fight for our kids,” she said. “Be close to your child, because somebody wants to get closer.”

  ‘I Wanted to Tell My Mom’

  Alicia’s social gender transition began when she went to see a school counselor because she was feeling depressed, she told The Epoch Times.

  “I was told by the counselor—it was brought up that I was sad because I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, and that’s kind of where it all started,” she said.

  Alicia was “pulled away” from her schoolwork, and the counselor who she said was working with the school to “socially transition kids,” put her on a Gender Support Plan, known as a GSP, which required school staff to use a male name and pronouns when referring to her, and to allow her to use the unisex teachers’ restroom instead of the girl’s facilities.

  “I was advised by the school not to tell my mom, and I was given articles on how to hide a social transition from my mom,” she said. “I was extremely confused, and honestly very scared. I wanted to tell my mom, and continually said I wanted to tell her, but I was encouraged to keep it a secret. … The school said that my mother wouldn’t support me.”

  But, throughout the ordeal which lasted for more than a year, Alicia believed her mom would support her no matter what.

  

  Alicia said she has felt better about herself since she left middle school and entered high school where she is “actually able to focus on my academics.”

  And she is comfortable with her gender.

  “I am 1,000 percent a girl. I am Alicia. That is who I am, and no one can ever change that,” she said. “I feel free finally. I feel like I’m not under control by anybody. I can finally move forward with my life and be happy.”

  The Konens hope their high-profile case will draw attention and encourage other families to challenge state and local school board policies that exclude parents from their children’s lives.

  “I think that throughout the country there will be a lot more coming forward, realizing that they were never alone,” Ms. Konen said. “There are people out there who are hurt.”

  The settlement means they’re both able to talk more freely about their experience and have considered writing a book.

  “It is a complete passion of mine to continue to spread awareness,” she said.

  Alicia said she feels “extremely bad,” for other children who were socially transitioned at school.

  “That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to come out and speak about this case, because I want to be a voice for the people who feel like they don’t have a voice.”

  Ms. Konen said the school staff took advantage of her daughter’s young mind and vulnerable state, which she called “a form of brainwashing,” and didn’t tell her that Alicia was having suicidal thoughts.

  If parents are kept in the dark about their children’s problems, they won’t be able to help support them or get them the therapy they need, she said.

  “It’s extremely dangerous,” Ms. Konen said, “What if something happens that is irreversible? … If a child only has the support of schools, what happens when they go home? What happens when they have those bad days? What happens when they’re confused at home?”

  The best way to prevent youth suicides is for school staff and parents to work together, Ms. Konen said.

  “If everyone’s included, then that is in the best interest of the child—not hiding it,” she said. “The secret stuff has to go.”

  A spokesperson for the Spreckels Union School District was not immediately available for comment.

  

  ‘Hard to Put a Dollar Value on It’

  Eric Sell, a civil rights attorney at the Center for American Liberty who represented the Konens, told The Epoch Times the school district settled the case based on the underlying allegations in the lawsuit but hasn’t admitted any fault or liability.

  “What happened to Alicia, Jessica is hard to quantify. It’s hard to put a dollar value on it,” he said.

  But the $100,000 settlement will serve as a deterrent for other school districts that continue “to propagate these policies and keep parents in the dark,” Mr. Sell said. “As far as we are aware, this is the first time a school district has had to pay a family money for secretly transitioning their kid behind their backs.”

  The Center for American liberty is interested in such cases because it has seen a systematic erosion of parental rights, “particularly by government actors and schools,” he said.

  The problem is “really apparent” in California in public schools where gender ideology is “infecting schools” and “pushing kids towards dangerous decisions and dangerous life paths,” he said.

  Children, who may or may not fully weigh all the consequences of their actions, are making decisions that can potentially lead to medicalization or surgery and irreversible damage to their own bodies, he said.

  “We’re seeing so much of this that … the Center for American Liberty has decided to focus some of its time and resources on combating this specific problem,” Mr. Sell said.

  He said “it’s absurd” that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued Chino Valley Unified School District over its parental notification policy requiring school staff to inform parents within a few days if their child changes his or her gender identity at school.

  “The Supreme Court has consistently held that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” states the Center for American Liberty on its website.

  “This includes the right to have a say in whether their children’s school socially transitions them to a different gender. Parents are denied that right when schools think they know better than parents how to raise their children and intentionally hide information from moms and dads.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:25

• Germany To More Than Triple Ammunition Purchases After Stockpile Depleted Through Ukraine 'Gifts'
  Germany To More Than Triple Ammunition Purchases After Stockpile Depleted Through Ukraine ‘Gifts’

  Amid the broader problem of Ukrainian frontlines not advancing against superior Russian artillery and vast mine fields, Europe has been scrambling to boost its military support to Kiev. But now the problem of Europe’s own diminishing defense supplies is being felt more than ever, as many predicted.

  On Wednesday German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said his country plans to drastically ramp up purchases of ammunition in 2024, in an effort to replenish Germany’s own stocks which were depleted by donations to Ukraine.

  “We aim to more than triple our spending on ammunition purchases in 2024,” he said in a speech before parliament, but without revealing further details.

  

  Ukrainian forces have been burning through shells at a much higher rate than Western countries can produce them. While Washington makes a nice show of pledging new billions to the Zelensky government, it only does limited good on the actual battlefield given more artillery and weapons cannot magically appear in only days.

  NATO countries starting months ago sounded the alarm over their own dwindling inventories, also at a moment the risk ever-remains that the Western alliance and Russia could enter a direct shooting war.

  But Germany and its European allies are working on a plan, as Reuters explains:

  Germany is in negotiations with the Netherlands and Denmark on the joint procurement of ammunition, a defence source told Reuters on Wednesday, as Western countries are scrambling to replenish stocks depleted by donations to Ukraine. Germany is in negotiations with the Netherlands and Denmark on the joint procurement of ammunition, a defence source told Reuters on Wednesday, as Western countries are scrambling to replenish stocks depleted by donations to Ukraine.

  “Germany is ready to open its framework contracts (for the procurement of ammunition) to our partners as Defence Minister Boris Pistorius pledged earlier this year,” the source said, without giving details on the kind of ammunition affected.

  Meanwhile, Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, has said in an interview given to Russian media that Ukraine is blowing through an estimated $100 million per day on the conflict.

  “There’s no accountability for the expenditures going on right now in Ukraine, […] but $100 million a day of spending is a lot in the minds of the American people, especially when they’re confronted with inflation. That’s real money to them,” Maloof said.

  Ukraine Money Train: Kyiv Spending $100 Million Per Day on War, Says Ousted Defence Ministerhttps://t.co/geuzseBTiR

  — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 5, 2023

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  He said that now former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov recently publicized the figure. “When he [Reznikov] comes up and starts making comments like that and we’re seeing the disasters that we are in, the question then arises, why are we continuing to fund this thing? We’re not seeing results. The West is not seeing results. Europe is saying the same thing,” Maloof added.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 20:05

• Judge Reinstates Georgia's Ban On Puberty Blockers, Hormone Therapies For Minors
  Judge Reinstates Georgia’s Ban On Puberty Blockers, Hormone Therapies For Minors

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

  A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Georgia’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors with gender dysphoria can be reinstated, citing a recent federal appeals court decision that upheld a similar Alabama law.

  

  U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, an appointee of President Joe Biden, had on Aug. 20 issued a preliminary injunction (pdf) temporarily halting Georgia’s ban, which was scheduled to take effect on July 1.

  She ruled that without an injunction, the plaintiffs, who are a group of parents with anonymous middle-school-aged transgender children, would experience “irreparable harm.” The judge stated that puberty blockers and hormone treatments had “been recommended by their health care providers in light of their individual diagnoses and mental health needs.”

  However, on the same day the injunction was ordered, the 11th Circuit of Appeals ruled that a similar ban in Alabama could proceed. The 11th Circuit hears appeals from Georgia as well.

  After the appeals court ruling, Alabama Attorney General Chris Carr urged Judge Geraghty to vacate her injunction.

  On Tuesday, Judge Geraghty put the injunction on hold pending a final decision in that case, saying it “rests on legal grounds that have been squarely rejected by the panel” in the Alabama case, but that further appeals in that matter were underway.

  Georgia’s ban encompasses two primary provisions: firstly, it bars minors from obtaining hormone replacement therapies and sex reassignment surgeries to address their gender dysphoria from licensed health care facilities. Secondly, it stipulates that medical providers who contravene this law risk losing their licenses.

  However, the initial complaint solely focused on hormone therapy and did not encompass any concerns related to surgery.

  The plaintiffs brought the lawsuit against the state in June. They contend that the ban infringes upon parents’ rights to make medical choices concerning the health and welfare of their children. It further alleges that the ban obstructs parents from obtaining suitable medical care for their children who are grappling with gender dysphoria.

  A spokesperson for Mr. Carr welcomed Judge Geraghty’s Tuesday ruling.

  “We are pleased with the court’s decision and will continue fighting to protect the health and well-being of Georgia’s children,” said Kara Richardson in a statement.

  In March, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, approved a state law that prohibits specific medical procedures and treatments for minors who suffer from gender dysphoria, which refers to the emotional distress experienced by some individuals who don’t feel their biological sex matches their “gender identity.”

  That law notes there’s been a “massive unexplained rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children over the past 10 years, with most of those experiencing this phenomenon being girls.”

  The Georgia law bars minors from undergoing transgender surgeries, although this aspect of the law was not under consideration in the case presided over by Judge Geraghty.

  Approximately six federal courts have issued injunctions against restrictions on what is commonly referred to as “gender-affirming care” for minors. Advocates assert that such care is deemed “medically necessary” as it can significantly reduce the risk of individuals experiencing gender dysphoria resorting to suicide.

  Opponents challenge the idea that transgender procedures definitively reduce suicide rates. A March research review, which focused solely on suicide likelihood, found inconclusive results.

  This uncertainty is due to a lack of control for the time elapsed after transgender procedures. Researchers suggest that individuals may experience an initial improvement in mental health, but over time, this effect could diminish, potentially leading to a return of pre-procedure levels of suicidal ideation.

  “There may be implications for the informed-consent process of gender-affirming treatment given the current lack of methodological robustness of the literature reviewed,” the study authors wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:45

• Gucci? A Wig Shop? Unprosecuted Crime, Economic Woes Turn Beverly Hills Into Ghost Town
  Gucci? A Wig Shop? Unprosecuted Crime, Economic Woes Turn Beverly Hills Into Ghost Town

  Residents of the upscale Southern California enclave of Beverly Hills are getting what they voted for, after a spate of looting has turned the liberal utopia into a virtual ghost town amid a souring economic backdrop that’s seen 11 popular shops entirely shuttered – including the iconic Barneys location.

  In review:

  Damn they robbed the Gucci store in Beverly Hills 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Tq3KBwc1Ct

  — Shannonnn sharpes Burner (PARODY Account) (@shannonsharpeee) August 1, 2023

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

  (not the first time)

  Then it was wigs…

  Across town in Glendale, thieves stole around $300,000 worth of merchandise from the Yves Saint Laurent store.

  Now, a viral TikTok video reveals the ghost town Beverly Hills has become.

  @cody90210 Its giving Recesion Core #santamonica #thirdstreetpromenade #thirdstreet #losangeles #recession2023 #recessioncore #bailout ♬ Love – Live From The Village – Keyshia Cole

  Other stores which have closed include Brooks Brothers, All Saints, and high-end women’s fashion store Escada, according to the Daily Mail, which notes that both Escada and Barneys have filed for bankruptcy in recent years.

  

  The closed shops, which also include convenience retailers like Rite Aid and Chipotle, and even popular workout class option SoulCycle, have shuttered their doors on Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the area bereft of its former appeal. Their sad decline marks a departure from the area’s lengthy heyday, which even saw band Weezer pen a song with the lyrics ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be.’

  The reasons for the ample number of closures vary, as many brands see a decrease in demand for in-person retail experiences, while others pivot business strategies following acquisitions by other brands. The downturned economy has also negatively impacted most brands, but especially those marketing luxury products. -Daily Mail

  Meanwhile, retailers in California are deailing with a major crime wave and District Attorneys who refuse to prosecute criminals.

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:25

• The Pentagon Wants To Affirm Your Gender Transition (But Not If You're Avoiding The Draft)
  The Pentagon Wants To Affirm Your Gender Transition (But Not If You’re Avoiding The Draft)

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  The costumed bureaucrats at the Pentagon we call “generals” have spent much of the last decade enthusiastically assisting three different administrations in “affirming” military employees who “transition” or consider themselves transgender.

  Openly identifying as transgender has been permitted in the US military since 2016 under the Obama administration. The Trump administration did not reverse this policy but took steps to limit the number of employees undergoing sex-change surgeries and other active efforts at “transitioning.”

  Since 2021, however, the Pentagon has returned to the earlier Obama-era policy of paying for surgeries, hormone usage, and related treatments requested by military employees. From 2007 to 2009, more than $3 million has been spent on surgeries, with and additional $12 million spent on related procedures.

  The Pentagon in recent years has fallen all over itself to pander to LGBT interest groups, as can be seen in this military recruitment video titled “Emma,” and in the fact that the Navy promoted as “non-binary” drag queen as the face of one of the Navy’s recruitment drives. 

  Given that the Pentagon has made it clear it is devoted to affirming these life choices among potential recruits, it would be reasonable to assume that the Pentagon rejects the idea that one’s “assigned sex” at birth has any objective meaning at all. After all, truly affirming the transgender ideology requires rejecting the notion that “men are men” or “women are women.” 

  That assumption would be wrong.

  

  When it comes to the military draft – which is presently inactive and called the “selective service program” – the military absolutely insists that “men are men.”

  In other words, the military wants to make sure no man can get out of the forced military service by claiming to be a woman. Thus, the Selective Service System (SSS) makes it quite clear that “the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment.”

  In other words, maintaining the interests of the empire trumps transgenderism. 

  In its FAQ on “who needs to register,” the SSS states:

  Selective Service bases the registration requirement on gender assigned at birth and not on gender identity or on gender reassignment. Individuals who are born male and changed their gender to female are still required to register. Individuals who are born female and changed their gender to male are not required to register.

  The legal authority is based on the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA), which does not address gender identify or transgender persons. In addition, Presidential Proclamation 4771 refers to “males” who were “born” on or after January 1, 1960. Thus, Selective Service interprets the MSSA as applying to gender at birth because Congress did not contemplate transgender persons or a person’s gender identity when it required on “males” to register when the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was passed and amended by the Selective Service Act of 1948 to create the Selective Service System. Until Congress amends the MSSA or passes a separate law addressing transsexuals and gender identity, Selective Service must follow the intent of Congress when it required only males to register—the registration requirement is based on gender at birth.

  In the event of a resumption of the draft, individuals born male who have changed their gender to female can file a claim for an exemption from military service if they receive an order to report for examination or induction.

  There are a couple of ways we can interpret this discrepancy.

  • One way is to note simply that Congress has been unwilling to change the definition of who is eligible to be drafted, regardless of White House policy Thus, even if the administration wants to “affirm” the claimed identities of transgender military employees, it can only do so much in terms of changing selective service policy. 

  • As second way of looking at this is to note that the regime’s toying around with transgender ideology issues comes to an abrupt halt when that ideology might threaten the regime’s prerogatives to force the maximum number of American men into military service. 

  Both interpretations are likely true.

  

  The “needs” of the empire always come before social-policy pandering to select interest groups.

  But it’s also true Congress appears unenthusiastic about explicitly changing SS policy. 

  It’s easy to see, however, how Washington could “fix” this apparent inconsistency in policy. We will likely hear more and more calls for the selective service to include women as well. It’s already moving in that direction. This removes the problem of insisting that everyone who is a male “at birth” register for the draft regardless of stated “identity.” Rather than debate  who is a man, it’s easier to simply force everyone to register for the draft.

  Certainly, we have no reason to expect Congress to go in the opposite direction and make it possible for men to avoid the draft simply by “identifying as a woman.”

  It’s exceedingly unlikely Republican hawks would risk giving such a wide-open loophole to men seeking to avoid being enslaved by the regime for a period of years as conscripts. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 19:05

• "They're Trying To Get Our IP" – Congressman Slams China's SMIC For Violating Chip Sanctions
  “They’re Trying To Get Our IP” – Congressman Slams China’s SMIC For Violating Chip Sanctions

  The Biden administration’s efforts to limit China’s access to high-tech semiconductor chips and advanced machinery for supercomputing and AI have yet to be successful. There is growing frustration in Washington this week after Bloomberg revealed that Huawei Technologies Co. and China’s top chipmaker, built a new smartphone using an advanced 7-nanometer processor. 

  On Tuesday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters he needs “more information” on the “character and composition” of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.’s Kirin 9000s chip powering Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro. Financial Times reported Sullivan was responding to a question during a briefing when a reporter asked whether US controls on exports of advanced semiconductors were being circumvented by Beijing. 

  TechInsights conducted a complete teardown of the Mate 60 Pro for Bloomberg. They found that the “processor is the first to utilize SMIC’s most advanced 7nm technology and suggests the Chinese government is making some headway in attempts to build a domestic chip ecosystem.” 

  

  For some context, Apple’s current iPhones use 4nm chips. The introduction of new iPhone 15 models will likely be powered by 3nm next week. Even though there is a sizeable gap between Huawei’s 7nm powered smartphone and Apple’s 4nm, it demonstrates the possibility that sanctions have been an ineffective weapon by Washington against China. 

  Dan Hutcheson, the vice-chair of TechInsights, told FT that Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro “demonstrates the technical progress” the country’s chip sector has made despite being limited to the latest ultraviolet lithography tools due to Western sanctions. 

  Hutcheson warned the development could spark another wave of Western chip sanctions on China to “curtail China’s access to critical manufacturing technologies.” 

  … and this development has caused a stir in Washington, as Bloomberg’s Annmarie Hordern reported Wednesday morning:

  When asked about whether SMIC violated trade sanctions by supplying Huawei with a new smartphone chip, @RepMcCaul said SMIC “warrants investigation” and it “looks like” they violated sanctions by supplying Huawei. SMIC continues “to try to get our intellectual property.”

  When asked about whether SMIC violated trade sanctions by supplying Huawei with a new smartphone chip, @RepMcCaul said SMIC “warrants investigation” and it “looks like” they violated sanctions by supplying Huawei. SMIC continues “to try to get our intellectual property.”

  — annmarie hordern (@annmarie) September 6, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, the Global Times, a state-run communist newspaper in China, posted this meme on X, saying, “Huawei breaks free from US tech blockade.” 

  

  Ming-Chi Kuo, analyst at TF International Securities, told clients in a note that Huawei’s new smartphone could revive its handheld business. 

  Goldman told clients via its GS Global Equities Call this morning to “Keep an eye on AAPL today following a WSJ report that China ordered officials not to use iPhones and other foreign – branded devices for work or bring them to government offices. ( WSJ ) On this note, semi/chip names were bid overnight following introduction of a new Huawei phone sparking hopes for the domestic semiconductor industry.” 

  This development is an ominous sign that Washington’s global arsenal of sanctions to prevent other powers from rising is failing (read: here) amid the emergence of a multi-polar world that is likely here to stay.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 18:45

• The Next Crisis Is Anyone's Guess, But The Government Is Ready To Lockdown The Nation
  The Next Crisis Is Anyone’s Guess, But The Government Is Ready To Lockdown The Nation

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

  – H.L. Mencken

  First came 9/11, which the government used to transform itself into a police state.

  Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which the police state used to test out its lockdown powers.

  In light of the government’s tendency to exploit crises (legitimate or manufactured) and capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state, one has to wonder what so-called crisis it will declare next.

  It’s a simple enough formula: first, you create fear, then you capitalize on it by seizing power.

  Frankly, it doesn’t even matter what the nature of the next national emergency might be (terrorism, civil unrest, economic collapse, a health scare, or the environment) as long as it allows the government to lockdown the nation and justify all manner of tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

  Cue the Emergency State.

  Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”: the government has been anticipating and preparing for such crises for years now.

  As David C. Unger writes for the New York Times: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.”

  Here’s what we know: given the rate at which the government keeps devising new ways to establish itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems at taxpayer expense, each subsequent crisis ushers in ever larger expansions of government power and less individual liberty.

  This is the slippery slope to outright tyranny.

  

  You see, once the government acquires (and uses) authoritarian powers—to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the military, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process—it does not voluntarily relinquish them.

  The lesson for the ages is this: once any government is allowed to overreach and expand its powers, it’s almost impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.”

  Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.

  In this way, every crisis since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government.

  Each crisis has also been a test to see how far “we the people” would allow the government to sidestep the Constitution in the so-called name of national security; a test to see how well we have assimilated the government’s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly we’ll march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, no questions asked; and a test to see how little resistance we offer up to the government’s power grabs when made in the name of national security.

  Most critically of all, it has been a test to see whether the Constitution—and our commitment to the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights—could survive a national crisis and true state of emergency.

  Unfortunately, we’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.

  Indeed, the powers-that-be have been pushing our buttons and herding us along like so much cattle since World War II, at least, starting with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, which not only propelled the U.S. into World War II but also unified the American people in their opposition to a common enemy.

  That fear of attack by foreign threats, conveniently torqued by the growing military industrial complex, in turn gave rise to the Cold War era’s “Red Scare.” Promulgated through government propaganda, paranoia and manipulation, anti-Communist sentiments boiled over into a mass hysteria that viewed anyone and everyone as suspect: your friends, the next-door neighbor, even your family members could be a Communist subversive.

  This hysteria, which culminated in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where hundreds of Americans were called before Congress to testify about their so-called Communist affiliations and intimidated into making false confessions, also paved the way for the rise of an all-knowing, all-seeing governmental surveillance state.

  By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government used the USA Patriot Act to claim greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.

  By way of the National Defense Authorization Act, Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.

  Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the NDAA.

  Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to expand the reach of the border police, empower the military to “assist” with border control, and essentially turn the country into a Constitution-free zone.

  That so-called immigration crisis then morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government has been eager to use in order to expand its powers.

  Joe Biden, in turn, has made every effort to expand the reach of the militarized police state, pledging to hire 87,000 more IRS agents and 100,000 police officers, and allowing the FBI to operate as standing army.

  What the next crisis will be is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure that there will be a next crisis.

  So, what should you expect if the government decides to declare another state of emergency and institutes a nationwide lockdown?

  You should expect more of the same, only worse.

  More compliance, less resistance.

  More fear-mongering, mind-control tactics and less tolerance for those who question the government’s propaganda-driven narratives.

  Most of all, you should expect more tyranny and less freedom.

  Given the government’s past track record and its long-anticipated plans for using armed forces to solve domestic political and social problems in response to a future crisis, there’s every reason to worry about what comes next.

  Mark my words: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if and when another crisis arises—if and when a nationwide lockdown finally hits—if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public— then we will truly understand the extent to which the powers-that-be have fully succeeded in acclimating us to a state of affairs in which the government has all the power and “we the people” have none. 

  In the meantime, if all we do to reclaim our freedoms and regain control over our runaway government is vote for yet another puppet of the Deep State, by the time the next crisis arises, it may well be too late.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 18:25

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• Escobar: No Respite For France As A 'New Africa' Rises
  Escobar: No Respite For France As A ‘New Africa’ Rises

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  Like dominos, African states are one by one falling outside the shackles of neocolonialism. Chad, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and now Gabon are saying ‘non’ to France’s longtime domination of African financial, political, economic, and security affairs.

  

  By adding two new African member-states to its roster, last week’s summit in Johannesburg heralding the expanded BRICS 11 showed once again that Eurasian integration is inextricably linked to the integration of Afro-Eurasia.

  Belarus is now proposing to hold a joint summit between BRICS 11, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).  President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s vision for the convergence of these multilateral organizations may, in due time, lead to the Mother of All Multipolarity Summits.

  But Afro-Eurasia is a much more complicated proposition. Africa still lags far behind its Eurasian cousins on the road toward breaking the shackles of neocolonialism.   

  The continent today faces horrendous odds in its fight against the deeply entrenched financial and political institutions of colonization, especially when it comes to smashing French monetary hegemony in the form of the Franc CFA – or the Communauté Financière Africaine (African Financial Community). 

  Still, one domino is falling after another – Chad, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and now Gabon. This process has already turned Burkina Faso’s President Captain Ibrahim Traoré, into a new hero of the multipolar world – as a dazed and confused collective west can’t even begin to comprehend the blowback represented by its 8 coups in West and Central Africa in less than 3 years. 

  Bye bye Bongo 

  Military officers decided to take power in Gabon after hyper pro-France President Ali Bongo won a dodgy election that “lacked credibility.” Institutions were dissolved. Borders with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Congo were closed. All security deals with France were annulled. No one knows what will happen with the French military base.

  All that was as popular as it comes: soldiers took to the streets of the capital Libreville in joyful singing, cheered on by onlookers.  

  Bongo and his father, who preceded him, have ruled Gabon since 1967. He was educated at a French private school and graduated from the Sorbonne. Gabon is a small nation of 2.4 million with a small army of 5,000 personnel that could fit into Donald Trump’s penthouse. Over 30 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and in over 60 percent of regions have zero access to healthcare and drinking water. 

  The military qualified Bongo’s 14-year rule as leading to a “deterioration in social cohesion” that was plunging the country “into chaos.”

  On cue, French mining company Eramet suspended its operations after the coup. That’s a near monopoly. Gabon is all about lavish mineral wealth – in gold, diamonds, manganese, uranium, niobium, iron ore, not to mention oil, natural gas, and hydropower. In OPEC-member Gabon, virtually the whole economy revolves around mining.   

  The case of Niger is even more complex. France exploits uranium and high-purity petrol as well as other types of mineral wealth. And the Americans are on site, operating three bases in Niger with up to 4,000 military personnel. The key strategic node in their ‘Empire of Bases’ is the drone facility in Agadez, known as Niger Air Base 201, the second-largest in Africa after Djibouti.  

  French and American interests clash, though, when it comes to the saga over the Trans-Sahara gas pipeline. After Washington broke the umbilical steel cord between Russia and Europe by bombing the Nord Streams, the EU, and especially Germany, badly needed an alternative. 

  Algerian gas supply can barely cover southern Europe. American gas is horribly expensive.

  The ideal solution for Europeans would be Nigerian gas crossing the Sahara and then the deep Mediterranean. 

  Nigeria, with 5,7 trillion cubic meters, has even more gas than Algeria and possibly Venezuela. By comparison, Norway has 2 trillion cubic meters. But Nigeria’s problem is how to pump its gas to distant customers – so Niger becomes an essential transit country.  

  When it comes to Niger’s role, energy is actually a much bigger game than the oft-touted uranium – which in fact is not that strategic either for France or the EU because Niger is only the 5th largest world supplier, way behind Kazakhstan and Canada. 
  Still, the ultimate French nightmare is losing the juicy uranium deals plus a Mali remix: Russia, post-Prighozin, arriving in Niger in full force with a simultaneous expulsion of the French military. 

  Adding Gabon only makes things dicier. Rising Russian influence could lead to boosting supply lines to rebels in Cameroon and Nigeria, and privileged access to the Central African Republic, where Russian presence is already strong.  

  It’s no wonder that Francophile Paul Biya, in power for 41 years in Cameroon, has opted for a purge of his Armed Forces after the coup in Gabon. Cameroon may be the next domino to fall.

  ECOWAS meets AFRICOM

  The Americans, as it stands, are playing Sphynx. There’s no evidence so far that Niger’s military wants the Agadez base shut down. The Pentagon has invested a fortune in their bases to spy on a great deal of the Sahel and, most of all, Libya. 
  About the only thing Paris and Washington agree on is that, under the cover of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States), the hardest possible sanctions should be slapped on one of the world’s poorest nations (where only 21% of the population has access to electricity) – and they should be much worse than those imposed on the Ivory Coast in 2010.  

  Then there’s the threat of war. Imagine the absurdity of ECOWAS invading a country that is already fighting two wars on terror on two separate fronts: Against Boko Haram in the southeast and against ISIS in the Tri-Border region.

  ECOWAS, one of 8 African political and economic unions, is a proverbial mess. It packs 15 member nations – Francophone, Anglophone and one Lusophone – in Central and West Africa, and it is rife with internal division.

  The French and the Americans first wanted ECOWAS to invade Niger as their “peacekeeping” puppet. But that didn’t work because of popular pressure against it. So, they switched to some form of diplomacy. Still, troops remain on stand-by, and a mysterious “D-Day” has been set for the invasion. 

  The role of the African Union (AU) is even murkier. Initially, they stood against the coup and suspended Niger’s membership. Then they turned around and condemned the possible western-backed invasion. Neighbors have closed their borders with Niger.  

  ECOWAS will implode without US, France, and NATO backing. Already it’s essentially a toothless chihuahua – especially after Russia and China have demonstrated via the BRICS summit their soft power across Africa. 

  Western policy in the Sahel maelstrom seems to consist of salvaging anything they can from a possible unmitigated debacle – even as the stoic people in Niger are impervious to whatever narrative the west is trying to concoct. 

  It’s important to keep in mind that Niger’s main party, the “National Movement for the Defense of the Homeland” represented by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, has been supported by the Pentagon – complete with military training – from the beginning.  

  The Pentagon is deeply implanted in Africa and connected to 53 nations. The main US concept since the early 2000s was always to militarize Africa and turn it into War on Terror fodder. As the Dick Cheney regime spun it in 2002: “Africa is a strategic priority in fighting terrorism.” 

  That’s the basis for the US military command AFRICOM and countless “cooperative partnerships” set up in bilateral agreements. For all practical purposes, AFRICOM has been occupying large swathes of Africa since 2007.

  How sweet is my colonial franc

  It is absolutely impossible for anyone across the Global South, Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright Lukashenko) to understand Africa’s current turmoil without understanding the nuts and bolts of French neocolonialism. 

  The key, of course, is the CFA franc, the “colonial franc” introduced in 1945 in French Africa, which still survives even after the CFA – with a nifty terminological twist – began to stand for “African Financial Community”. 

  The whole world remembers that after the 2008 global financial crisis, Libya’s Leader Muammar Gaddafi called for the establishment of a pan-African currency pegged to gold. 

  At the time, Libya had about 150 tons of gold, kept at home, and not in London, Paris, or New York banks. With a little more gold, that pan-African currency would have its own independent financial center in Tripoli – and everything based on a sovereign gold reserve. 

  For scores of African nations, that was the definitive Plan B to bypass the western financial system. 

  The whole world also remembers what happened in 2011. The first airstrike on Libya came from a French Mirage fighter jet.  France’s bombing campaign started even before the end of emergency talks in Paris between western leaders. 

  In March 2011, France became the first country in the world to recognize the rebel National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya. In 2015, the notoriously hacked emails of former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton revealed what France was up to in Libya: “The desire to achieve a greater share in Libyan oil production,” to increase French influence in North Africa, and to block Gaddafi’s plans to create a pan-African currency that would replace the CFA franc printed in France. 

  It is no wonder the collective west is terrified of Russia in Africa – and not just because of the changing of the guard in Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and now Gabon: Moscow has never sought to rob or enslave Africa. 

  Russia treats Africans as sovereign people, does not engage in Forever Wars, and does not drain Africa of resources while paying a pittance for them. Meanwhile, French intel and CIA “foreign policy” translate into corrupting African leaders to the core and snuffing out those that are incorruptible. 

  You have the right to no monetary policy 

  The CFA racket makes the Mafia look like street punks. It means essentially that the monetary policy of several sovereign African nations is controlled by the French Treasury in Paris.

  The Central Bank of each African nation was initially required to keep at least 65 percent of their annual foreign exchange reserves in an “operation account” held at the French Treasury, plus another 20 percent to cover financial “liabilities.” 

  Even after some mild “reforms” were enacted since September 2005, these nations were still required to transfer 50 percent of their foreign exchange to Paris, plus 20 percent V.A.T.

  And it gets worse. The CFA Central Banks impose a cap on credit to each member country. The French Treasury invests these African foreign reserves in its own name on the Paris bourse and pulls in massive profits on Africa’s dime.

  The hard fact is that more than 80 percent of foreign reserves of African nations have been in “operation accounts” controlled by the French Treasury since 1961. In a nutshell, none of these states has sovereignty over their monetary policy. 

  But the theft doesn’t stop there: the French Treasury uses African reserves as if they were French capital, as collateral in pledging assets to French payments to the EU and the ECB. 

  Across the “FranceAfrique” spectrum, France still, today, controls the currency, foreign reserves, the comprador elites, and trade business. 

  The examples are rife: French conglomerate Bolloré’s control of port and marine transport throughout West Africa; Bouygues/Vinci dominate construction and public works, water, and electricity distribution; Total has huge stakes in oil and gas. And then there’s France Telecom and big banking – Societe Generale, Credit Lyonnais, BNP-Paribas, AXA (insurance), and so forth. 

  France de facto controls the overwhelming majority of infrastructure in Francophone Africa. It is a virtual monopoly. 

  “FranceAfrique” is all about hardcore neocolonialism. Policies are issued by the President of the Republic of France and his “African cell.” They have nothing to do with parliament, or any democratic process, since the times of Charles De Gaulle. 

  The “African cell” is a sort of General Command. They use the French military apparatus to install “friendly” comprador leaders and get rid of those that threaten the system. There’s no diplomacy involved. Currently, the cell reports exclusively to Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron.  

  Caravans of drugs, diamonds, and gold

  Paris completely supervised the assassination of Burkina Faso’s anti-colonial leader Thomas Sankara, in 1987. Sankara had risen to power via a popular coup in 1983, only to be overthrown and assassinated four years later. 

  As for the real “war on terror” in the African Sahel, it has nothing to do with the infantile fictions sold in the West. There are no Arab “terrorists” in the Sahel, as I saw when backpacking across West Africa a few months before 9/11. They are locals who converted to Salafism online, intent on setting up an Islamic State to better control smuggling routes across the Sahel. 

  Those fabled ancient salt caravans plying the Sahel from Mali to southern Europe and West Asia are now caravans of drugs, diamonds, and gold. This is what funded Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), for instance, then supported by Wahhabi lunatics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. 

  After Libya was destroyed by NATO in early 2011, there was no more “protection,” so the western-backed Salafi-jihadis who fought against Gaddafi offered the Sahel smugglers the same protection as before – plus a lot of weapons.

  Assorted Mali tribes continue the merry smuggling of anything they fancy. AQIM still extracts illegal taxation. ISIS in Libya is deep into human and narcotics trafficking. And Boko Haram wallows in the cocaine and heroin market.  

  There is a degree of African cooperation to fight these outfits. There was something called the G5 Sahel, focused on security and development. But after Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Chad went the military route, only Mauritania remains. The new West Africa Junta Belt, of course, wants to destroy terror groups, but most of all, they want to fight FranceAfrique, and the fact that their national interests are always decided in Paris. 

  France has for decades made sure there’s very little intra-Africa trade. Landlocked nations badly need neighbors for transit. They mostly produce raw materials for export. There are virtually no decent storage facilities, feeble energy supply, and terrible intra-African transportation infrastructure: that’s what Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects are bent on addressing in Africa.  

  In March 2018, 44 heads of state came up with the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) – the largest in the world in terms of population (1.3 billion people) and geography. In January 2022, they established the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) – focused on payments for companies in Africa in local currencies. 

  So inevitably, they will be going for a common currency further on down the road. Guess what’s in their way: the Paris-imposed CFA. 

  A few cosmetic measures still guarantee direct control by the French Treasury on any possible new African currency set up, preference for French companies in bidding processes, monopolies, and the stationing of French troops. The coup in Niger represents a sort of “we’re not gonna take it anymore.”

  All of the above illustrates what the indispensable economist Michael Hudson has been detailing in all his works: the power of the extractivist model. Hudson has shown how the bottom line is control of the world’s resources; that’s what defines a global power, and in the case of France, a global mid-ranking power.

  France has shown how easy it is to control resources via control of monetary policy and setting up monopolies in these resource-rich nations to extract and export, using virtual slave labor with zero environmental or health regulations. 

  It’s also essential for exploitative neocolonialism to keep those resource-rich nations from using their own resources to grow their own economies. But now the African dominoes are finally saying, “The game is over.” Is true decolonization finally on the horizon? 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 09/06/2023 – 02:00

• The Global War On Thought Crime
  The Global War On Thought Crime

  Authored by David James via The Brownstone Institute,

  Laws to ban disinformation and misinformation are being introduced across the West, with the partial exception being the US, which has the First Amendment so the techniques to censor have had to be more clandestine.

  In Europe, the UK, and Australia, where free speech is not as overtly protected, governments have legislated directly.

  The EU Commission is now applying the ‘Digital Services Act’ (DSA), a thinly disguised censorship law. 

  In Australia the government is seeking to provide the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with “new powers to hold digital platforms to account and improve efforts to combat harmful misinformation and disinformation.”

  

  One effective response to these oppressive laws may come from a surprising source: literary criticism. The words being used, which are prefixes added to the word “information,” are a sly misdirection. Information, whether in a book, article or post is a passive artefact. It cannot do anything, so it cannot break a law. The Nazis burned books, but they didn’t arrest them and put them in jail. So when legislators seek to ban “disinformation,” they cannot mean the information itself. Rather, they are targeting the creation of meaning. 

  The authorities use variants of the word “information” to create the impression that what is at issue is objective truth but that is not the focus. Do these laws, for example, apply to the forecasts of economists or financial analysts, who routinely make predictions that are wrong? Of course not. Yet economic or financial forecasts, if believed, could be quite harmful to people.

  The laws are instead designed to attack the intent of the writers to create meanings that are not congruent with the governments’ official position. ‘Disinformation’ is defined in dictionaries as information that is intended to mislead and to cause harm. ‘Misinformation’ has no such intent and is just an error, but even then that means determining what is in the author’s mind. ‘Mal-information’ is considered to be something that is true, but that there is an intention to cause harm.

  Determining a writer’s intent is extremely problematic because we cannot get into another person’s mind; we can only speculate on the basis of their behaviour. That is largely why in literary criticism there is a notion called the Intentional Fallacy, which says that the meaning of a text cannot be limited to the intention of the author, nor is it possible to know definitively what that intention is from the work. The meanings derived from Shakespeare’s works, for example, are so multifarious that many of them cannot possibly have been in the Bard’s mind when he wrote the plays 400 years ago. 

  How do we know, for example, that there is no irony, double meaning, pretence or other artifice in a social media post or article? My former supervisor, a world expert on irony, used to walk around the university campus wearing a T-shirt saying: “How do you know I am being ironic?” The point was that you can never know what is actually in a person’s mind, which is why intent is so difficult to prove in a court of law.

  That is the first problem.

  The second one is that, if the creation of meaning is the target of the proposed law – to proscribe meanings considered unacceptable by the authorities – how do we know what meaning the recipients will get? A literary theory, broadly under the umbrella term ‘deconstructionism,’ claims that there are as many meanings from a text as there are readers and that “the author is dead.” 

  While this is an exaggeration, it is indisputable that different readers get different meanings from the same texts. Some people reading this article, for example, might be persuaded while others might consider it evidence of a sinister agenda. As a career journalist I have always been shocked at the variability of reader’s responses to even the most simple of articles. Glance at the comments on social media posts and you will see an extreme array of views, ranging from positive to intense hostility.

  To state the obvious, we all think for ourselves and inevitably form different views, and see different meanings. Anti-disinformation legislation, which is justified as protecting people from bad influences for the common good, is not merely patronising and infantilising, it treats citizens as mere machines ingesting data – robots, not humans. That is simply wrong.

  Governments often make incorrect claims, and made many during Covid. 

  In Australia the authorities said lockdowns would only last a few weeks to “flatten the curve.” In the event they were imposed for over a year and there never was a “curve.” According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2020 and 2021 had the lowest levels of deaths from respiratory illness since records have been kept.

  Governments will not apply the same standards to themselves, though, because governments always intend well (that comment may or may not be intended to be ironic; I leave it up to the reader to decide). 

  There is reason to think these laws will fail to achieve the desired result. The censorship regimes have a quantitative bias. They operate on the assumption that if a sufficient proportion of social media and other types of “information” is skewed towards pushing state propaganda, then the audience will inevitably be persuaded to believe the authorities. 

  But what is at issue is meaning, not the amount of messaging. Repetitious expressions of the government’s preferred narrative, especially ad hominem attacks like accusing anyone asking questions of being a conspiracy theorist, eventually become meaningless.

  By contrast just one well-researched and well-argued post or article can permanently persuade readers to an anti-government view because it is more meaningful. I can recall reading pieces about Covid, including on Brownstone, that led inexorably to the conclusion that the authorities were lying and that something was very wrong. As a consequence the voluminous, mass media coverage supporting the government line just appeared to be meaningless noise. It was only of interest in exposing how the authorities were trying to manipulate the “narrative” – a debased word was once mainly used in a literary context – to cover their malfeasance. 

  In their push to cancel unapproved content, out-of-control governments are seeking to penalise what George Orwell called “thought crimes.”

  But they will never be able to truly stop people thinking for themselves, nor will they ever definitively know either the writer’s intent or what meaning people will ultimately derive.

  It is bad law, and it will eventually fail because it is, in itself, predicated on disinformation.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 23:40

• Six Red Flags Pointing To China's Economic Slowdown
  Six Red Flags Pointing To China’s Economic Slowdown

  The People’s Republic of China is the world’s second-largest economy, responsible for one quarter of global GDP growth this millennium – so when the country catches a cold, the world notices.

  The past several months have seen an avalanche of bad economic news for China, putting the country’s post-pandemic recovery, and global economic growth, in jeopardy.

  In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Chris Deckert looks at six important indicators that point to China’s economy slowing down. Data comes from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the People’s Bank of China, and the General Administration of Customs, to see what is flashing red.

  

  Six Red Flag Indicators on China’s Economy

  1. GDP

  China’s annual GDP growth rate has averaged 9% since 1978, when the country opened itself up to the global market under Deng Xiaoping.

  However, growth seems to have slowed to a crawl, down to 0.8% (quarter-to-quarter) in the second quarter of 2023 driven by weakness in the Tertiary Sector, which includes retail spending and the troubled real estate sector. This follows a more robust 2.2% figure in Q1, which was driven by pent-up demand released by the end of COVID-era lockdowns.

  On an annual basis, China’s GDP expanded 6.3% year-over-year, below the forecasted 7.3% rate.

  2. Exports

  Exports fell by 14.5% in July, marking the third straight month of declines, and hitting lows not seen since February 2020. Meanwhile, imports fell 12.4%, reflecting the cautious consumer mood.

  On a regional basis, exports fell year-over-year to China’s three biggest customers, ASEAN, the EU, and the U.S., by 17.4%, 15.1%, and 20.8% respectively.

  There was one bright spot, however: exports to sanction-burdened Russia increased 51.8%, but that wasn’t nearly enough to offset the overall downward trend.

  3. Consumer Price Index

  The consumer price index moved into deflationary territory for the first time since 2021, with prices falling 3% year-over-year. The decline was led by Household Articles and Services, Food & Tobacco, and Transportation and Communications.

  At the same time, the prices that producers paid for industrial products (PPI) fell 4.4% (year-over-year), the tenth month in a row with a negative reading.

  4. Youth Unemployment

  And while the headline unemployment rate remained steady at 5.3% in August 2023, up slightly from 5.2% the month before, it papers over serious weakness for urban youth, aged 16 to 24.

  In July, the urban youth unemployment rate reached 21.3%, the highest ever recorded in the country, leading the National Bureau of Statistics of China to suspend future releases.

  5. Yuan vs. USD

  Given the stream of economic bad news, it’s no surprise that the yuan fell to a 16-year low against the U.S. dollar on August 16, 2023 in offshore trading.

  In an effort to stabilize the currency, major state-owned Chinese banks were seen buying up yuan in offshore money markets. At the same time, the spread between the fixed exchange rate set by the People’s Bank of China and the offshore rate, rose to more than 1,000 basis points.

  6. New Loans

  Adding to the dismal economic mood, people borrowed less money according to the most recent figures provided by the government.

  New bank loans fell to ¥346 billion in July, down from ¥3.05 trillion in the month before. This was the lowest reading since late-2009, and less than half of the ¥780 billion economists had forecast.

  What’s Next?

  Foreign Affairs recently published an article with the provocative title “The End of China’s Economic Miracle,” arguing that China’s troubles could be a U.S. opportunity.

  And while this may be somewhat premature, the Middle Kingdom has some serious structural issues to contend with, many of them of their own making. Some of the top challenges include crackdowns on the tech sector, a collapsing real estate market, a larger debt crisis, and a shrinking population.

  But large-scale government intervention does not appear to be in the offing, beyond exhortations for consumers to spend more and blaming Western media for engaging in “cognitive warfare.”

  It’s no wonder that consumer confidence has plunged so low. At least we think so: the Chinese government stopped publishing that too.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 23:20

• Russia, China & North Korea To Launch Trilateral War Games
  Russia, China & North Korea To Launch Trilateral War Games

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

  South Korea’s intelligence services believe that Russia, China and North Korea are preparing to conduct joint military drills. Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang have all frequently complained about American war games near their borders.

  According to Yoo Sang-bum, a South Korean legislator, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu likely proposed that North Korean soldiers join Russian and Chinese troops for military exercises during a July meeting with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Yoo says he learned the information during a closed-door discussion with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

  

  The report comes as Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang have become increasingly frustrated with Washington and its allies conducting war games near their borders.

  Last week, US and South Korean soldiers wrapped up the Ulchi Freedom Shield annual joint military exercises which included sending American strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula. In response to the drills, Kim ordered his forces to conduct a test of their nuclear capabilities.

  In the South China Sea, Washington contests Beijing’s territorial claims by sending warships into Chinese waters and claiming the deployment is a “freedom of navigation operation.”

  Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that NATO war games in Ukrainian territory were viewed as an intense provocation by Moscow.

  On Saturday, the Kremlin’s envoy to Pyongyang, Alexander Matsegora, explained North Korea’s participation in joint military exercises with China and Russia was an “appropriate” response to “constant bilateral and trilateral exercises” being held by the US and its “junior partners in Asia.”

  On Monday, Shoigu confirmed Moscow was planning to conduct joint military drills with Pyongyang. When asked about deepening defense cooperation, he said per Reuters:

  “Why not, these are our neighbors. There’s an old Russian saying: you don’t choose your neighbors and it’s better to live with your neighbors in peace and harmony,” Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, as saying on Monday.

  When asked about the possibility of joint exercises between the two countries, he said “of course” they were being discussed, it said.

  

  Additionally, the Russian defense minister said Kim was planning to travel to Russia for an upcoming meeting with Putin.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 23:00

• How Student-Teacher Ratios Vary Across The Globe
  How Student-Teacher Ratios Vary Across The Globe

  Around the world, schools have been struggling to recruit teachers before the start of the school year.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, it’s a phenomenon not only seen in the U.S. but also in Canada, Australia and in Europe, as low salaries, long hours, stress and burnout from the pandemic have led to a mass exodus from the profession.

  

  According to NPR, it is children living in isolated rural areas and big city districts in the U.S. that are particularly impacted. This is because these schools may not be able to compete for teachers with the better-funded suburban schools that can offer higher pay.

  The following chart shows how there are fairly significant differences in class sizes between countries.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Of the OECD countries listed, Norway and Belgium appear as examples of teachers working with smaller classes, with an average of around 10 pupils per teacher in public education (primary and secondary). By contrast, classes are fairly busy in Mexico. The country has the highest student-teacher ratio of the study, with around 24 to 27 students per teacher. In the U.S., there are usually around 15 students per teacher in both public elementary and secondary education.

  Teachers warn that teacher shortages and increased class sizes could lead to a detrimental impact on pupils’ progress, attainment and behavior. This is because it makes it harder to provide adequate provision of learning resources to children, while teachers say they can’t meet the needs of all pupils under those circumstances.

  While the student-staff ratio alone does not guarantee academic success, with teaching styles, teaching methods and extra-curricular choices also influencing factors, many teachers believe it is important.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 22:40

• Pennsylvania High School QB Needs 'Miracle' After Collapsing Mid-Game, Family Says
  Pennsylvania High School QB Needs ‘Miracle’ After Collapsing Mid-Game, Family Says

  Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A high school football player in Pennsylvania needs “a miracle” after collapsing on the field in the middle of a game on Sept. 1, according to his family, who said in a health update on Sept. 3 that the 17-year-old has been in critical condition for more than 36 hours.

  

  Mason Martin, a quarterback for Karns City High School, suffered a “significant brain bleed as well as a collapsed lung,” his family told KDKA-TV.

  The matchup between the Karns City Gremlins and Redbank Valley Bulldogs was cut short in the third quarter when referee Mike Vasbinder noticed Martin started to stagger after he received a hit during the game.

  Despite the hit, the quarterback continued to play defense without any apparent issue until he left the field for the extra point and then came back for the return kick-off. However, the referee noticed something was off before the play started, prompting him to blow his whistle as Martin collapsed.

  “I had to talk to him, and when I asked if he was alright, he told me, ‘no,'” Mr. Vasbinder said, according to the Butler Eagle. “So that’s when I knew something was wrong.”

  The game was stopped early and the Redbanks were named the winner as they were leading 35–6 when the incident occurred.

  Mr. Vasbinder said the medical emergency led staff members to enforce a series of protocols, including some of which the referee never had to follow in a game before last week’s incident.

  “When we saw it got to the point where they were bringing on an ambulance, we talked to Redbank Valley’s coach and Karns City’s coach, who was obviously with his player,” he said. “And we just tried to stay back and keep calm, so things didn’t escalate.“

  Martin was taken off the field in a Karns City ambulance before being flown to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh in a STAT MedEvac helicopter, D9Sports.com reported.

  His mother, Stacy King Martin, shared an update on her son’s health condition in a statement on social media on Sept. 3, thanking everyone for their love and support.

  “Mason remains in critical condition with little change over the last 36 hours,” her message reads. “The truth is we need a miracle. I’m not saying that to sound grim, but to let you know that we need the strength of your prayers.”

  “No one believes in this kid more than us, but he needs everyone’s strength and prayers,” the message continues. “Right now, we have to wait for the swelling to go down to assess the extent of the damage to the brain. So please pray the way he has always played the game, all out holding nothing back, maybe a little angry, definitely aggressive.”

  The Karns City Gremlin Football Program also issued a lengthy statement after the incident, saying the school has counselors available for students and staff who need to talk to someone after witnessing Martin’s serious on-the-field injury.

  pic.twitter.com/tzrdDgpoo8

  — Karns City Football (@KC_GremlinFball) September 2, 2023

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

  Brittany Thompson, a spectator who was there with her daughter, said the situation was reminiscent of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s collapse during the Jan. 2 game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

  “We’re not from this school district, but my daughter wanted to come to the game,” Ms. Thompson said, the Butler Eagle reported. “It’s just really scary.”

  Mr. Hamlin revealed the official cause of his collapse during a press conference in April, saying he collapsed due to a condition that mostly happens to teenagers playing baseball.

  “The diagnosis of what happened to me was basically commotio cordis. It’s a direct blow at a specific point in your heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest,” he explained. “And five to seven seconds later, you fall out.”

  Cardiac Issues Among Young Athletes

  News of Martin’s medical emergency comes about a month after Lebron James’s son, Bronny James, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest while he was practicing for the USC basketball team.

  A spokesperson for the family said on Aug. 26 that a congenital heart defect likely caused the cardiac arrest. The condition had been identified “after a comprehensive initial evaluation” at the center and follow-up evaluations at the Mayo Clinic and Atlantic Health/Morristown Medical Center.

  “It is an anatomically and functionally significant Congenital Heart Defect which can and will be treated,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

  However, soon after the medical situation, rampant speculation emerged on social media, including a post from X owner Elon Musk suggesting that the cardiac incident was associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

  “We cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but, by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. Myocarditis is a known side effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common,” the Tesla CEO said in late July.

  At the same time, CNN interviewed its own medical analyst, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who asserted that the younger James’s health scare, as well as similar sudden cardiac arrest events involving young athletes, are “more common than people realize.”

  Last month, the death of Caleb White, 17, from Alabama’s Pinson Valley High School also became a hot topic online as inquiries continue into the unclear links between COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and heart issues.

  “24 hours ago, my grandson Caleb White collapsed on the basketball court, went into cardiac arrest and all attempts to resuscitate him failed. This was similar to the illness Labron James’ son experienced as he was working out,” Caleb’s grandfather, George Varnadoe Jr., said in a Facebook post on Aug. 11.

  Studies on Vaccine Risks

  A study funded by the South Korean government has confirmed that COVID-19 vaccines can cause sudden death. In June, authorities said that eight people died suddenly after receiving an mRNA vaccine due to myocarditis.

  All the sudden cardiac deaths (SCD) occurred in people aged 45 and younger. One of the victims was a 33-year-old man who died just one day after he received the second shot of the Moderna vaccine. Another case involved a 30-year-old woman who died three days after getting her first dose of a Pfizer vaccine.

  The results show the need for “careful monitoring or warning of SCD as a potentially fatal complication of COVID-19 vaccination, especially in individuals who are ages under 45 years with mRNA vaccination,” the study said.

  In an interview with The Epoch Times, Dr. Andrew Bostom, a retired professor of medicine in the United States, said that the results show why mandating COVID-19 vaccines for young people was flawed.

  “These are people who ostensibly did not need the vaccine,” he said. “That’s what adds insult to injury.”

  Aldgra Fredly and Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 22:20

• Musk-The-Merciless? SpaceX Launching "80% Of All Earth Payload Mass To Orbit"
  Musk-The-Merciless? SpaceX Launching “80% Of All Earth Payload Mass To Orbit”

  According to Elon Musk, SpaceX has exceeded the previous year’s rocket launch count, delivering 80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit for the year so far. He said China accounts for the other 10%. 

  Great work by the @SpaceX team successfully launching 61 Falcon rocket missions this year!

  If tomorrow’s mission goes well, we will exceed last year’s flight count.

  SpaceX has delivered ~80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023. China is ~10% & rest of world other ~10%.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 2, 2023

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

  On Sunday night, SpaceX launched 21 Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The mission was the 62nd of the year, setting a new record for the most flights in a year. The previous record was set in 2022 by the company. 

  Musk said, “Aiming for 10 Falcon flights in a month by the end of this year, then 12 per month next year.” 

  Aiming for 10 Falcon flights in a month by end of this year, then 12 per month next year

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 2, 2023

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

  He explained, based on the 2024 launch schedule, “SpaceX will deliver ~90% of all Earth payload to orbit,” adding, “Starship will take that to >99% in future years.” 

  Based on the Falcon launch plan for next year, SpaceX will deliver ~90% of all Earth payload to orbit.

  Starship will take that to >99% in future years.

  These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 3, 2023

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

  Musk’s latest predictions about SpaceX’s rocket launch monopoly come as new aerial images show Starship is preparing for the second test flight (the first flight ended with a bang). 

  On Tuesday, X account RGV Aerial Photography posted a timelapse video of Starship, explaining, “Starship full stack!”

  Timelapse pic.twitter.com/xig5TZ0aZg

  — RGV Aerial Photography (@RGVaerialphotos) September 5, 2023

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

  Musk said the world’s largest rocket underwent a successful static fire in recent weeks. He said, “Getting ready for the next Starship flight.”  

  RGV Aerial Photography posted a list of milestones Starship has completed and what still needs to be achieved ahead of the next launch (list courtesy of blog spacex.information): 

  Milestones for #Starship Integrated Flight Test #2:

  Ship 25
  – Cryogenic Proof Test:✅
  – Engine installation (3 RCs V2 & 3 RVacs V2):✅
  – Spin Prime test:✅
  – Static Fire test:✅
  – Engine shielding installation: ✅
  – Heat Shield installation: ✅

  Booster 9
  – Cryogenic Proof… pic.twitter.com/DVmEQ3HU2y

  — DJ Esmerald (@DJEsmeraldMusic) September 5, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, Musk has managed to infuriate Democrats as they weaponize government agencies, such as the DoJ and SEC, against him… 

  Is this how Dems see Musk?

  

  … and a former Obama administration official recently declared: “The US government needs to end its relationship with Musk immediately.” 

  Good luck with that one. Then no Starlinks for Ukraine. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 22:00

• The Third World Revolt
  The Third World Revolt

  Authored by Christopher Roach via American Greatness,

  Back in my high-school debating days, policy debate teams frequently concluded their arguments with an extreme and somewhat absurd parade of horribles. This was a testament to their intelligence and creativity, plus being dead wrong carried few consequences. Through convoluted chains of logic, they argued that some small change in environmental or trade policy would lead to nuclear war or America’s domination by the “global south.”

  Even then, this all struck me as ridiculous. How could the Third World, with its periodic famines and coups, ever threaten the United States? Back then we were fully dominant over the entire world after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

  A lot has changed.

  

  The Birth of the Nonaligned Movement

  During the Cold War, the various nations on the periphery acted, in some ways, as judges of the two competing systems. While the United States and Soviet Union were accused of manipulating the Third World for selfish reasons, the manipulation went both ways. Being coy, Third World leaders often managed to squeeze real benefits, like infrastructure projects, discounted military equipment, and other forms of aid by siding with one side or the other.

  During the Cold War, the nations of the Third World were wary of being compelled to take sides, risking conflicts orthogonal to their own interests and sacrificing their sovereignty through excessive dependence on a patron. This is why the nonaligned movement gained power, with India in particular at the forefront, where it was joined by interested Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American nations.

  These nations, which had gained sovereignty only very recently from their colonial masters, were understandably touchy about their independence. They did not want to exchange a formal colonial structure for an informal one.

  When the Cold War ended, the United States remained the sole superpower for some time, but, rather than achieving worldwide assent, this instead fueled envy, fear, and resentment. No longer able to chart their own path, every nation became subordinate on some level to American power.

  Aggressive Idealism Fuels Anti-Americanism

  At the height of its military power, starting during the Clinton presidency, American leaders began to embrace an aggressive “idealism” that set out to change the character, values, and customs of other countries. Purely “humanitarian” interventions like Kosovo and Somalia became common.

  In Iraq and Afghanistan, this idealism meant feminism and democracy. In Eastern Europe, it meant the promotion of gay rights and secularism, alienating the conservative and religious people who once idealized the United States. In Latin America, idealism demanded capitalism and loosened trade restrictions.

  The invocation of “Freedom” and “Democracy,” while it sounds noble and idealistic to our ears, began to sound like a threat to nations who were out of step with the West’s ruling classes. Unilateral American military intervention in such diverse places as Panama, Iraq, Serbia, Syria, and Libya made nations on the sidelines wary that they could be next.

  Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa—the so-called BRICS—do not have much in common. They have diverse economic and political systems, distinct languages, very different histories, and members appeared on both sides of Cold War alliances. But they share a common orientation to American power:  our aspirations to maintain “sole superpower” status threatens their national power and independence.  Perceiving this as a zero-sum game, they seek to pivot world attention, prosperity, and power away from the United States and its Western European allies.

  Among these American competitors, China and Russia stand out most of all. Through their de facto alliance, they now dominate the Eurasian landmass. Their industrial capacity has revealed significant advantages in a war of attrition. And, finally, with their history as former American enemies, they have a habitual and strong resistance to American interference with their destinies.

  While Russia and China’s conduct is easily understood, the growing and diverse anti-American coalition, along with these other nations’ willingness to accept Russian and Chinese leadership, needs explanation.  The heart of the matter is sovereignty. American demands and desires currently constrain each of the BRICS nations and the many smaller nations of the Third World, whether it is in energy, central banking, sanctions, trade, or even domestic policies on issues like feminism and gay rights.

  The proposed “multipolar world” has a lot of momentum because it does not require submission to a particular Chinese or Russian model for internal governance. Russia and China are mostly agnostic about internal affairs, unlike the “idealistic” United States. Rather, the alternative promotes a more organic (and potentially chaotic) distribution of power from the current system.

  Finally, neither Russia nor China could displace the United States. Thus, at most, they can usher in a world of “multipolarity,” where all countries will be less constrained, and larger countries like them have, at most, regional strength.

  Ukraine War Now Existential for the American Empire

  The current war in Ukraine is bringing a lot of things to a head. The United States and Europe imagined the rest of the world would view the conflict as a morality play: a big, powerful bully dominating its innocent and unassuming neighbor. This, indeed, is how most leaders and many people in the West perceive events.

  But this has been a tough sell in the Third World, which is the chief reason sanctions have faced resistance. While Russia is bigger than Ukraine, Ukraine is big relative to its separatist eastern provinces, with whom it has had a conflict since 2014. Since most developing nations began as anti-colonial movements for national liberation, Ukraine’s attempts to forcibly reintegrate the East does not look so different from the types of struggles Brazil and India had during their independence movements.

  Moreover, with Ukraine aligned so closely with the West—using NATO tanks, NATO mercenaries, and NATO money to prosecute its defense—much of the world does not perceive a bully pushing around its stalwart neighbor, but rather an American bully using its Ukrainian lackey for realpolitik designs against Russia. This is a particularly popular view in China, of course. But, judging from editorials and open source comments, it is also widely held in places like Africa and India, where many people view Russia in a positive light because of its opposition to the United States.

  Until now, American power rested on actual American superiority in economics, military power, and cultural influence.  The United States soundly defeated Iraq in the first Gulf War, emerged from the Cold War intact and wealthy, and soon proceeded to project power with great skill in the early days of the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. But since that time, we have departed Afghanistan and Iraq without a victory. In parallel, we spread chaos in Libya and Syria, failing to conclude regime change operations in the latter.

  American military prowess is no longer undisputed or inevitable, undermining the broader claim of America as the “sole superpower.” This was all avoidable, but having overextended itself, the visible evidence of American decline is now confirmed. This is what happens when a nation is ruled by disloyal, short-sighted, and foolish people.

  To state the obvious, losing wars is never good for an empire. The Ottoman and Russian empires dissolved under the stresses of the First World War. While part of the victorious allies, World War II cemented the subordinate status of France and the United Kingdom, and their empires fell apart after the war. Finally, and most recently, the Soviet Union broke apart after its costly and controversial campaign in Afghanistan.

  Russia’s attempts to assert power in its near-abroad fueled America’s interest in the current Ukraine War.  The theory was that we would pursue our interests on the cheap, prevent challenges to American hegemony, with the added benefit that Ukrainians would be doing the dying. Because of our military and economic superiority, supporters claimed the war would kill Russians, weaken their military, and destabilize Putin’s hold on power.

  Proponents of the war did not really consider what would happen in the reverse case. What if not Russia, but the United States found itself strained economically, losing critical and hard-to-replace weapons in a war of attrition, visibly demonstrating its impotence and weakness on the world stage? Wouldn’t the same dire consequences intended for Russia now happen to us?

  Indeed, they would. Luckily, actual American security does not depend on the continuation of America’s dominance of the globe, nor does American prosperity. Indeed, our prosperity has declined as the requirements of the military industrial complex and the behemoth welfare state devalue our currency and impoverish taxpayers. Further, our aspirations to maintain sole superpower status has endangered us by fueling anti-Americanism, while encouraging significant moral compromise at home.

  Although losing a war and taking a blow to prestige can be a painful process, the American people’s interests require the dismantling of the American empire. Our current course risks manifesting the dire and once-implausible scenarios popular on the high school debate circuit. It is time to change course.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 21:40

• AirBnBust: New York "Effectively Bans" Short-Term Rentals
  AirBnBust: New York “Effectively Bans” Short-Term Rentals

  Last week, we wrote that the bursting of the AirBnB bubble will also pop the broader housing bubble, which has shown remarkable resilience in the face of the highest interest rates since Volcker (although today’s ominous tumble in homebuilder stocks is certainly a concern), largely the result of a staggering divergence between effective mortgage rates (since almost everyone refinanced into a 30Y mortgage when rates were at record lows a few years back and is locked into a nice, low rate for a long, long time… or until they sell) and current 30Y mortgages, which at 7.5% nobody can afford.

  

  So back to the coming AirBnB fiasco, last Wednesday the real estate experts at RedFin wrote that investor home purchases fell 45% from a year earlier in the second quarter, outpacing the 31% drop in overall home sales. That’s the biggest decline since 2008 with the exception of the quarter before, when they dropped 48%.

  

  The drop in purchases has brought the total number of homes bought by investors below pre-pandemic levels, which is a major concern for a market where investors remained the last remaining support pillar now that most average Americans seeking to buy their first home are simply unable to afford it and are stuck renting indefinitely.

  Real estate investors bought roughly 50,000 U.S. homes in the second quarter, the fewest of any second quarter in seven years, with the exception of the start of the pandemic.

  

  The decline comes as this year’s relatively cool housing and rental markets makes investing in homes less attractive than it was during the pandemic-driven homebuying frenzy of 2021 and early 2022, when record numbers of AirBnB were purchased as hotel and lodging surrogates.

  There is another, more tangible reason why the AirBnBoom is turning into an AirBnBust: starting today, the short-term rental landscape is changing drastically in New York City, and according to the company itself, will be “effectively banned” threatening the entire AirBnB model in the Big Apple, and other big cities to follow. 

  As the RealDeal reports, beginning Tuesday, short-term rental hosts in New York City will be required to register their units, which will likely have a significant impact on platforms like Airbnb and potentially steer travelers toward hotels or New Jersey.

  The new regulation, known as Local Law 18, includes several rules that may prove inconvenient for travelers and hosts:

  • Limit on Guests: Short-term rentals can accommodate no more than two paying guests at a time, regardless of the property’s size or the number of bedrooms.
  • Host Presence: Hosts are required to be physically present while their properties are being rented.
  • Unlocked Doors: Hosts and visitors must leave the interior doors within the rental unlocked, allowing occupants access to the entire unit.

  The measure aims to curb illegal short-term rentals (which is basically every AirBnB listing), enhance guest safety, and alleviate housing market pressures. It could also drive travelers away from short-term rental platforms altogether, as the restrictions effectively eliminate the appeal of staying in apartments, and forces them to share space with strangers or opt for hotel rooms.

  “Unless it is a really big unit, I think a lot of travelers will find it uncomfortable to stay in an apartment that fully complies with and abides by the city’s new regulations,” Sean Hennessey, a professor at New York University’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, told the outlet. And if there is one thing New York does not have a lot of, it is “really big” apartments.

  For those hoping to follow and comply with the regulatory framework, good luck: as of Aug. 28, the Office of Special Enforcement in New York City had received over 3,250 applications for short-term rental listings. They reviewed 808 submissions, granted 257 certificates, rejected 72, and returned 479 for further information or corrections, according to the Post.

  The OSE also maintains a Prohibited Buildings List of units that can’t be rented short-term due to lease terms or rent regulations.

  Penalties for hosts for violations of these regulations can range from $100 to $1,000 for the first offense, while guests will not face penalties for staying in an illegal property.

  Naturally, Airbnb sued to have the law gutted, claiming it was effectively a ban on short-term rental  but a judge dismissed the lawsuit in August.

  The company said that listings without a registration number will be unable to accept new reservations once the law is activated. To minimize disruptions to existing bookings, Airbnb will honor reservations made before Tuesday for stays through Dec. 1, refunding the service fee. After Dec. 1, Airbnb will cancel and refund reservations at uncertified properties. The platform, along with hosts, are attempting to work with local officials to pass a less-restrictive version of the measure.

  With New York City’s tourism market already experiencing high demand, with more than 63 million travelers expected in 2023, the outlet reported, Airbnb alternatives are rapidly emerging to try and fill the short-term rental gap.  Some of these alternatives, however, will face similar predicaments to the short-term rental giant.

  San Francisco-based Sonder could provide one alternative. The company has units in the Financial District and elsewhere that aren’t covered by the short-term rental law. The company’s business model, however, is reliant on receiving business from other platforms, including Airbnb.

  Additionally, Sonder has had some issues of its own. In the spring, the startup was warned that it had until mid-October to improve its share price or face delisting from Nasdaq. The company, which manages and leases rentals itself (unlike Airbnb), has experienced multiple rounds of layoffs in recent months.

  Kindred is a startup that charges residents to join a cohort of travelers and homesharers to host or swap homes without money changing hands directly. There are more than 1,000 residents registered in the New York metro area, co-founder Justine Palefsky told Crain’s.

  The biggest beneficiaries from the suspension of AirBnB, are traditional hotels, but even some luxury brands are willing to at least partially embrace a short-term rental model. The Ritz-Carlton in NoMad has 16 short-term rental units up for grabs for $9,000 a night.

  Finally, even if the New York crackdown seems too regional to crush the company’s business model, it is the other abovementioned trends that have sealed AirBnB’s coffin, and assure that the short-term rental company will be the proverbial canary in the housemine. And for those who were in kindergarten during the bursting of the 2007 housing bubble and today are AirBnB moguls, the following refresher from BowTiedBroke will be a useful walkthru for what comes next:

  It has begun:

  Since I went through Short Sales, Deed in Lieu’s and straight up Foreclosures with my RE adventures of ‘01-‘09, here is how the process plays out. I firmly believe heavy Airbnb markets are going to feel some pain.

  The question is: How many first time STR owners/over-leveraged STR owners are out there and how will getting their credit ruined affect other markets or sectors in the US. I have no clue how the trickle down will go.

  But, here are the steps:

  1) Cash flow isn’t covering the mortgage and other expenses.

  2) You stop making the payments

  3) The bank QUICKLY reaches out to see what they can do to “help you” continue making payments to them. They won’t call daily, but they do call at least once/week, sometimes every few days.

  4) You have no way to make the payments so the bank may offer to allow you to try a “Short Sale”, selling the home for less than the amount you owe and being forgiven of the difference (maybe).

  5) You get an offer on the home. Bank rejects it. (There are instances where they accept..maybe more so now, but I never had any short sale offers accepted in ‘’08-‘09 by BofA or Wells Fargo)

  6) If no offers are accepted by the bank, the next step is to try a Deed in Lieu. You attempt to hand keys back to the bank for a “sum” and they take over property. You write a check for a negotiated dollar amount, they send you all types of paperwork which will often say “We can still come after you for the forgiven difference one day”.

  7) To do the DIL, the person at bank you’re negotiating with is not the one making the decision. It’s usually their supervisor. So your hardship “story” is usually being relayed to another person that you never even get to talk to who has the final say.

  8) If the DIL is rejected, it’s straight up Foreclosure through the courts.

  9) You get a wonderful 1099-C. Cancelation of Debt Form. Let’s say you owe $1,000,000. They foreclose and resell your property at auction and the bank gets $750,000 for it. They forgave $250,000 of your debt. It’s their “gift” to you. So you get to pay taxes on a $250,000 gift. Fun times.

  The other issue with all of the above: Your credit is shot from the get go. Even in the short sale process, you aren’t making your payments. So each month that passes just dings your credit more and more. Say goodbye to having any ability to purchase anything on credit for around 5 years. At the 7 year mark, it falls off if they finalize your DIL or foreclosure, but your purchasing power is shot for a long time. My credit was 790 in 2008. By 2009, it was 400. Literally everything after this process has to be purchased with cash or some type of high interest hard money loan.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 21:20

• Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Handed 22-Year Prison Term For Jan. 6 Attack
  Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Handed 22-Year Prison Term For Jan. 6 Attack

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman and Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Henry “Enrique” Tarrio Jr., the Florida-based former chairman of the Proud Boys accused of being the mastermind of a seditious conspiracy to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on Sept. 5 by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly.

  

  Mr. Tarrio, 39, of Miami, received the longest prison term among all Jan. 6 defendants, eclipsing the previous record of 18 years given to Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III in May, and Mr. Tarrio’s co-defendant, Ethan Nordean, on Sept. 1.

  Prosecution of Mr. Tarrio and his Proud Boys lieutenants included the most extended Jan. 6 criminal trial—more than four months—held in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.

  Mr. Tarrio was the last of his trial group to be handed a sentence by Judge Kelly, an appointee of former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Nordean was sentenced to 18 years, Joseph Biggs 17 years, Zachary Rehl 15 years, and Dominic Pezzola 10 years.

  Federal prosecutors sought a 33-year prison term for Mr. Tarrio, described in court documents as a “naturally charismatic leader, a savvy propagandist, and the celebrity chairman of the national Proud Boys organization.” Prosecutors claimed he exhibited “pernicious, violence-oriented leadership.”

  During a nearly four-hour sentencing hearing, defense attorneys said 15 years would be a sufficient prison term.

  Mr. Tarrio expressed remorse for Jan. 6, for letting down his grandfather and his family, and for not respecting law enforcement.

  He asked the judge for leniency so he could return to society and turn away from “my selfish endeavors.” Mr. Tarrio said the trial has humbled him and he no longer wants anything to do with rallies or politics.

  “I am not a political zealot,” he said.

  Calling seditious conspiracy a “serious offense,” Judge Kelly said Mr. Tarrio was the “ultimate leader” of the conspiracy who schemed to have government buildings taken over on Jan. 6. What happened that day was a “disgrace,” the judge said.

  Although Mr. Tarrio was not physically present in Washington on Jan. 6, Judge Kelly applied a sentence enhancement for terrorism based on the attack on Capitol fencing by Mr. Biggs and Mr. Nordean. Judge Kelly said the seditious conspiracy made Mr. Tarrio complicit in the fence destruction and deserving of the terrorism enhancement.

  On May 4, Mr. Tarrio was found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to use force, intimidation, or threat to prevent officers of the United States from discharging their duties, interference with law enforcement during civil disorder, and destruction of government property.

  

  Mr. Tarrio was found not guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. The jury could not reach a verdict on two other counts.

  Much like the Oath Keepers put on trial in 2022 and 2023, Mr. Tarrio was accused of plotting to thwart the “peaceful transfer of power” from President Donald J. Trump to Joseph Biden Jr.

  Defense attorney Sabino Jauregui rejected the idea his client is a terrorist.

  “My client is no terrorist,” Mr. Jauregui said, instead describing Mr. Tarrio as a “misguided patriot.”

  Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe disagreed, describing Jan. 6 as a “calculated act of terrorism.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 21:00

• US Officials Say Chinese "Tourists" Engaged In 'Gate-Crashing' US Bases For Espionage
  US Officials Say Chinese “Tourists” Engaged In ‘Gate-Crashing’ US Bases For Espionage

  Fresh reporting in The Wall Street Journal has reviewed and presented a series of instances which are being dubbed low-level Chinese intelligence collection efforts, often involving Chinese nationals posing as tourists who attempt to gain access to military bases in the US, sometimes in bizarre and forceful ways.

  US officials have tracked a dramatic increase in these incidents, citing that they’ve occurred as many as 100 times in recent years. These episodes have also been called ‘grate-crashing’ incidents.

  “The Defense Department, FBI and other agencies held a review last year to try to limit these incidents, which involve people whom officials have dubbed gate-crashers because of their attempts—either by accident or intentionally—to get onto U.S. military bases and other installations without proper authorization,” the WSJ wrote.

  

  Documenting some of the more interesting examples, the report said, “They range from Chinese nationals found crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico to what appeared to be scuba divers swimming in murky waters near a U.S. government rocket-launch site in Florida.”

  The people involved are not likely Chinese intelligence officials themselves, but possibly assets pressed into service by their country while they are in the states. In many cases, the phenomenon appears a low-level and easy attempt at testing security practices at high secure American government installations.

  These instances have reportedly come under renewed scrutiny after the Chinese ‘spy balloon’ shootdown incident off the South Carolina coast in early February.

  The FBI has said, “The Chinese government is engaged in a broad, diverse campaign of theft and malign influence without regard to laws or international norms that the FBI will not tolerate.” But of course, Beijing has responded by rejecting the “groundless accusations” and “Cold War mentality” which the foreign ministry says has been on display by the US. “The relevant claims are purely ill-intentioned fabrications,” the Chinese embassy in D.C. told the Journal.

  According to one example offered in the report:

  Officials described incidents in which Chinese nationals say they have a reservation at an on-base hotel. In a recent case, a group of Chinese nationals claiming they were tourists, tried to push past guards at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, saying they had reservations at a commercial hotel on the base. The base is home to the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which is focused on Arctic warfare. 

  In numerous other examples, Chinese “tourists” take photos, or even deploy recreational drones, to capture images of sensitive military sites.

  Another example US officials described to the WSJ involved Chinese visitors going to White Sands National Park – only to wander onto the neighboring missile testing range and facility. Similar scenarios have even happened at the White House, where Chinese visitors on group tours appeared to have focused their photo-taking on security guard houses and Secret Service guard infrastructure, before being told to leave.

  “Chinese nationals, sometimes posing as tourists, have accessed US military bases and other sensitive sites as many as 100 times”

  “No cases appear to have resulted in espionage charges.”

  “individuals are typically Chinese nationals pressed into service”https://t.co/PUrcVzV3AM

  — Jeff M. Smith (@Cold_Peace_) September 4, 2023

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

  In a further example…

  In another incident, Chinese nationals appear to have been found scuba diving off Cape Canaveral, home to the Kennedy Space Center. The area is the launch site for spy satellites and other military missions. A spokesman for Homeland Security Investigations’s Tampa, Fla., field office said the incident was part of a continuing investigation and declined to comment further. 

  They were reportedly taking photos near the launch site, but at the same time there’s some ambiguity and “cover” given they simply claimed they were scuba diving and were engaged in harmless recreation in public waters.

  The report says that often the Chinese nationals are only briefly detained and then put on a plane and sent out of the country and back to China early. US officials believe that this is an organized probing effort of the Chinese government and its intelligence services.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 20:40

• Shellenberger: Government Intel & Security Agencies Behind NGO Demands For More Censorship By X/Twitter
  Shellenberger: Government Intel & Security Agencies Behind NGO Demands For More Censorship By X/Twitter

  Authored by Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger via Public Substack,

  Groups leading the advertiser boycott of X/Twitter receive money from and have a history of spying for governments…

  

  Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member;  Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD

  The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say. When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

  But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.  The reason all of this matters is that ADL’s advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk’s takeover last November.

  Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years.

  ADL is waging a very similar campaign against X/Twitter that it successfully waged against Facebook in 2020. In just three days, 800 companies, including $129 billion consumer products giant Unilever, withdrew tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue from Facebook until it agreed to ADL’s censorship demands. “The Facebook caved to far-left pressure groups and now allows them to silently dictate policy in exchange for ad money,” said Musk yesterday. “That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all Western search or social media orgs.”

  It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.

  But there is no good evidence of that. Public has debunked claims by ISD and CCDH of an increase. And researchers have repeatedly debunked ADL’s claims of rising antisemitism for years. In 2009, an Israeli filmmaker found that ADL could not support its claims of an antisemitism crisis. Wrote NPR in a review of the film, “When he presses ADL staffers for evidence to back up their claims of a sharp spike in North American anti-Semitism in 2007, they can offer only wan transgressions…”

  Eleven years later, Liel Leibovitz noted in Tablet that ADL had, for a report, “counted hundreds of threatening calls to Jewish community centers made by a mentally troubled Israeli teenager. You had to read the report’s fine print to learn that the number of violent attacks against Jews that year had actually decreased by 47%.”

  ADL, ISD, and CCDH have not presented any good evidence that offensive speech online directly causes “hate-motivated violence,” nor that censorship prevents it. Moreover, last week Public reviewed evidence suggesting that the best way to combat hate speech is through open and public debate, which allows people to change their minds, not censorship.

  ADL’s main goal is supposed to be stopping “the defamation of the Jewish people,” but the organization is using the legacy of antisemitism and the Holocaust to justify unrelated censorial advocacy work. This is exploitative, and it is defamatory to say that Jews, in general, need and favor censorship. Many Jews on both the left and the right have argued that ADL does not represent their interests. By claiming to speak for all Jewish people while demanding highly unpopular policies, the ADL may be inadvertently driving antisemitism.

  As troubling as these highly partisan ideological biases are, what’s most dangerous are the past and present ties between ADL, ISD, CCDH, and governments, particularly security and intelligence organizations, which we detail below.

  Neither ADL, ISD, nor CCDH have responded to multiple requests for more information or an interview.

  ADL’s Spying For Governments

  

  FBI Director Robert Mueller gives the keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2005 National Commission Meeting November 3, 2005 in New York City. Mueller, who was joined by U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, spoke on terrorism, extremism and other global topics that are the centerpiece of this years ADL National Commission Meeting. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

  Although ADL is currently focused on demonizing Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists,” it has a history of partnering with the state and law enforcement to target the Left. 

  …

  Today, ADL’s ties to intelligence and security organizations are closer than ever. It works with the FBI by holding a training session with agents and hosting FBI Director Christopher Wray as a featured speaker. According to Greenblatt, the FBI works directly with ADL “every day.”

  …

  We do not have firm proof that there is a conspiracy by the intelligence and security agencies of the United States and Britain to control the content on social media platforms like X and Facebook through their control over CCDH, ISD, and ADL. Perhaps ideological, cultural, and political alignment alone explain the remarkable coordination we have documented. Perhaps the US and UK government funding for CCDH and ISD is insignificant compared to their nongovernmental funders.

  But there is enough evidence of conspiracy for members of Congress and Parliament to investigate CCDH, ADL, ISD, and other so-called “nongovernmental” organizations for the advocacy of censorship. Who is funding them? What are their relationships with government officials? What is their role in intelligence and security organizations?

  …

  What’s clear is that we also need to change our view of ADL, CCDH, and ISD. They cannot be considered “nongovernmental organizations.” Their ties to the government, particularly the national security state, are too strong. 

  Public Substack subscribers can read the full note here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 20:20

• CDC Repeatedly Advised People With Post-Vaccination Conditions To Get More Doses
  CDC Repeatedly Advised People With Post-Vaccination Conditions To Get More Doses

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

  A network composed of experts from inside and outside the U.S. government repeatedly recommended that people who suffered adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination receive additional shots, even when the experts could not rule out the vaccines as the cause of the events, documents obtained by The Epoch Times show.

  

  The network, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Project, is run by a doctor who has received extensive funding from pharmaceutical giants, including the top two COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, according to other records.

  In one example, CISA was presented with records showing a 63-year-old woman experienced chronic kidney disease, with symptoms including kidney swelling, after receiving a second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

  CISA subject matter experts (SMEs) said that the diagnosis could not be definitively confirmed without a kidney biopsy but that they still felt comfortable using a causality algorithm for the presumed diagnosis developed in part by Dr. Kathryn Edwards, CISA’s principal investigator.

  Applying the algorithm to the case resulted in an “indeterminate” designation, or an inability to rule out the vaccine causing the problem, in part because there was no evidence of other causes. But that inability did not stop the program from recommending additional shots.

  “Weighing the potential risks of COVID-19 vaccination and the benefits of preventing COVID-19, the SMEs provided their opinion that the patient should receive future COVID-19 vaccinations,” the Feb. 24, 2023, letter to the patient’s doctor stated.

  At the time, the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic infection had been shown to start low and wane quickly, while protection against severe disease began higher but also rapidly dropped.

  After the woman received her next shot, the CISA experts said, the doctor should check in on her to see if she experienced recurrent hematuria, or blood in her urine.

  “Although the CDC’s subject matter experts claim to have no idea if inflammation of the kidneys in a 63-year-old woman was caused by the mRNA COVID-19 biological, they tell the attending physician to go ahead and give the woman another COVID shot. That amounts to a challenge/re-challenge experiment on a sick woman without informed consent,” Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, told The Epoch Times in an email.

  “Government officials admitting ignorance about a biological product’s potential side effects but directing a doctor to risk a patient’s life by continuing to inject the product into a patient, who already has suffered an injury following use of that product, is immoral,” she added. “We expect and deserve government health officials to adhere to a higher professional and ethical standard of care.“

  Some people who experience a problem after a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine have experienced a recurrence of the problem following another dose, according to case studies and surveillance data.

  Dr. Edwards, until recently of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the CDC did not respond to requests for comment.

  Other Letters

  The Epoch Times obtained, through the Freedom of Information Act, letters sent by CISA to physicians.

  CISA features experts with the CDC and other institutions, including Vanderbilt University, Boston Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins University collaborating to respond to doctors who ask the program to review patient cases and provide recommendations.

  “CISA provides consultations for U.S. healthcare providers with complex vaccine safety questions about their patients and conducts vaccine safety clinical research,” the CDC states on its website.

  The first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized and recommended in December 2020. From Dec. 1, 2020, through June 1, 2023, CISA provided 48 recommendations to doctors dealing with COVID-19 vaccines, the records show.

  In 39.5 percent of the cases, CISA recommended another vaccination. In 23 percent of the cases, CISA recommended against another vaccination. In 14.5 percent of the cases, CISA said there were no reasons patients could not receive more doses. In the remaining cases, CISA advised reassessing the matter down the road or advising a patient who had not yet received a vaccine to receive a vaccine.

  The recommendations for future doses came even in cases where CISA was unable to say the vaccine did not cause the adverse event.

  In a letter dated May 4, 2021, CISA experts said there was “no evidence” to support non-vaccine causes for the patient’s condition but that there was “no definitive known association” between the condition and Pfizer’s vaccine, leading to an indeterminate designation in the causality algorithm.

  While one of the experts said that in a person “with the right immunologic makeup,” the vaccine “could be an initial inciting injury” causing the condition, many of the experts advised the patient to receive another dose.

  The patient might want to receive Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which uses different technology than the Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA shots, CISA said in the letter. “Support for this guidance included that it would avoid the lipid envelope and the mRNA presentation of the antigen to this patient,” they wrote.

  In another letter, dated Jan. 18, 2022, CISA experts also found no evidence for non-vaccine causes for the patient’s condition, which appeared after Pfizer vaccination. But they repeated the claim that there was no definitive association between the vaccine and the condition, leading to an indeterminate designation.

  CISA experts “strongly felt that the risk of COVID-19 infection was higher than the potential risk from another dose of vaccine,” according to the letter, and recommended a second Pfizer dose.

  In a third letter, dated May 23, 2022, CISA experts said the causality algorithm resulted in an indeterminate designation “due to lack of strong evidence against a causal association.” They described a “very perplexing case” and acknowledged the patient’s condition was “not understood.”

  But CISA experts still advised the patient, who suffered an event after a Pfizer dose and had also recovered from COVID-19, to receive another shot.

  “This would be especially important in light of the current surge in circulating Omicron variants,” they wrote.

  Small Number of Causal Determinations

  A small number of cases led to the determination that the vaccination caused an adverse event.

  In six instances, CISA experts determined that the event was “consistent with causal association,” or caused by the vaccination, because the condition suffered by each patient was “a known possible adverse event following immunization.”

  In all six cases, experts recommended against additional doses while advising the doctors caring for the patients to follow up with the patients to figure out which non-COVID vaccines the patients could safely receive.

  CISA experts also advised against additional COVID-19 vaccine doses in five other cases. The designations in those cases were also indeterminate, making the differences between them and those that resulted in recommendations for future doses unclear apart from several involving people who had expressed opposition to receiving more shots.

  In seven other cases, CISA experts said there were no contraindications, or no reasons for not receiving at least one additional dose. The CDC has maintained a short list that currently includes just two contraindications for the COVID-19 vaccines—a history of severe allergic shock or a history of a known diagnosed allergy to a component of one of the shots.

  Patients with other conditions, such as heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination, are generally advised to avoid additional doses, the CDC says in the list. But that is only a “precaution,” not a contraindication.

  CISA also advised doctors of nine of the patients to reassess future COVID-19 vaccination down the road and, in two of the cases, told doctors that patients who had not yet received a COVID vaccine could receive one.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 20:00

• Chicago Criminals Get Green Light To Rob, Loot And Steal As Odds Of Punishment Collapse To Near Zero
  Chicago Criminals Get Green Light To Rob, Loot And Steal As Odds Of Punishment Collapse To Near Zero

  By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner of Wirepoints

  The decision to commit a crime in Chicago has never been easier. Criminals are almost guaranteed to profit because the chances of getting caught and punished have collapsed to near-zero. 

  It’s a big reason why the city is on target to hit a post-pandemic high in major crimes in 2023, currently up 32 percent vs. last year. It’s also why crime is unlikely to slow down significantly any time soon. Mayor Brandon Johnson doesn’t show any signs of imposing a higher cost on the city’s criminals. And Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans haven’t changed their soft approach to crime either.

  The math is pretty straightforward. A demoralized, restricted police force. Plus a 1 in 20 arrest rate. Plus a high rate of unreported crime. Plus a dismal 911 response rate. Plus a city leadership that’s soft on crime. All that equals a near-zero chance of criminals ever getting punished.

  Not until the costs of committing crime go way up – and the equation changes – will Chicagoans see any relief. 

  

  Equation inputs

  Arrests

  The chance of getting arrested in Chicago for a major crime collapsed to just 5 percent in 2022. It was already a low 10 percent just four years ago.

  More than 68,000 major crimes were reported in Chicago last year. Only 3,228 of them resulted in arrests. Wirepoints’ calculations are based on the Chicago City Data Portal: Crime – 2001 to Present.

  

  The arrest rate for criminal sexual assault? Just 3 percent. Ditto for Motor Vehicle Thefts. Burglaries were at only 4 percent and Robberies, 5 percent. 

  For thefts over $500, the chance of getting busted is even lower, at just 1 percent. There were just 201 arrests out of 20,041 crimes reported last year. And you’ll avoid arrest 96 times out of 100 across any form of theft, which The New York Times recently reported. 

  Unreported crimes

  It gets even better for Chicago criminals. The above data is just for crimes that are actually reported. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that nationally in 2019, “Only 40.9% of violent crimes and 32.5% of household property crimes were reported to authorities.” So the real chance of getting caught is even lower than the 5 percent. 

  Soft-on-crime leadership

  Criminals are far more likely to get verbal support for the crimes they’ve committed, not condemnation, from Mayor Brandon Johnson. Kids just being “silly,” he said of the city’s recent teen takeovers. They’re not “mob actions,” he argued. We captured both those moments here and here.

  And there’s the fact that even if criminals do get caught, the chances of being convicted and sentenced are low. State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and Chief Judge Tim Evans continue their light treatment of felony weapons charges and issue plea deals on the cheap.

  Criminals also know they’re less likely to be detained pre-trial, which Wirepoints covered in Close the revolving door for high-risk offenders in Cook County. There are about 800 more violent defendants out on electronic ankle bracelets at any one time – many of them felons – than there were in 2016. There are thousands more defendants out without any tracking. 

  With the SAFE-T Act now law, the number of alleged criminals back on the streets before trial will increase further.

  911 calls

  Yet another part of the calculus is the fact that Chicago’s police aren’t responding to more than half of the urgent 911 calls they receive, part of what are called RAPs, or Radio Assignments Pending. Last year we reported on the 2021 data, which showed just over half of all priority 911 calls weren’t immediately handled.

  It was even worse in 2022. Of the more than 780,000 Priority 1 and 2 911 service calls, 60 percent had no Chicago police available to respond. 

  Those delays included:

  • Over 4,700 robbery-related calls, including 470 robberies in progress

  • Over 19,400 calls of batteries in progress

  • Nearly 2,000 reports of sexual assault, including 150 assaults in progress

  • Over 18,000 reports of a person with a gun

  • Over 1,200 reports of citizens shot

  • Nearly 1,000 reports of citizens stabbed

  

  Making it worse

  The simple calculus of Chicago’s criminals is clear when you look at the city’s latest criminal fad: robberies.

  The ease of stealing cars like Kias and Hyundais, in combination with new laws prohibiting police from foot and car chases, has emboldened criminals even more. 

  Criminals are now using those stolen cars to go on robbery sprees neighborhood to neighborhood, sometimes committing as many as 20 robberies within hours of each other, confident they won’t get caught or even chased.

  That’s resulted in headlines like these:

  • TV news crew robbed while reporting on Chicago robbery sprees; armed men targeted at least 30 people in about 12 hours

  • Armed men rob victim, then carjack a nearby delivery driver in Logan Square during Thursday afternoon crime spree

  • At Least 19 Armed Robberies Hit Logan Square Area In 2 Days, Police Say

  The story that perhaps best captures the restrictions placed on officers to do their jobs is in a recent article by CWB Chicago: At least 23 armed robberies reported Sunday as Chicago cops *again* see a robbery in progress, but don’t chase the offenders:

  …CPD police officers on patrol and in a surveillance camera operations center witnessed an armed robbery in progress in the 6500 block of North Western Avenue. “I can see them right now,” the officer radioed. “They got long guns. There’s a unit on scene.”

  That patrol unit tried to pull the Durango over as they snaked through the North Side. Officers said four men were inside the SUV with their faces covered, bearing at least one rifle. But not long after the unit started to chase the SUV loaded with armed, masked men who had just robbed someone as Chicago police officers watched, a CPD sergeant ordered the squad car to terminate their efforts to stop the Durango.

  At least eleven people were robbed that night, including some after the police supervisor decided to let the group of armed robbers get away.”

  More victims of crime

  Add all the above and it’s easy to see why criminals face a near-zero risk of punishment.

  That also helps explain why the city’s crime numbers continue to rise. Chicagoans have been victimized more than 51,000 times during the first 8 months of 2023 – already more than they were over the entirety of 2019, 2020 or 2021. Only homicides are down compared to last year, by 8 percent – a small decline compared to other major cities.

  If the lawbreaking trend continues, 2023 major crimes will total 78,000, some 17% more than in 2022.

  

  For sure, there’s a lot to be done to solve the crime crisis in Chicago. The social challenges and poor educational outcomes plaguing the city will take years, if not decades, to unwind. 

  But to save lives in the meantime, and to make Chicago safer – one of Mayor Johnson’s key goals – the near-zero cost of committing crimes must rise dramatically. And that means reforging the chain of criminal justice, from arresting to prosecuting to sentencing. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 19:40

• These Are The Most Popular US Undergrad Degress Of The Last Decade
  These Are The Most Popular US Undergrad Degress Of The Last Decade

  In an era of soaring tuition fees and mounting student debt, choosing which undergraduate degree to pursue has become a crucial decision for any aspiring college student. And it always helps to see which way the winds are blowing.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao shares below, this visualization by Kashish Rastogi, based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), examines the changing landscape of undergraduate degrees awarded between the 2010–2011 and 2020–2021 academic years.

  

  Undergraduate Degrees Growing in Popularity

  The NCES classifies all four-year bachelor degrees into 38 fields of study. Of these fields, 21 saw an increase in graduates in 2020–2021 compared to 2010–2011.

  While only those with more than 30,000 graduates have been shown in the graphic (to prevent overrepresentation of large changes in small pools of graduates), the full list is available below.

  Rank	Field of Study	2010–2011	2020–2021	% Change
  1	Business	363,919	390,781	+7%
  2	Health Professions	143,463	268,018	+87%
  3	Biomedical Sciences	89,984	131,499	+46%
  4	Psychology	100,906	126,944	+26%
  5	Engineering	76,356	126,037	+65%
  6	Computer Sciences	43,066	104,874	+144%
  7	Communication	83,231	90,775	+9%
  8	Security & Law Enforcement	47,600	58,009	+22%
  9	Interdisciplinary Studies	42,473	54,584	+29%
  10	Leisure & Fitness Studies	35,934	54,294	+51%
  11	Public Administration	26,799	34,817	+30%
  12	Physical Sciences	24,338	28,706	+18%
  13	Mathematics	17,182	27,092	+58%
  14	Agriculture Sciences	15,851	21,418	+35%
  15	Natural Resources & Conservation	12,779	20,507	+61%
  16	Engineering Technologies	16,187	18,562	+15%
  17	Transportation	4,941	5,993	+21%
  18	Legal	4,429	4,589	+4%
  19	Military Technologies	64	1,524	+2,281%
  20	Science Technologies	367	532	+45%
  21	Library Science	96	119	+24%

  Note: Field of study names have been edited slightly from their NCES labels for better readability.

  Let’s take a look at the areas of study that were most popular, as well as some of the fastest growing fields:

  Computer and Information Sciences

  Bachelor’s degrees in this discipline have grown by 144% since 2010–2011, with over 100,000 graduates in 2020–2021. The allure of the tech sector’s explosive growth likely contributed to its popularity among students.

  Health Professions

  Undergraduate degrees in health professions saw an 87% increase, attracting nearly 260,000 graduates in 2020–2021. This field accounted for 13% of the total graduating class, reflecting the growing appeal of the healthcare sector.

  Engineering

  There were 50,000 more engineering graduates in the U.S. in 2021, up 65% from 2011. With a median income over $100,000 per year, engineering graduates can usually rely on good wages as well as versatility in future careers, capable of finding jobs in tech, design, and communication fields, and of course, becoming future entrepreneurs.

  Biomedical Sciences

  University graduates in this field, which focuses on the integration of the study of biology with health and medicine, grew by 46%. A subset of this category—epidemiology—has been in the limelight recently thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Business

  While this category recorded a modest 7% growth in graduates, its popularity has been indisputable in the last decade, representing the largest proportion of the graduating class in both 2011 and 2021.

  Fields with Declining University Graduates (2011‒2021)

  Meanwhile, 17 areas of study experienced declines in the number of completed university degrees. We explore some of the notable ones below:

  Rank	Field of Study	2010–2011	2020–2021	% Change
  1	Social Sciences	142,161	1,37,908	-3%
  2	Visual & Performing Arts	93,939	90,022	-4%
  3	Education	104,008	89,398	-14%
  4	Liberal Arts	46,717	41,909	-10%
  5	English	52,754	35,762	-32%
  6	History	35,008	22,919	-35%
  7	Human Sciences	22,438	22,319	-1%
  8	Foreign Languages	21,705	15,518	-29%
  9	Philosophy & Religion	12,830	11,988	-7%
  10	Architecture	9,831	9,296	-5%
  11	Ethnic, Cultural & Gender Studies	8,955	7,374	-18%
  12	Theology	9,073	6,737	-26%
  13	Communications Tech	4,858	4,557	-6%
  14	Personal & Culinary Services	1,214	594	-51%
  15	Construction Trades	328	221	-33%
  16	Mechanic & Repair	226	221	-2%
  17	Precision Production	43	28	-35%

  English

  Popular in the 1970s, the English undergraduate degree has gone through peaks (80s and 90s) and troughs (2000s and 10s) of popularity in the last 50 years. Between 2010–2011 and 2020–2021, the number of students with an English degree has fallen by a third.

  The state of English’s woes are even making its way to pop culture, like in Netflix’s The Chair, which follows the head of a struggling English department at a major university.

  Education

  The existing teacher shortage in the United States does not seem to be getting fixed by a burgeoning supply of new grads. In fact, the number of university graduates in Education fell 14% between 2011 and 2021. With concerns around stagnant wages, burnout, and little to no support for supplies, many teachers are seeing an already demanding job becoming harder.

  Liberal Arts

  In the classic era, the liberal arts covered seven fields of study: rhetoric, grammar, logic, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and music. Now, liberal art degrees include several other subjects: history, political science, and even philosophy—but students are meant to primarily walk away with critical thinking skills.

  The modern world rewards specialization however, and a wider-scope liberal arts degree is seeing fewer takers, with a 10% drop in graduating students.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 19:20

• Mainstream Media Finally Wakes Up To The Gaping GDP-GDI Recession Discrepancy
  Mainstream Media Finally Wakes Up To The Gaping GDP-GDI Recession Discrepancy

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Not exactly timely, Bloomberg notes “The widening gap between gross domestic income and gross domestic product is a worrying signal.”

  The difference between GDP and GDI is the biggest in US history. It should be identical, but it isn’t. pic.twitter.com/erjWHysI1g

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 30, 2023

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

  GDP vs GDI Chart Notes

  • Real means inflation adjusted

  • GDP is Gross Domestic Product

  • GDI is Gross Domestic Income

  • Real Final Sales is the bottom line assessment of GDP. It excludes inventories which net to zero over time.

  GDI was negative for two consecutive quarters and has been weaker than GDP for four quarters. GDI is now positive, but it is subject to greater revisions than GDP.

  

  GDP numbers from the BEA, chart by Mish

  Bloomberg opinion columnist Aaron Brown says Summer’s End Is Ushering In a Recessionary Chill, emphasis mine.

  In theory, GDP and GDI measure the same thing — the total value of goods and services produced in a geographic area and sold to end-users at arms-length prices during a quarter — but in different ways. If the economy had a single cash register, GDP would measure the money coming into the till, GDI would measure where the money went — to wages, supplies, taxes, interest, dividends or left in the till for owners and stockholders. But since the economy has billions of transactions, many complex and not all captured in official numbers, GDP and GDI have different measurement errors, and thus different values. They’re usually pretty close, however, differing by 0.8% on average.

  Using two successive down quarters as the signal for recession, from 1947 to 1973 GDP and GDI agreed all but once. They both signaled four recessions at the same times, and they both missed the 1961 recession. GDP did give one false alarm in 1947.

  Since 1973, however, GDI has done much better. Four times it signaled recession before GDP and once it caught a recession that GDP missed. Twice the two triggered at the same time, and once GDP gave a false alarm.

  There’s been more news recently suggesting that a recession began at the end of 2022. Second-quarter GDP growth was revised down. Job openings are plunging. The labor leverage ratio — the proportion of workers quitting to those let go by employers — is falling as well, suggesting workers fear a weak job market and have little power to get increased wages. Corporate profits are falling as well. If current trends continue, and if GDP declines a significant share of the roughly 1.5% needed to fall in line with GDI, the economic numbers released from late September through October could well prompt the NBER to announce a recession.

  This has three main implications, two political and one economic. Politically, NBER declaring a recession would support the Republican story that the Biden administration hurt the economy and denied obvious economic reality for three years to push left-wing policies. It would make Democratic painting of Bidenomic prosperity seem hollow or even dishonest.

  I have been talking about the GDP vs GDI discrepancy, negative revisions, the discrepancy between jobs and employment, corporate profits, and the job leverage ratio for months, and in far more detail. Let’s take a look at some of my recent posts.

  Negative Revision to 2nd Quarter GDP, Huge Discrepancy with GDI Continues

  The lead chart and the second chart are from my post Negative Revision to 2nd Quarter GDP, Huge Discrepancy with GDI Continues

  

  Real GDI peaked in the third quarter of 2022.

  Discrepancy Between Jobs and Employment

  

  Employment levels and jobs data from the BLS, chart by Mish.

  Payrolls vs Employment Gains Since May 2022

  • Nonfarm Payrolls: 4,377,000

  • Employment Level: +3,185,000

  • Full Time Employment: +1,446,000

  • Only 45.4 percent of the employment gains for the last 15 months was full time employment.

  Jobs Rise by 187,000 But 110,000 Negative Revisions and Unemployment Soars by 514,000

  On September 1, I noted Jobs Rise by 187,000 But 110,000 Negative Revisions and Unemployment Soars by 514,000

  Accounting for negative revisions, jobs effectively increased by 77,000 while unemployment surges as people looking for work can’t find it. Bloomberg labeled this “Goldilocks”.

  Unemployment rose by 514,000. Over half a million people wanted jobs but couldn’t find them.

  Full time employment is down by 150,000 since January of 2023.

  Here is a blurb I have posted in my monthly jobs reports for eight straight months.

  Because of annual benchmark revisions, the way the BLS reports revisions, and the relatively small sample sizes of monthly jobs reports, we cannot, with strong confidence, suggest these reports portray an accurate picture of either jobs or employment.

  Of the 894,000 rise in employment in January, 810,000 was due to annual benchmark revisions. And the BLS does not say what months were revised, just poof, here you go.

  The monthly jobs report by the BLS samples a mere 6 percent of jobs. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) payroll employment data represents 95 percent of the data.

  The BLS will not incorporate March of 2023 until January of 2024. Lovely.

  The Labor Leverage Ratio, a Measure of Wage Bargaining Power, Is in Retreat

  

  Data from the BLS, the Labor Leverage Ratio (LLR) is defined as Quits / (Layoffs + Discharges)

  The BLS comments “the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.”

  The LLR is a refinement to the quits rate.

  I have commented on labor leverage several times this year, most recently in The Labor Leverage Ratio, a Measure of Wage Bargaining Power, Is in Retreat

  Philadelphia Fed GDPplus Measure Sure Looks Like Recession Started in 2022 Q4

  

  The Philadelphia Fed has a measure called GDPplus that’s a blend of GDP and GDI, not an average. It appears to lean more heavily on GDI.

  In 100 percent of the cases, with no false signals, no misses, and no lead times more than two quarters, every time GDPplus had two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the economy was in recession.

  On closer inspection, all but once, and the exception was a mere -0.1 percent, every time GDPplus had one quarter of negative growth, the economy was or would soon go into recession. By soon, I mean within two quarters.

  GDPplus accurately forecast the 1961 recession but GDP and GDI both did.

  GDPplus Recession Signals

  

  Mish compilation of recession lead times based on DGPplus data

  GDPplus Recession Signals Synopsis

  • GDPplus signaled every recession

  • GDPplus was on time 4 times, early by a quarter 3 times, and early by 2 quarters twice.

  This makes it appear as if GDPplus is a leading indicator. It isn’t because the data is heavily revised.

  The BEA makes revisions frequently, especially on GDI. Since GDPplus is more reliant on GDI, it also has significant swings. However, GDPplus is the best recession indicator yet.

  One quarter is sufficient and barring positive revisions to GDI and by implication GDPplus, the economy went into recession in the fourth quarter of 2022.

  For more discussion of GDPplus, please see Philadelphia Fed GDPplus Measure Sure Looks Like Recession Started in 2022 Q4

  Mainstream media is finally waking up to these discrepancies, albeit without any detailed analysis.

  It’s quite possible a recession has come and gone. The NBER already had one instance of declaring a recession after it was over so don’t be surprised if it happens again.

  It’s possible that a recession has come and gone with an interlude due to Inflation Reduction Act inflationary Nonsense.

  If so, expect a rare double dip.

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 19:00

• 'In Broad Daylight & In Front Of Kids': Disturbing Video Shows Maryland Cop Getting Into Backseat With Woman
  ‘In Broad Daylight & In Front Of Kids’: Disturbing Video Shows Maryland Cop Getting Into Backseat With Woman

  A viral video shows a police officer in Prince George’s County, a county in Maryland that borders Washington, D.C., taking what appears to be a young woman into the back of his police cruiser in broad daylight while kids play just feet away. It’s unclear what the officer and young woman did in the back of the cruiser. 

  A video posted on TikTok of a Prince George’s County Police officer has gone viral… I think I might know why 🤔 pic.twitter.com/sTX08SsNxh

  — MoCo PG News (@MoCoPGNews) September 5, 2023

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

  Maryland Bureau Chief for 7News DC Brad Bell confirmed on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Prince George’s County Police Department’s “command staff is aware” of the viral video circulating on multiple social media platforms. He said the police department has “opened an investigation into the circumstances.” 

  .@PGPDNews says “command staff is aware” of this viral video and they’ve opened an investigation into the circumstances. https://t.co/XdG4P1BEsc

  — Brad Bell (@Brad7News) September 5, 2023

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

  … and it appears the officer was suspended. 

  #BREAKING: @PGPDNews spokesperson says the department has suspended the officer seen in the viral video of him getting into the back of a police cruiser with a female (unidentified).

  Unclear if PGPD will release the office’s name @fox5dchttps://t.co/St8Be8eUmm
  hicle-with-woman

  — Lili Zheng (@lzhengtv) September 5, 2023

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

  One X user pointed out, “Across the playground in broad daylight is wildd levels of horny.” 

  “Prince George’s County Police sure do love black booty right in front of the immigrants and the kids,” another said. 

  Someone said, “It’s a PG County cop and folks are acting shocked my this…” 

  “In broad daylight where kids were playing at that smh. He couldn’t drive down the street?! And that girl looked MAD YOUNG to me. This is so foul smfh,” X user said. 

  The Prince George’s officer is taking ‘protect and serve’ to a whole other level. None of this is shocking in the Democratic stronghold county that borders DC. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 18:40

• Don't Dismiss The Possibility Of Gold Confiscation
  Don’t Dismiss The Possibility Of Gold Confiscation

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  If you hold precious metals in your portfolio, there is a good chance you fear hyperinflation and the crash of fiat currencies.

  You probably distrust governments in general and believe they are self-serving and have no interest in your economic well-being. It is likely that your holdings in gold are your lifeline – your hope to get you through these times while holding on to your wealth.

  But have you ever given any thought to the possibility of having this lifeline confiscated by the authorities?

  

  In my conversations with friends and associates, I have often raised this question. The typical responses:

  “They’d never do that.”

  “I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”

  “I just wouldn’t give it to them.”

  I consider these “wishful thinking” responses.

  It’s an interesting thought that the greatest threat to gold and silver investment might not be the possibility of losing on the speculation, but the government taking it away from you. It’s a thought that I’ve found few want to even think about, let alone discuss.

  If you fall into this camp, you’re in good company. Some of the forecasters whom I respect most highly also treat it either as unlikely or at best, “something we may need to look at in the future.” To date, in conversing with top advisors worldwide, the two primary reasons they believe gold will not be confiscated are:

  1. “Confiscation would mean the government acknowledges the reality of the value of gold.”

  Yes, this is quite so. They would be changing their official view… which, of course, they do all the time. But I submit that all that they need to do is put the proper spin on it.

  2. “They would meet greater resistance than they did back in ’33.”

  I expect that this is also true, but that a plan will be put in place to deal with that resistance.

  We’ll address both of these assertions in more detail shortly, but first, a bit of history.

  In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt came into office and immediately created the Emergency Banking Act, which demanded that all those who held gold (other than personal jewelry) turn it in to approved banks. Holders were given less than a month to do this. The government then paid them $20.67 per ounce – the going rate at the time. Following confiscation, the government declared that the new value of gold was $35.00. In essence, they arbitrarily increased the value of their newly purchased asset by 69%. (This alone is reason enough to confiscate.)

  Today, the US government is in much worse shape than it was in 1933, and it has much more to lose. The US dollar is the default currency of the world, but it’s on the ropes, which means the US economic power over the rest of the world is on the ropes.

  I think that readers will agree that they will do anything to keep from losing this all-important power.

  The US government has essentially run out of options. At some point, the fiat currencies of the First World will collapse, and some other form of payment will be necessary. Yes, the IMF is hoping to create a new default currency, but that, too, is to be a fiat currency. If any country were to produce a gold-backed currency in sufficient supply, that currency would likely become the desired currency worldwide. Fractional backing would be expected.

  As most readers will know, the Chinese, Indians, Russians, and others see the opportunity and are building up their gold reserves quickly and substantially. If these countries were to agree to introduce a new gold-backed currency, there can be little doubt that they would succeed in changing the balance of world trade.

  That said, the US government is watching these countries just as we are, and they are aware of the threat of gold to them.

  The US government ostensibly has approximately 8,200 tonnes of gold in Fort Knox, although this may well be partially or completely missing. Additionally, it ostensibly holds a further 5,000 tonnes of gold in the cellar of the New York Federal Reserve building. Again, there is no certainty that it is there. In general, the authorities don’t seem to like independent audits.

  In fact, there are rumors that the above vaults are nearly or completely empty and that the above quoted figures exist only on paper rather than in physical form. While there is no way to know this for sure, it’s not out of the question.

  Either way, if the US and the EU could come up with a large volume of gold quickly, they could issue a gold-backed currency themselves. It’s a simple equation: The more gold they have = the more backed notes they can produce = the more power they continue to hold. By seizing upon the private supply of their citizens, they would increase their holdings substantially in short order.

  Either that or they could just give up their dominance of world trade and power… What would you guess their choice would be?

  It is entirely possible that the US government (and very likely the EU) has already made a decision to confiscate. They may have carefully laid out the plan and have set implementation to coincide with a specific gold price.

  So how would this unfold? Let’s imagine a fairly extreme scenario and ask ourselves if it could be pulled off effectively:

  • The evening news programs announce that the economic recovery is being hampered by wealthy private investors who, by hoarding gold, are skewing the value of the dollar and threatening the middle and poorer classes. The little man is being made to suffer while the rich get richer. A press campaign to equate gold ownership with greed ensues.

  • The government announces the Second Emergency Banking Act, advising the public that “the first EBA was instituted by FDR to solve this same problem during the Great Depression. This act was instrumental in helping the little man ‘recover.’” (As the average man on the street doesn’t know his history nor how wrong this statement is, he’ll believe it. Besides, the announcement has a “feel-good” message, and that’s all that matters.)

  • Possessors of gold, who make up a small minority of the population, would become pariahs. It won’t matter that the guy who owns two gold Maple Leafs is not exactly a greedy, rich man. No one will wish to be seen as resisting confiscation. Neither will they wish to go to prison for resisting, no matter how remote the possibility.

  • The US pays for the gold in US dollars, which are rapidly headed south. Yes, the Fed will need to print more fiat dollars in order to pay them off, but this suits their purpose, as it inflates the dollar even more. Those who have turned in their gold will do whatever they can to unload the US dollars as quickly as possible and will need to find another investment at a time when there are very few trustworthy investments other than gold. The stock market would likely rise, showing the public how the gold confiscation program is “working.”

  • One last scary possibility: The government demands that gold is turned in immediately and that settlement will occur following confiscation. After confiscation, it announces that, as there has been such a large number of cases of rich people ripping off the little man, processing them all could take months, possibly even a year or more. A further announcement states that some investors have made an unreasonable profit on the backs of the poor and that they should not be granted this profit. This profit must be returned to the people. (You can almost hear the cheers of the people.) Then it sets about making assessments. The bureaucrats find that most investors do not have formal, acceptable receipts for every coin in their possession. So if you paid $1,200 for a Krugerrand a couple of years ago, you get paid $1,200. If you bought it at $250 in 1999, you get paid $250. But if you have no receipt in an acceptable form, you get a “fair,” median payment, say, $500, regardless of when you bought it.

  • Appeals: Each investor will be allowed up to one year to appeal the decision of the Treasury as to what is owed him. Of course, the investor knows that the dollar is sinking rapidly and that he would be wise to shut up and take what he is being offered.

  Again, this hypothetical scenario is an extreme one.

  The reader is left to consider just how likely or unlikely this scenario is and what that would mean to his wealth.

  But bear this in mind: If the above scenario were to take place soon, the average citizen would have mixed feelings. They would be glad that the “evil rich” had been taken down a peg, but they would worry about the idea of the government taking things by force, because they might be next. It would therefore be in the government’s interests to implement confiscation only after the coming panic sets in – after the next crash in the market, after it becomes plain to the average citizen that this really is a depression and he really is in big trouble. Then he will be only too glad to see the “greedy rich” go down, and he won’t care about the details.

  As terrible as the thought is, it seems unlikely to me that the government will not confiscate gold, as they have little to lose and so much to gain.

  Those who own gold would prefer to think that this cannot happen, but they have quite a lot riding on that hope and precious little evidence to support it.

  It is entirely possible that this scenario will not take place, just as it is possible that confiscation will not take place. The purpose of this article is to spark some serious discussion – both for and against the possibility.

  Investors are, by their very nature, planners. It may take a community of investors to develop a legal plan to deal with the above eventuality. Time to get started.

  The government can’t easily confiscate what’s outside its own borders, which is why it’s working night and day to make it as difficult as possible for you to protect your assets abroad. This sad reality means that you need to take action before it’s too late. Your first step? Learn how to start internationally diversifying your wealth – and your life. From investing in international markets and opening offshore bank accounts to setting up an offshore LLC or annuity.

  *  *  *

  Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of broke governments in need of more cash. There are still steps you can take to ensure you survive the turmoil with your money intact. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey and his colleagues just released an urgent new PDF report that explains what could come next and what you can do about it. Click here to download it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 18:20

• People Rarely Transmit COVID-19 Before Experiencing Symptoms: Lancet Study
  People Rarely Transmit COVID-19 Before Experiencing Symptoms: Lancet Study

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In a blow to the COVID-19 “silent spreader” narrative that has been used to push for universal masking, including controversially among schoolchildren, a recent study published in The Lancet suggests that people who are non-symptomatic rarely have the ability to infect others.

  

  Silent transmission is the idea that those who are infected with COVID-19 but show no symptoms can still spread the virus to other people.

  While all relevant studies show that presymptomatic and asymptomatic “silent spreaders” account for some proportion of infections in other people, the degree of silent transmission is less clear.

  A number of early studies—in some cases affected by limitations that may have led to their proportion of presymptomatic transmission to be “artifactually inflated”—suggested that silent transmission accounted for around half of secondary infections, or even more.

  The early studies led public health authorities to argue that everyone should wear a mask at all times when out in public or crowded places. This, in turn, helped drive draconian universal masking policies, including in schools, in a bid to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

  For instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), initially discouraged universal mask-wearing early in the pandemic but later did a U-turn.

  Initially, “we didn’t realize the extent of asymptotic spread,” Dr. Fauci said in July 2020, adding that later, “we fully realized that there are a lot of people who are asymptomatic who are spreading infection.”

  “So it became clear that we absolutely should be wearing masks consistently,” Dr. Fauci said at the time.

  But new research calls into question the significance of the threat of silent transmission, which comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise in America, driving what some are calling a renewed pandemic “hysteria” and calls for a fresh round of restrictions, including mask mandates.

  ‘Very Few Emissions’ Before Symptom Onset

  The new study, published in the August issue of The Lancet’s Microbe journal, shows that people who are sick with COVID-19 but don’t show any symptoms have a limited ability to spread the virus to other people.

  Participants in the British study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, were unvaccinated healthy adults aged 18-30 who were intentionally infected with COVID-19.

  The subjects were monitored under controlled circumstances while self-reporting symptoms three times per day, and researchers collected nose and throat swabs from them daily, checking for the presence of the virus.

  The researchers also tested the inside of masks worn by the participants, checked their hands, and examined the air and surfaces of rooms that the subjects were kept in for a minimum of 14 days.

  Ultimately, the researchers found that less than 10 percent of the viral emissions from infected participants took place before the first symptoms emerged.

  “Very few emissions occurred before the first reported symptom (7%) and hardly any before the first positive lateral flow antigen test (2%),” the authors of the study wrote.

  The new study—which takes the form of a rigorous, controlled “challenge study” rather than the earlier modeling studies that relied on subjective inputs and assumptions of researchers—contradicts earlier research that set the tone for much of the prevailing narrative. That early research appears to have inflated the perceived threat of presymptomatic spread.

  The latest study, suggesting that silent transmission is far less significant, comes amid a growing drumbeat of alarm as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise—along with calls in some circles for renewed restrictions.

  By contrast, many are calling for cool heads to prevail—or are urging civil disobedience if lockdowns or other mandates are reimposed.

  ‘Artifactually Inflated’?

  Some early studies, such as one published in August 2020 called “Temporal Dynamics In Viral Shedding and Transmissibility of COVID-19,” suggested that people who were presymptomatic or asymptomatic accounted for a large proportion of secondary infections.

  This particular study estimated that 44 percent of secondary cases were infected during the presymptomatic stage, while concluding that “disease control measures should be adjusted to account for probably substantial presymptomatic transmission.”

  The authors of the study admitted that it had several limitations, however, including potential “recall bias” that may have tended towards a delay in recognizing first symptoms.

  “The incubation period would have been overestimated, and thus the proportion of presymptomatic transmission artifactually inflated,” meaning that the study may have exaggerated the proportion of people who spread the virus before showing symptoms, they said.

  Another study from July 2020 called “The Implications of Silent Transmission for the Control of COVID-19 Outbreaks” went even further, suggesting that people were most infectious during the presymptomatic phase and concluding that silent transmission was the “primary driver of COVID-19 outbreaks and underscore the need for mitigation strategies, such as contact tracing, that detect and isolate infectious individuals prior to the onset of symptoms.”

  That study relied on a range of assumptions and models, with different presymptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic transmission rates calculated based on a complex mathematical model from another study.

  Findings from earlier studies like the ones cited above led public health officials to argue that silent spreaders were a big factor in COVID-19 transmission and so to recommend that everyone should mask up.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 17:40

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• Who's Afraid Of An Alternative For Germany?
  Who’s Afraid Of An Alternative For Germany?

  Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

  The media describes them as far-right, anti-European Union, anti-immigrant, fascist, etc. But what exactly are the positions of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party? Why is it steadily gaining in public opinion polls, and why is the German establishment so afraid of them?

  

  Various AfD party members have made comments in recent years that, depending on your point of view, are offensive or were blown out of proportion by the media. I’m not going to review all those here but instead wanted to look at what policies are contained in the AfD platform. The party’s “Manifesto for Germany” is a 93-page document that covers just about everything, but I want to focus here on areas that the media most frequently focus on  – immigration, the EU, and nationalism, as well as the set of positions that I would argue is the real reason for hyperventilating over AfD’s rise: foreign policy.

  On the EU:

  We oppose the idea to transform the European Union into a centralised federal state. We are in favour of returning the European Union to an economic union based on shared interests, and consisting of sovereign, but loosely connected nation states.…

  We believe in a sovereign Germany, which guarantees the freedom and security of its citizens, promotes economic welfare, and contributes to a peaceful and prosperous Europe.

  Should we not succeed with our ideas of a fundamental reform within the present framework of the European Union, we shall seek Germany‘s exit, or a democratic disso- lution of the EU, followed by the founding of a new Euro- pean economic union.…

  European politics are characterised by a creeping loss of democracy. The EU has become an undemocratic entity, whose policies are determined by bureaucrats who have no democratic accountability.

  On the Euro currency:

  We call for an end to the Euro experiment and its orderly dissolution. Should the German Federal Parliament not agree to this demand, Germany’s continued membership of the single currency area should be put to a popular vote.…

  The Euro actually jeopardises the peaceful co-existence of those European nations who are forced into sharing a common destiny by the Eurocracy. The introduction of this currency has led to resentment and confrontation amongst countries in Europe. Countries incurring economic difficulties within the single currency area are forced to restore their competitiveness by such measures as internal devaluation and associated budgetary constraints (austerity policies), rather than exploiting the tool of currency adjustments. Tensions amongst European nation states can inherently be ascribed to the Euro.

  AfD doesn’t just oppose the Euro for altruistic reasons. The party also objects to any form of financial equalization between the richer and poorer euro countries and claims Germany shoulders an unfair burden in propping up the weaker members of the eurozone.

  The political programme provides very little on labor policy, but AfD does want to provide financial incentives for Germans to reproduce. Here is the party on low birth rates and immigration:

  In order to fight the effects of this negative demographic development, political parties currently in government support mass immigration, mainly from Islamic states, without due consideration of the needs and qualifications of the German labour market. During the past few years it has become evident that Muslim immigrants to Germany,in particular, only attain below-average levels of education, training and employment. As the birth rate is more than 1.8 children amongst immigrants, which is much higher than that of Germans, it will hasten the ethnic-cultural changes in society.

  The attempt to counteract these developments by increasing the rate of immigration will inevitably lead to the estab lishment of more parallel communities, particularly inlarge cities, where integration with the native population is already a problem. The spread of conflict-laden and multiple minority communities erodes social solidarity, mutual trust, and public safety, which all are elements of a stable commu- nity. The average level of education will continue to drop.

  Greater political support for parental work, as well as education and family policies which are focused on the needs of families and young couples wanting to start a family, will once again lead to birth rates at a self-sustaining rate in the medium to long-term. We regard the closing of the gap between the actual number of children being born, and the desire of 90% of young Germans to have children, as a central element of our political platform.

  The document goes on for many pages about protecting the nation’s culture and how Islam is not a good fit for Germany. What exactly  is that culture?

  The AfD is committed to German as the predominant culture. This culture is derived from three sources: firstly, the religious traditions of Christianity; secondly, the scientific and humanistic heritage, whose ancient roots were renewed during the period of Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment; and thirdly, Roman law, upon which our constitutional state is founded.

  Islam does not belong to Germany. Its expansion and the ever-increasing number of Muslims in the country are viewed by the AfD as a danger to our state, our society, and our values. An Islam which neither respects nor refrains from being in conflict with our legal system, or that even lays claim to power as the only true religion, is incompatible with our legal system and our culture. Many Muslims live as law-abiding and well-integrated citizens amongst us, and are accepted and valued members of our society. However, the AfD demands that an end is put to the formation and increased segregation by parallel Islamic societies relying
  on courts with shari’a laws.

  Here is the AfD immigration policy in a nutshell:

  Current German and European asylum and refugee policies cannot be continued as in the past. The ill-fitting term “refugee” used for all the people who enter Germany irregularly with the aim to stay here forever, is characteristic of this misguided policy. It is necessary to make a distinction between political refugees and people fleeing from war on the one hand, and irregular migrants on the other. It is the AfD’s view that true refugees should be granted shelter as long as there is war in the countries of origin. Irregular migrants, who are not persecuted, have no right to claim protection, contrary to refugees. Once the reasons for fleeing, such as an end to wars, or political and religious persecution, no longer applies, shall residence permits of refugees be terminated. These refugees need to leave Germany. Germany and its EU partner countries should provide incentives for those who have to leave. It is in the interest of domestic and foreign peace if refugees return to their home countries and contribute to the political, economic and social reconstruction of these countries.

  We advocate moderate legal immigration based on qualitative criteria where there is irrefutable demand, which can neither be satisfied from domestic resources, nor by EU immigration. The interests of Germany as a social, economic and cultural nation are paramount.

  On militarization,  foreign policy and the US:

  Currently, the operational readiness of the German Armed Forces is severely compromised. Due to poor political decisions and mismanagement, our armed forces have been severely neglected for over three decades. The operational readiness has to be fully restored so that the armed forces will be able to perform all their responsibilities. This is an essential prerequisite for the acceptance of Germany as an equal partner by NATO, the EU and the international community.

  Membership of NATO corresponds to Germany‘s interests with regard to foreign and security policy, as long as NATO’s role remains that of a defensive alliance. The AfD believes that predictability in meeting commitments towards NATO allies is an important goal of German foreign and security policy, so that Germany can develop more political weight to shape policies, and gain influence. We advocate that any engagement of NATO must be aligned to German interests, and has to correspond to a clearly defined strategy.

  Wherever German Armed Forces, as part of NATO operations, are involved beyond the borders of its Alliance partners’ territory, shall, in principle, only be carried out under a UN mandate, and only if German security interests are taken into account.

  On Germany’s occupation by allied troops (i.e., the US):

  …70 years after the end of World War II, and 25 years after the end of a divided Europe, the renegotiation of the status of Allied troops in Germany should be put up for discussion. The status of Allied troops needs to be adapted to Germany’s regained sovereignty. The AfD is committed to the withdrawal of all Allied troops stationed on German soil, and in particular of their nuclear weapons.

  And on Russia:

  The relationship with Russia is of prime importance, because European security cannot be attained without Russia’s involvement. Therefore, we strive for a peaceful solution of conflicts in Europe, whilst respecting the interests of all parties.

  Why Is AfD Surging in Popularity?

  AfD is a relatively new party – it was founded in 2013. It first began to gain a foothold among disenchanted voters in East Germany during the refugee crisis in 2017, but with the onset of the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis in Germany, their support has been growing and spreading. What originally made AfD so attractive in East Germany?

  According to Manès Weisskircher who researches social movements, political parties, democracy, and the far right at the Institute of Political Science, TU Dresden, AfD’s support in the East can be primarily traced to three factors:

  1. The neoliberal ‘great transformation,’ which has massively changed the eastern German economy and continues to lead to emigration and anxiety over personal economic prospects.

  2. An ongoing sense of marginalization among East Germans who feel they have never been fully integrated since reunification and resent liberal immigration policies in this context.

  3. Deep dissatisfaction with the functioning of the political system and doubt in political participation.

  Recent polling contains interesting findings with regards to the AfD. It shows that 44 percent of Germans supporting the party do not have far-right views, but they are more concerned with inflation (90 percent) and immigration (87 percent) than the general public (78 and 56 percent, respectively). A whopping 78 percent of those who said they would vote for AfD said they would do so to show they were unhappy with current policies.

  The rise of the AfD is rooted in the crisis of German neoliberalism, and the current war in Ukraine that accompanies it. The idea that the West would cause Russia to collapse, divide it into pieces and plunder its natural resources has spectacularly backfired.

  The German economy is instead the one in a freefall. In response, Berlin continues to liberalize immigration laws to attract more foreigners with the hope it will help the economy – this despite the fact that half of German citizens would like the country to take in fewer refugees than it currently does.

  A record high of 71 percent of the German public are not satisfied with the work of the federal government, according to a recent Deutschlandtrend survey. The current government is unresponsive to the concerns of working class voters. Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock famously summed up that reality last year:

  HANKE’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT: Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said she will put Ukraine first “no matter what my German voters think.” It’s very rare to hear a local politician publicly say she (or he) will ignore the WILL of their VOTERS.https://t.co/hFQrNwSJEW

  — Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) October 25, 2022

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

  The AfD is the only party in Germany making the connection between Berlin’s bellicose policy towards Moscow (and increasingly Beijing as well) and the worsening economic conditions for Germans.

  The Greens, rather than examine their own failings, are blaming voters for not fully understanding their policies. They’ve launched a “charm” offensive to better explain their wisdom while simultaneously escalating their charges against the AfD. Tobias Riegel writes at NachDenkSeiten [machine translation]:

  The [Green] chairman of the Europe Committee in the Bundestag, [Anton] Hofreiter, is currently warning against the AfD and has accused it of treason. He also did not rule out a ban on the party, as reported by the media . Two sentences by Hofreiter are particularly striking. On the one hand:

  “You have to be aware of the incredible danger that the AfD poses to democracy and the rule of law, as well as to the prosperity of many people; that has not yet arrived in all parts of society.”

  And on the other hand:

  “There is also insufficient awareness of the danger that the AfD poses to our country’s external security in this difficult situation with increasingly aggressive dictatorships such as Russia and China. The AfD is predominantly a group of traitors who act not in the interests of our country but in the interests of opposing powers.”

  If you swap “AfD” for “Greens” and if you swap “Russia” for “USA”, you could almost think Hofreiter is talking about himself and his leading party friends in these quotes.

  Meanwhile, the country’s Left Party, which is considered a direct descendant of the Socialist Unity Party that ruled East Germany until reunification, has completely collapsed after abandoning nearly all of its platform in an attempt to appear “ready to govern.” Much like the bourgeoisie Greens, the Left increasingly stands for neoliberal, pro-war and anti-Russia policies. Former Left voters have increasingly switched to the AfD in response.

  As long as the AfD is the only party in Germany willing to connect the dots between US control over German foreign policy and the increasing toll that is taking on the citizens’ standard of living, it will likely continue to attract voters.

  Why Is There Such an Outcry Over AfD?

  For years now, the German establishment has been throwing the kitchen sink at the AfD. There are of course allegations of Russia connections. They hate the disabled. They are extremist and must be monitored.  A former AfD representative was also  allegedly part of a coup plan involving 25 geriatrics that were inspired by QAnon and were somehow going to take over the government. Stories on the coup plot almost always focus on the AfD link and warnings that they are getting “more extreme.”

  Most of these scare stories about the AfD originate from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which last year won the right to surveil AfD members after judges allowed the party to be branded a “suspicious entity.”

  German authorities are now able to monitor and intercept mail correspondence, phone calls and online conversations. It can also limit members’ ability to get employment in the public sector and make it more difficult to obtain licenses for weapons.

  (In the past, the BfV investigated members of the Left Party suspecting them of intending to replace the existing economic, political and social order with a socialist or communist system.)

  Much of this seems ripped straight out of the US playbook for dealing with Trump and unruly voters in general: ignore the voters, blame the voters, and then release spooks.

  The media hysteria over the AfD is reminiscent over the constant ringing of alarm bells over the election of the Italian Prime Minister and her Brothers of Italy party last year. Fascism was on the march, they declared. Well, Meloni has turned out to be a pretty run-of-the-mill corporate stooge who toes the line on the EU and NATO. Even her anti-immigrant rhetoric gave way to ensuring the arrival of a certain number in order to maintain the supply of cheap labor for Italian businesses. And the freak out over Meloni died down as soon as she proved her devotion to the EU and NATO.

  Let’s not pretend that any of the concern over the AfD is due to its proposed policies regarding German culture and immigrants. It is because the party is advocating for positions that are a direct threat to Brussels and Washington. If it went forward with efforts to get Germany off the euro or boot US troops out of the country, it would collapse the whole EU-NATO system.

  Despite the media and intelligence agency pressure, the AfD only seems emboldened. Beyond the party platform, AfD members have since gone further in their criticisms of the US.

  Here’s Member of the European Parliament Maximilian Krah:

  “It is certain that the German government was informed of the sabotage beforehand by the Americans. This is the only explanation for Scholz’s awkward silence. With the addition of a woke and irresponsible warmonger like [Foreign Minister Annalena] Baerbock, who declares that Germany is at war with Russia, nothing surprises me.

  The problem is that this is tearing the German economy to pieces and significantly impoverishes Germany. Moreover, the billions spent by Germany on this gas project, which ensured us cheap energy, are lost, but the coalition which governs Germany does not care. Officially, Scholz knows nothing. Apparently, we live in a democracy.”

  The AfD is also increasingly critical of Berlin’s stance towards China, which it believes is being driven by US interests and Germany’s detriment. From  Deutsche Welle:

  The AfD has positioned itself in opposition to the German government’s critical policy toward China. Berlin’s China Strategy, published in mid-July, for example, was denounced by Bystron, the AfD’s foreign policy spokesperson, as the “attempt to implement green-woke ideology and US geopolitical interests under the guise of a strategy for German foreign policy.”

  The description of China in the strategy as a rival — as well as a partner and competitor — was for Bystron “the consequence of the US’ confrontational course toward China. This confrontation and division are not in the interests of Germany as an export nation,” he said.

  For political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder from the University of Kassel, the AfD’s foreign policy positions demonstrate an attempt to set itself apart from the other German political parties. Geopolitically, said Schroeder, the AfD sees the traditional Western ties with the United States, which it regards as hegemonic, as having past their use-by date.

  “The AfD considers Washington to be more part of the problem than part of the solution to the challenges facing Germany,” he told DW. “That’s because the AfD considers the US an imperial actor whose vested interests cannot be reconciled with those of Germany.”

  The AfD is essentially calling for a return to the Angela Merkel foreign policy based on Wandel durch Handel (“transformation through trade”). It relied on cheap Russian gas imports and exports to its largest trading partner, China.

  There is now a central disconnect to Germany’s foreign policy and domestic policy. As Berlin follows the wishes of the US, lives for the citizens of Germany will  continue to worsen. How can Germany reconcile this?

  German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende was essentially a promise to the US that Germany will from now on take up its sword in defense of US hegemony and morally superior purposes (such as Baerbock’s feminist foreign policy that aligns neatly with Washington’s enemy list) against Russia, China, Iran, and whoever else threatens the “rules-based order.”

  The AfD, whether you agree or disagree with its other positions, is for now the sole German party standing against such an arrangement.

  The German state’s harassment of the Left Party appears to have worked in getting it to abandon its previously “radical” goals of empowering workers, dissolving NATO and getting US troops out of Germany. We’ll have to wait and see what path the AfD takes.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 09/05/2023 – 02:00

• "Unprecedented Levels" Of Theft In Nation's Capital Forces Supermarket Chain To Remove Name-Brand Items From Shelves
  “Unprecedented Levels” Of Theft In Nation’s Capital Forces Supermarket Chain To Remove Name-Brand Items From Shelves

  Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, Foot Locker, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Dollar Tree, to name a few, have all raised concerns about out-of-control thefts in their stores nationwide. The latest is supermarket chain Giant Food, which warned about “unprecedented levels” of “shrink” – the loss of inventory due to circumstances such as retail theft – at one of its stores in Washington, DC. 

  NBC Washington said the Giant Food, located at 1535 Alabama Ave SE, has already warned if rampant shoplifting continues, the supermarket will have to close its doors. 

  

  The Giant on Alabama Avenue SE is the only full-service supermarket in the area, and if it closes, it will create a food desert in Southeast DC. Instead of closing, it seems the grocery chain has come up with a solution:

  In a statement, Giant said it plans to remove national brand health and beauty care items and replace them with private label brands where possible. The new policy aims to reduce “unprecedented levels” of theft and make the store safer for shoppers and employees. 

  “None of the tactics we deploy is the ultimate solution to the problem we face, but we continue to invest in efforts that will improve safety for our associates and customers and reduce theft,” part of the statement read. –NBC Washington

  Replacing brand name items, such as Tide, Colgate, or Advil, with only private label products is a last-ditch effort to prevent the store from closing. 

  DC’s failed progressive social justice reform policies have only emboldened criminals, as AP News warned in July: “Violent crime is rising sharply, fueled by more homicides and carjackings.” 

  Major corporations who funded the ‘defund the police’ movement during the Covid era are getting what they deserve: A surge in thefts as soft on crime Democrats in control of many of the nation’s cities have only sparked a theft and violent crime wave. 

  Retailers sounded the alarm on the theft wave this past earnings season. The number of times CEOs mentioned “shrink” on earnings calls soared to a record high.  

  

  A new report last week drew a Mexican cartel connection in America’s retail theft epidemic that cost companies like Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot, and Foot Locker, among others, tens of billions of dollars last year. Yet another failed Democrat policy to leave borders open. 

   Open borders are not so great after all… It’s time to reinforce law and order in the nation or face out-of-control theft waves now making it to suburbia. 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 23:45

• Kishida's Unpopularity Increases Risk Of BOJ Shift And Yen Intervention
  Kishida’s Unpopularity Increases Risk Of BOJ Shift And Yen Intervention

  By Masaki Kondo, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist.

  Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s falling popularity adds to the risk that the Bank of Japan may surprise investors again with a policy shift that will make voters happier.

  Political distress has emerged as a potential leading indicator for action in monetary and currency affairs since late 2022
  When Japan intervened to prop up the yen in October, it wasn’t just the currency that was falling — Kishida’s administration’s approval rating was also plumbing new lows.

  The blowback against the Japanese Lira begins.

  Let’s see how long Kishida allows the BOJ to cremate the JPY once Japan’s plummeting standard of living and his approval rating starts correlating to the yen pic.twitter.com/qcKAgvXukz

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 29, 2023

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

  The government was drawing fire in opinion polls again in December, when the central bank unexpectedly raised the ceiling for yield-curve control. And when the BOJ caught investors off guard once more in July with a further adjustment to YCC, the PM’s popularity was yet again on the slide.

  This isn’t to deny that underlying economic and market pressures are the fundamental drivers of monetary and currency policy. Nobody is suggesting that the government directs the central bank, which has its independence enshrined in law.

  Yet there is a clear line that connects the weak yen to inflation, and inflation to unhappy voters. When it comes to the timing of actions that can take some of the sting out of inflation, recent history indicates opinion polls are at least worth watching.

  

  It may also pay to keep an eye on the periodic meetings between Kishida and the BOJ governor. Many traders can probably recount that the then-Governor Haruhiko Kuroda raised concern over the yen when he met the prime minister about a month before raising the YCC ceiling in December.

  Kazuo Ueda, who was chosen by Kishida to succeed Kuroda earlier this year, has also shown himself to be highly attuned to the plight of the yen. Ueda surprised BOJ watchers in July when he acknowledged that foreign-exchange volatility had been a factor in raising the YCC cap again.

  The most recent public record of a meeting between the pair is Aug. 22, when they discussed financial conditions ahead of the gathering of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

  That said, Kishida’s problems with voters go way beyond areas the BOJ can influence, even if he could bend the central bank to his will. The sources of dissatisfaction with the government range from a national ID card, to the country’s low birth rate, to the handling of waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

  But maybe all these caveats are immaterial. The link between the yen and inflation, and what this means to the government and the BOJ, is clear to see. Keeping tabs on opinion polls may be prudent until someone can show that they don’t matter.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 23:00

• A Manufactured Hate
  A Manufactured Hate

  Authored by Paul Gottfried via American Greatness,

  Thomas Klingenstein recently delivered a speech at the Claremont Institute that notes what should be obvious to most Americans. 

  According to Klingenstein, racism in the US is now a “manufactured” problem,” and this tawdry invention allows the Democrats and the Left to increase their power by addressing a problem that they themselves have stirred up. Although Klingenstein does not deny that isolated cases of discrimination against blacks may occur, he regards these situations as sporadic but also gleefully played up by Democratic politicians and their media handservants.

  

  When Joe Biden complains that white Americans are practicing “systemic racism” against blacks and that the US is being convulsed by white supremacist terrorists, he is clearly lying. But he and his handlers are acting as they do for a reason, which is not that they believe what they’re saying. They know that what they are loudly deploring will help shore up their party’s base consisting of the perpetually aggrieved. Black politicians who loyally serve the Democratic Party, like Sheila Jackson Lee, Cori Bush, Hakeem Jeffries, and Maxine Waters tell us breathlessly that white America is racist. Hearing this accusation may make their voters feel better about their social failures and even result in getting further government social programs targeted at inner cities.

  Far more astonishingly, the never-ending invectives against “racist” white Americans doesn’t seem to upset most white voters. White Democrats in particular don’t mind being stigmatized as racists. Most white Americans may object to high gas prices and rising housing costs, but being attacked as racists for most of them (and here we have to exclude most Trump voters) may be like rain off a duck’s back.  According to a Harris Poll taken last year, 53% of white Americans believe for sure their race is systemically racist.

  For me, this defamation of whites is a shameless lie. Not only are white Americans overwhelmingly not racist bigots, but they lick the feet of those who are making false charges against them. The question is why so many white Americans seem content in their role as penitent “systemic racists.” They show no displeasure when TV stations feature predominantly black actors, even in advertisements, sometimes to the near exclusion of whites, and when more and more of their “entertainment” focuses on black victimhood. Although most American whites do not yet obsess over their inherited racist sins, some of them fund blatantly antiwhite organizations like BLM and Antifa. Further, some particularly troubled whites even join those antiwhite riots sponsored by richer adherents of their bizarre creed.

  An obvious reason why some whites behave so masochistically or weirdly is that they are conforming to what they think is expected of them. Those who run corporations, educational institutions, the media, wokeified churches and the deep state all push antiwhite racism; and this poisonous product determines social behavior, and even pseudo-religious conviction. Although this toxin may do incalculable damage to race relations, education, and even our entertainment, it does not usually affect the lives of those who mouth the required gibberish, at least not too directly.

  Parents may grouse that their offspring are kept out of a prestigious school because of a racial quota. But they try not to make too much noise lest they hurt themselves socially or professionally. In any case their kids have access to other overpriced citadels of “higher education” if a particular university keeps them out to fill a quota. Obviously white house owners don’t want BLM or other violent “social justice” organizations rioting in their neighborhood. But as long as the residents keep garish BLM signs on their front lawns, they should be ok. The signs function in a way similar to the garlic sack or crucifix that was supposed to ward off vampires, according to Romanian legend.

  Another reason that antiwhite racism is such a hot item is that it comes fused with other leftist targets.

  Opponents of manufactured white racism are usually enemies of Christianity, “patriarchy,” and homophobia. Leftist bugaboos come in clusters. If you buy into one of the items, you are expected to take home the rest. I often receive letters from correspondents who insist that woke leftists really hate one of the stated targets on their list of villains but not really the other ones. It seems to me that the Left has made war on all their targets simultaneously.  

  And if you want to hang with the powerful and influential, you’re going to have to pay lip service to all their madness. Otherwise, you might be mistaken for a Trumpite. Lately I’ve been impressed by how my former colleagues and younger relatives who belong to our state church belabor the now-ritualized observation: “Of course there’s systematic racism in this country.”

  Although their message sounds like lunacy, I’m sure there are others with more influence than I have who will be pleased with this credal recitation.

  The larger question is how such a loathsome, masochistic state religion got established in the first place.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 22:30

• Beijing Is Ceding The Economic Race As Growth Slows
  Beijing Is Ceding The Economic Race As Growth Slows

  By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

  Forecasts for China’s 2023 and 2024 economic growth have been slashed on Wall Street over the past few weeks. The world’s second-largest economy now risks missing Beijing’s own growth target for a second straight year and could expand at a sub-5% pace for three years in a row — something unheard of since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

  Stalling growth will surely have longer-term geopolitical implications. Odds are stacked against President Xi, who pledged last year to make China a “medium-developed country” by 2035. That’s also the time when China could dethrone the US to become the world’s No. 1 economy, if the stars are aligned. Such a prospect, however, looks increasingly out of reach given the current trajectories.

  China’s strong growth and subsequent currency appreciation meant the country’s output, measured in dollars, has grown much faster than the US for over two decades. The nation’s GDP was around $1.2 trillion at the turn of the century, less than one-eighth of the US. Its share of US GDP climbed toward 70% in 2020 and topped 72% in 2021. That was comparable with Japan, whose dollar-denominated output reached almost 73% of US levels in 1995, before embarking on a downtrend ever since.

  

  Last year was a watershed moment as China’s relative economic might versus the US declined after the second quarter, when a two-month lockdown of Shanghai wreaked havoc on sentiment and dented growth momentum. The nation’s GDP rose $1.3 trillion in 2022, compared with a $2.1 trillion gain in the US, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In the first half of 2023, Chinese GDP in dollar terms shrank — as the yuan lost almost 5% versus the greenback — while the US economy powered on, “opening a bigger gap in the global economic race” as my colleague Gerard DiPippo wrote. Chinese output as a share of the US now stands near 68%, on course for a second straight year of decline.

  

  At the October party congress, President Xi set the goal for China to become a “medium-developed country” by 2035, which implies doubling the size of its economy and per-capita GDP from 2020 levels, and requires an average annual growth rate of around 4.7%. The latest Bloomberg survey of economists saw Chinese output expanding 5.1% this year, before moderating to 4.5% in 2024 and 2025. Given last year’s 3% expansion, the four-year average between 2022 and 2025 will amount to less than 4.3%. That number is sure to fall if policymakers refrain from major stimulus and growth momentum keeps deteriorating.

  

  Two years ago, my colleagues Eric Zhu and Tom Orlik at Bloomberg Economics analyzed several scenarios and concluded that China will need 5%-plus growth as well as least a steady pace of reforms, and it also will need to avoid a full decoupling in order to economically dethrone the US in the next decade. Events since then have made their base case look optimistic, and the downside scenario more akin to reality. Beijing may choose to muddle through its present growth impasse and refrain from any “big bang” measures at the expense of never ascending to the pinnacle of the global economic competition.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 21:30

• "Intensity Models Show Big Development Late Week": All Eyes On The Atlantic As Hurricane Season Nears Peak 
  “Intensity Models Show Big Development Late Week”: All Eyes On The Atlantic As Hurricane Season Nears Peak 

  Gert and Katia remain active systems churning in the Atlantic, but a new tropical wave off Africa caught the attention of the National Hurricane Center. 

  As of Monday morning, Invest 95-L was several hundred miles southwest of Africa’s Cabo Verde Islands, with a 90% probability of tropical formation in the next seven days and 70% in the next two days. 

  

  “Showers and thunderstorms continue to show signs of organization in association with a tropical wave located several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands. Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for further development, and this system is expected to become a tropical depression around midweek,” NHC wrote in an early Monday morning update. 

  NHC continued, “Additional strengthening is likely late this week while the system moves westward to west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph over the central and western portions of the tropical Atlantic.” 

  Meteorologist Eric Burris from WELSH, a local media outlet in Daytona Beach, Florida, posted on X that the tropical wave’s new models show a potential track toward the Northeast Caribbean. 

  Brand new model data coming in for Invest #95L. This system looks to get strong by late week, but will it have the chance to re-curve and stay out to sea?

  That’s the hope, and just about all global models show it. Let’s just keep eyes on em for consistency to build confidence pic.twitter.com/5HJyB6b9Ic

  — Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) September 4, 2023

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

  Burris posted an intensity model that suggests the storm could reach Category 1 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale by the end of the week. 

  Intensity models are really starting to show big development late week…

  Here’s the newest data… pic.twitter.com/p6kQBbzBD9

  — Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) September 4, 2023

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

  The hurricane season is nearing the peak. 

  

  The meteorologist said even though the models point to the Caribbean islands and perhaps the US East Coast. Some models show it could turn north and stay out to sea. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 21:00

• Disease-X Is A High-Return Business Strategy
  Disease-X Is A High-Return Business Strategy

  Authored by David Bell via The Brownstone Institute,

  Fearistan, having done very well economically and provided its citizens a long lifespan, noticed that people were still occasionally dying in road accidents. Fearistanis were wealthy and really liked the freedom to travel. While road deaths were uncommon, any unnecessary death surely seemed worth avoiding.

  The road-building industry, working closely with government, came up with the idea of building 6-lane highways between cities. Soon the big cities were all connected, and experts from the University of Transport proved that the new highways had a 7 percent lower accident rate than normal roads. University modelers predicted that if 6-lane highways were built between every town in Fearistan, they would save thousands of lives. Experts predicted that they would even save more lives than were actually dying on the existing roads.

  The country followed the experts (they were, after all, renowned for building roads) and invested in 6-lane highways everywhere. While the country exhausted itself and most people could not afford to drive their cars anymore, they were rightly grateful that the road-builders were saving them. The near empty roads were now almost completely accident-free, proving the experts right.

  Eventually, the road-building industry faced a dilemma; they were running out of towns to which roads could be built. This was not what their investors needed. Then the road regulator and the road-builders met and identified an urgent need to build roads to towns that did not yet exist. Fearistan had vast areas of empty desert that were completely open to town-building. When such towns were eventually built, experts predicted an inevitable and devastating tsunami of road accidents. This would return Fearistan to the total carnage from which they had so narrowly escaped years before. The new Town-X roads (as they termed them) were brilliant examples of high-tech road construction. And everyone could see how important this work was, to keep the public safe. 

  In public health, we follow a similarly important business model. We call it ‘Disease-X.’

  

  Understanding pandemic risk from infectious disease

  Humans suffered for millennia from pandemics or ‘plagues.’ These killed up to a third of some populations. While causes in some cases remain unclear, such as the Athenian plague of 430 BC, the major plagues since Medieval times were mostly bacterial; particularly bubonic plague, cholera, and typhus. 

  Bacterial pandemics ceased in late 19th century Europe with improved sanitation, and elsewhere after the addition of antibiotics. Most deaths from the pre-antibiotic Spanish flu outbreak in the early 20th century are also thought to be untreated secondary bacterial pneumonia. Cholera remains an intermittent marker of extreme poverty and social disruption, whilst most deaths from malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS are associated with poverty, which restricts access to effective treatment.

  When indigenous populations long separated from the bulk of humanity encountered carriers of smallpox and measles, the effects were also devastating. Having no inherited immunity, whole populations were decimated, particularly in the Americas, Pacific Islands, and Australia. 

  Now the world is connected, and such mass death events don’t occur. Connectedness can be a strong defense against pandemics, contrary to what Disease X proponents claim, through its role in supporting early-age immunity and frequent boosting.

  These realities reflect orthodox public health but are poorly compatible with current business models. They are, therefore, increasingly ignored.

  A century of safety

  The past hundred years have seen two significant natural influenza pandemic events (in 1957-8 and 1968-9) and one major coronavirus outbreak (Covid-19) that appears to have arisen from gain-of-function research in a lab. The influenza outbreaks each killed less than currently die annually from tuberculosis, while the coronavirus outbreak was associated with mortality at average age above 75 years, with roughly 1.5 people per thousand dying globally.

  While the media fusses about other outbreaks, they have actually been relatively small events. SARS-1 in 2003 killed about 800 people worldwide, or less than half the number of children that die every single day from malaria. MERS killed about 850 people, and the West African Ebola outbreak killed about 11,300. Context here is important; tuberculosis kills over 1.5 million people every year while malaria kills over half a million children, and over 600,000 people die of cancer each year in the United States alone. SARS-1, MERS and Ebola may gain more media coverage than tuberculosis, but this is unrelated to actual risk.

  Why are we living longer?

  The reason behind increasing human lifespans is frequently forgotten, or ignored. As medical students were once taught, advancements came primarily through improved sanitation, better living conditions, better nutrition, and antibiotics; the same changes responsible for the reduction in pandemics. Vaccines came after most improvement had already occurred (with a few exceptions such as smallpox).

  While vaccines do remain an important addition, they are also of particular importance to pharmaceutical companies. They can be mandated, and together with the constant birth of children this provides a continuing, predictable, and profitable market. This is not an anti-vaccine statement. It is just a statement of fact. Facts are what health policy should be based on.

  So, we can be confident that, barring an intentional or accidental release of a pathogen engineered by humans, it is highly unlikely that a Medieval-style outbreak will affect anyone currently living. While poverty will reduce life expectancy, it will remain relatively high in wealthier countries. However, we can also be very confident that those half-million young children will die of malaria next year and that 1.5 million people, many of them children and young adults, will die of tuberculosis. 

  Over 300,000 women in low-income countries will also die agonizing deaths from cervical cancer because they cannot access cheap screening. We know this, because it happens every year – it is what international public health, particularly the World Health Organization (WHO), was supposed to prioritize.

  The ability to monetize an illusion

  The Covid-19 response demonstrated how the sponsors of international public health institutions have found a way to monetize public health. This business model involves promoting abnormal responses to relatively normal viruses. It employs behavioral psychology and media campaigns to instill inappropriate fear into the public, then ‘locking them down’ – prison terminology before 2020. The public may then regain a degree of freedom (e.g., fly to visit a dying relative, or work) if they agree to take a vaccine, which in turn directly benefits the original sponsors of the scheme. The heavy public investment in Covid-19 mRNA vaccine development enabled pharmaceutical companies and their investors to reap unprecedented returns.

  The major public-private partnership for vaccine development for pandemics, CEPI (inaugurated at the World Economic Forum in 2017), states that “The threat of Disease-X infecting the human population, and spreading quickly around the world, is greater than ever before.” 

  Health practitioners are quite susceptible to this propaganda (they are only human). Many also seek income from investments and patents from technologies that may help lock others down or make vaccine production quicker and cheaper. Basing their salaries and careers on loyalty to this pandemic industry, they join in vilifying and scapegoating those who speak against it. Shielded by their sponsors’ ‘greater threat than ever before’ claims, they can blind themselves to the major causes of ill health and act as if only pandemic risk matters.

  Why not rely on existing threats?

  Despite current efforts with yet another variant, Covid-19 is losing its ability to scare. Sustained fear is necessary for politicians in penetrated governments (as Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum notes) to provide this support. This business paradigm requires a continuing target. 

  The overall aim is for the public to think that only a corporate authoritarian (fascist) nanny-state can save them from a continuing threat.

  Major natural outbreaks being rare, and lab escapes also infrequent, Disease-X fills this need. It provides the material for the media and politicians to work with between variant or monkeypox events.

  Where to from here?

  For the public, diversion of resources to fairyland diseases will increase mortality by diverting funding for real threats and productive areas of investment. Of course, if increasing lab leaks of engineered pathogens are expected from ongoing and future research, that would be different. But then this would have to be explained plainly and transparently, and prevention may be more effective than a very expensive cure.

  Disease-X is a business strategy, dependent on a series of fallacies, dressed up as an altruistic concern for human welfare. Embraced by powerful people, the world they move in accepts amoral practice in public health as a legitimate path to their version of success. 

  If our primary aim is to channel taxpayer funding to development of biotechnologies that the public can then be mandated to buy, to their own detriment but at great benefit to the developers, then Disease-X is the road forward. This market model ensures that a relative few can concentrate wealth gained from the many, at virtually no risk to themselves. The public must decide whether they want to keep their part of this highly abusive bargain.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 20:30

• The Next Auto Repossession Wave Could Involve Robots Doing The Work For Banks 
  The Next Auto Repossession Wave Could Involve Robots Doing The Work For Banks 

  As more consumers default on credit card and auto loan payments, financial strain intensifies as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hiking campaign stands at two-decade highs, potentially leading to a surge in vehicle repossessions. 

  A recent Moody’s report showed new credit card delinquencies hit 7.2% in the second quarter, up from 6.5% in the first quarter. As for new auto loan delinquencies, the rate topped 7.3%, compared with 6.9% in the first quarter. 

  Moody’s expects new credit card and auto loan delinquencies to continue “rising materially” through the rest of the year and top sometime in 2024 at 9% and 10%, compared with 7% pre-Covid. 

  “The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions that these households are having to make right now — whether to pay their credit card bills, their rent or buy groceries,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told The Washington Post. 

  A weakening labor market and tapped-out consumers, some of whom have $1,000 monthly auto payments, are finding it difficult to pay not just shelter costs, put food on the table, but service their car payments. We’ve outlined to readers in the last three quarters, “Massive Wave” Of Car Repossessions And Loan Defaults To Trigger Auto Market Disaster, Cripple US Economy and Negative Equity Surges: More Consumers Find Themselves In Underwater Auto Loans — and it’s only a matter of time before the repo wave begins. We noted in July that Repos From Auto Loans That Originated In 2020 And 2021 Are Skyrocketing. 

  “The Fed might look at this and say this is the whole purpose of raising rates, to make it more difficult” to make purchases, Zandi said, adding, “The bigger question is when the Fed will have succeeded in slowing down the broader economy, and how many consumers have to be impacted in a negative way.”

  Delinquency on auto loan payments is a sign that the Fed’s restrictive monetary policy might be working to quash inflation, which leaves the economy in a heightened period of macroeconomic uncertainty as low/mid-tier consumers appear to be financially cracking. 

  So, as per Moody’s report, auto loan delinquencies are set to rise even higher. In a world where robots are being integrated into every business model, we found one towing company in the UK using a robot to move illegally parked cars. 

  

  Although the video doesn’t show a repossession, a repo company can only imagine integrating robots into vehicle retrieval will provide much-needed relief to avoid unwanted confrontations with car owners. 

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by Business Blurb™ (@businessblurb)

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  It’s only a matter of time before repo companies adopt these robots. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 20:05

• SOCOM To Deploy Argus AI To Scour Social Media For Disinformation, Misinformation And Malinformation
  SOCOM To Deploy Argus AI To Scour Social Media For Disinformation, Misinformation And Malinformation

  Authored by Sundance via The Conservative Treehouse,

  Annnd… Here we go.  If you have not read the background {Go Deep}, you will not have the appropriate context to absorb the latest revelation about how the Dept of Defense will now conduct online monitoring operations, using enhanced AI to protect the U.S. internet from “disinformation” under the auspices of national security.

  

  Gee, who would have predicted that U.S. internet operations would suddenly have a totally new set of enhanced AI guardians at the gateways? 👀

  Read Carefully – Eyes Wide Open:

  The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has contracted New York-based Accrete AI to deploy software that detects “real time” disinformation threats on social media.

  The company’s Argus anomaly detection AI software analyzes social media data, accurately capturing “emerging narratives” and generating intelligence reports for military forces to speedily neutralize disinformation threats.

  “Synthetic media, including AI-generated viral narratives, deep fakes, and other harmful social media-based applications of AI, pose a serious threat to US national security and civil society,” Accrete founder and CEO Prashant Bhuyan said.

  “Social media is widely recognized as an unregulated environment where adversaries routinely exploit reasoning vulnerabilities and manipulate behavior through the intentional spread of disinformation.

  “USSOCOM is at the tip of the spear in recognizing the critical need to identify and analytically predict social media narratives at an embryonic stage before those narratives evolve and gain traction. Accrete is proud to support USSOCOM’s mission.”

  But wait… It gets worse!

  [PRIVATE SECTOR VERSION] – The company also revealed that it will launch an enterprise version of Argus Social for disinformation detection later this year.

  The AI software will provide protection for “urgent customer pain points” against AI-generated synthetic media, such as viral disinformation and deep fakes.

  Providing this protection requires AI that can automatically “learn” what is most important to an enterprise and predict the likely social media narratives that will emerge before they influence behavior. (read more)

  Now, take a deep breath…. Let me explain.

  The goal is the “PRIVATE SECTOR VERSION.”  USSOCOM is the mechanical funding mechanism for deployment, because the system itself is too costly for a private sector launch. The Defense Dept budget is used to contract an Artificial Intelligence system, the Argus anomaly detection AI, to monitor social media under the auspices of national security.

  Once the DoD funded system is created, the “Argus detection protocol” – the name given to the AI monitoring and control system, will then be made available to the public sector.  “Enterprise Argus” is then the commercial product, created by the DoD, which allows the U.S. based tech sectors to deploy.

  The DoD cannot independently contract for the launch of an operation against a U.S. internet network, because of constitutional limits via The Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States.  However, the DoD can fund the creation of the system under the auspices of national defense, and then allow the private sector to launch for the same intents and purposes.   See how that works? 

  RESOURCES:

  Using AI for Content Moderation

  Facebook / META / Tech joining with DHS

  Zoom will allow Content Scraping by AI 

  AI going into The Cloud

  U.S. Govt Going into The Cloud With AI

  Pentagon activates 175 Million IP’s 👀**ahem**

  Big Names to Attend Political AI Forum

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 19:40

• "The Way To Beat The End Boss": Chamath Palihapitiya Praises Tesla's Aggressive Price Cutting
  “The Way To Beat The End Boss”: Chamath Palihapitiya Praises Tesla’s Aggressive Price Cutting

  Canadian VC and self-labeled “SPAC Jesus” Chamath Palihapitiya was out over Labor Day weekend praising the speed and aggressiveness of Tesla’s price cuts, which we have been documenting at length since the beginning of 2023. 

  Praising Musk and Tesla, Palihapitiya tweeted out a chart of Tesla’s most recent price cuts, stating: “I was shocked when I saw this chart. The speed and aggressiveness with which $TSLA is cutting prices is the way to beat the End Boss. (Rapidly increasing price affordability) x (constantly improving hardware and software) = super maximized market demand.”

  “This is a lethal combination which we haven’t seen play out in any modern market before,” he added. 

  

  “Some companies cut prices, but most keep prices flat or increase them,” he added. “Some companies improve products quickly. But no one has actually given you more for less on such a big ticket purchase so frequently.”

  Tesla’s recent price cuts have been a topic of discussion since January because, so far, they have been effective in spurring demand and putting pressure on legacy automakers. Tesla continues to make aggressive cuts, as we wrote about just days ago. 

  Tesla cut prices on its Model S Plaid vehicle in China most recently, to 828,900 yuan from 1.03m yuan, a cut of about 19%. Bloomberg reported last week that Tesla was also cutting the price of its Model S to 698,900 yuan from 808,900 yuan, its Model X to 738,900 yuan from 898,900 yuan and its Model X Plaid to 838,900 yuan from 1.06m yuan.

  

  These cuts followed additional price cuts in China that took place only about two weeks ago. Recall we reported on August 16 that Tesla’s Model S price was being cut 6.7% to 754,900 yuan ($103,477) from 808,900 yuan prior and the company’s Model X was priced 6.9% lower at 836,900 yuan, down from 898,900, according to Reuters. 

  Earlier in August, news broke that Tesla was adding new, lower-range iterations of its Model S and Model X that would be priced $10,000 lower than previous base prices, Yahoo reported. The standard range Model S will start at $78,490 and will offer 320 miles of range and the standard range Model X will now be priced $88,490 and will have a range of 269 miles per charge, the report says. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 19:15

• The Economist Who Cried Recession
  The Economist Who Cried Recession

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  In the fairy tale, the boy who cried wolf was ultimately right, but no one listened by the time that the wolf was there. Too many mistakes led the villagers to doubt the boy, so they didn’t respond to the actual warning.

  I, like many economists, expected a recession earlier this year. I had to back off those calls as the data continued to come in better than expected. Any signs of the “lagged and variable” impact of rate hikes didn’t seem to materialize. Additionally, those who had doubted the recession got more confident and those still considering that a recession was possible had to reconsider. As all of this was occurring, the “soft landing” mantra took over.

  According to Google trends, “soft landing” started seeing increased interest in early July and peaked the week of August 20th. It has dropped steadily since then, and maybe it is time to start questioning how soft the landing will be.

  As we go through some data, you will see that it is not clear to me that we are destined to have some form of a recession, but I do think that we better be prepared to listen to any potential warnings. The villagers ultimately lost their flock because they didn’t listen when they should have. Maybe we need to be thinking about that possibility.

  For now, I like owning bonds and stocks. I think that the recent run-up in rates (which have already started to come down) will continue to come down, which will help risk assets (stocks and credit spreads).

  But, for the 10-year yield to get below 3.9%, it is going to require some recession fears to surface, which will not be good for stocks.

  Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

  Just two weeks ago, we highlighted Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. In this report, we tried to identify some potentially “confusing” data.

  While some short-term trends in consumer credit are concerning, they don’t appear to be so bad in the long run. Which trend will win out?

  The China trade isn’t working and my belief (increasing in intensity almost daily) is that any major improvement in China will come at the expense of the U.S. (China selling their brands or pushing commodity prices higher – see China’s Next Move).

  Generative AI seems to be helping risk assets again (based on some market leaders), but for how long?

  If you missed our inaugural X Report, I recommend it because it is an intriguing take on AI and space.

  Jobs

  We touched on jobs in that report, and we had to mention “recession” in Friday’s instant reaction to the jobs data. Overall, we characterized the report as “Goldilocks”, but the fine line between a healthy and unhealthy slowing of the economy may be difficult to see ahead of time. Maybe those who need jobs are sensing that it is more difficult to find one, so they better start looking now.

  The Sahm Rule (I still don’t understand why economists insist on calling things “rules” that are at best conjectures) states that the U.S. is in a recession if the 3-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises by 0.5% or more from its 12-month low. The 3-month low was 3.5% at the end of April and is currently at 3.65% (so only a 0.15% increase). One thing about the Sahm Rule is that it supposedly doesn’t predict anything. It just tells us that we are likely already in a recession if the rise occurs.

  JOLTS was weak across the board. The PMI data, which came in better than expected overall, still signaled a contraction.

  The jobs data seems to fit well into the “economist who cried recession” theme as the data isn’t yet recessionary (not by a long shot), but the trend is not your friend here.

  Et Tu, Covid?

  I hoped never to have to think about COVID again, but I am hearing from people (who aren’t typically alarmists) that this new strain is something to watch. A new strain (that may have mutated so much that earlier vaccinations are less effective) could be problematic. The fact that it is ramping up as we head into the winter months could be another problem.

  Could this new strain slow down the return of “work from office”?

  I have felt that increased pressure to be in the office will help commercial real estate, which in turn helps the banks and the broader market. I’m keeping an eye out for any signs that this trend, which is gaining traction, gets derailed.
  Wanting to ignore Covid and being able to ignore it are two different things. For now, I’m watching it mostly because the warnings that I’ve heard are not from the people who cried wolf at every stage of the pandemic.

  India

  I need to do more work on this, but the “commodity super cycle” risk that I associate with a rapidly rising India seems to be generating more interest. It is far from my base case, but increasingly it seems difficult to fathom that we talk so much about inflation and so little about India. It is the most populous nation on earth and has a business sector that is benefitting from companies moving out of China.

  Bottom Line

  I like being long bonds and risky assets until the 10-year goes below 3.9%. By then, any squeeze should be over, and we can go back to fretting about the Fed and “higher for longer” and could see a resurgence of hard landing stories.

  I’m not crying recession yet, but I’m sensing that I soon will be.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 18:50

• Biden 'Not Worried' About Major UAW Strike On Automakers 
  Biden ‘Not Worried’ About Major UAW Strike On Automakers 

  President Biden on Monday expressed that he wasn’t too concerned about the growing possibility of a labor strike from the United Auto Workers’ 146,000 members. They’re seeking a 46% salary hike, a 32-hour workweek, and restoration of traditional pensions from Detroit’s big three legacy automakers. 

  “I’m not worried about a strike. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Biden told reporters ahead of his Labor Day appearance in Philadelphia. He is expected to celebrate good-paying unionized jobs, a move to continue the ‘Bidenomics’ promotion ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

  

  General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Stellantis NV, maker of the Jeep and Chrysler brands and the UAW have until Sept. 14 to finalize a new four-year contract for union workers. Even UAW’s own president called demands “audacious” in a Facebook live video last week. 

  “Record profits mean record contracts. 

  “While big execs have used those extreme profits to pump up their pay, our members have fallen further and further behind. … The rich are getting richer while the rest of us are getting left behind,” UAW President Shawn Fain said. 

  Here are more of Fain’s “audacious” demands (list courtesy of Detroit Free Press): 

  • elimination of wage tiers

  • substantial wage increases

  • restoration of cost of living allowance increases

  • defined benefit pension for all workers

  • reestablishment of retiree medical benefits

  • the right to strike over plant closures

  • limits on the use of temporary workers

  • more paid time off

  • increased benefits to current retirees

  The Detroit News has described the demands as “the largest pay increase in recent memory.” 

  With a Sept. 14 deadline less than two weeks away, we have noted, “Automakers have historically resisted significant pay increases, especially this unusually large one.”

  Biden had previously urged Detroit’s big three legacy automakers to avoid plant closings if strikes were seen. 

  A recent Gallup survey revealed that approximately 75% of Americans favor auto workers and Hollywood film writers’ strikes.

  

  The sweetheart deal Teamsters got their workers at UPS appears to have emboldened other unions to do the same: strike. But as BofA CIO Michael Hartnett recently told clients (available to pro subscribers) in the latest weekly Flow Show, inflation appears to be stickier than previously believed because of the growing influence of labor unions. 

  Hartnett makes another tangent on why reflation is bound to be far stickier than the Fed expects, and it has to do with wages, and specifically the growing influence of labor unions: after the teamsters recently reached an agreement with UPS, which among other things included massive pay raises for both part-time and full-time workers, we are seeing strikes galore and labor unions aggressively negotiating for double-digit wage increases. The culmination of this is that, as Hartnett notes, a net 44% of Americans now support labor unions, the highest since ’72…

  

  Let the strike countdown begin — unless there’s a labor contract breakthrough between UAW and the automakers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 18:25

• Round Two Of A Foreign-Backed Plot To Fragment Syria
  Round Two Of A Foreign-Backed Plot To Fragment Syria

  Via The Cradle, 

  Thirteen years after the onset of the war on Syria, a domestic political eruption backed by foreign states has resurfaced, threatening to once again ignite conflict in the country despite years of relative calm. Economic woes today underpin the public grievances expressed on the street. The much-heralded May 2023 reinstatement of Syria in the Arab League has thus far failed to deliver any significant political or economic relief for the beleaguered Levantine state. 

  Instead, Syria’s economy continues to deteriorate with the devaluation of the national currency against the dollar. Concurrently, a renewed US initiative to partition and weaken Syria is gaining traction, as Washington strives relentlessly to undermine Damascus’ centrality as a pivotal regional state and geopolitical player.

  

  Underpinning all this is stifling western unilateral economic sanctions imposed on Syria, as well as the territorial encroachments of US, Turkish, and Israeli military forces. 

  The illegal occupation of Syrian lands, coupled with the loss and theft of vital oil, water resources, and agricultural bounty by foreign occupation troops and their local proxy militias, further compounds the crisis, as does the recurrent Israeli aggression and missile strikes targeting Syrian infrastructure. 

  Within the context of all this devastation, some tough-love decisions made by the central government in Damascus have unsurprisingly ignited a fresh wave of protests that have now assumed a distinctly “separatist” character.

  SDF backs Suwayda secession

  The initial protests emerged in Syria’s Suwayda governorate following the removal of fuel subsidies, which caused a hike in public transportation costs and raw material prices. These grievances rapidly evolved into political demands, centering on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and policies of decentralization. 

  The latter concept implies a form of “self-administration” akin to the separatist Kurdish Autonomous Administration that receives support from the US in the northeastern region of the country.

  The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), representing the political arm of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – bolstered by the US military occupation and the cover it provides – has overtly endorsed the Suwayda protests and their transformation from socio-economic aspirations into calls for secession. 

  The SDF openly seeks to attract western assistance to replicate its Kurdish self-governance model – but in Suwayda. Importantly, this isn’t the first time the SDF has attempted to exert political influence in Suwayda. In 2019, amidst ISIS assaults on the southern governorate, the SDF pursued relations with Druze leaders, engaging in both public and secret talks to garner support for the self-governance initiative in Suwayda.

  The initial protests in Suwayda were modest in scale, and attempts by Syrian government opponents to portray these as a massive uprising fell short. The numbers involved continue to be small in comparison to Suwayda’s total population, and have thus far failed to incite a broader nationwide wave. 

  Comparisons with the 2011 uprisings  

  Others tried to ride the Suwayda momentum. In the north of the country, at the very same time, Al-Qaeda affiliate Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began to organize large-scale demonstrations in various cities and villages under its control in Idlib province – again, drawing parallels to the 2011 events that led to the Syrian war. 

  The people are out in the streets of Suwayda, Syria for a second Friday in a row.

  After the Friday prayers, they left the Mosques and gathered to protest against President al-Assad.

  They chanted “Hurry up and leave, Bashar”

  Growing protests in Syria pic.twitter.com/xsW0QXjiYG

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 1, 2023

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

  In the southern governorate of Daraa, which borders Jordan, armed individuals took to the streets and launched attacks on a number of army positions, but these were rapidly quelled. In Suwayda, security forces monitored the movements without immediate reaction. 

  Today, the momentum of the protests has dwindled, and the situation across other governorates remains largely unchanged despite a rush of rumors about a potential reenactment of the 2011 events.

  A Syrian security source informs The Cradle that Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri played a pivotal role in Suwayda’s narrative shift from local demands to separatist aspirations. His discord with the Syrian government has led him to establish ties with parties in the Persian Gulf, while internally fostering support for Suwayda’s separation. However, Hijri has since backed off, reiterating the need to preserve the unity of Syria and supporting the legitimacy of the government in Damascus.

  According to the source, some local factions in Suwayda support “the process of transforming the protest movement into demands for secession, such as the traditional opposition close to the coalition, the so-called Ahrar al-Jabal movement, the Karama faction led by Sheikh Laith al-Balous and some smuggling gangs.” 

  After the protests spread in Suwayda and Daraa, participants demanded decentralization and the implementation of UN Resolution 2254 to end the 12-year war in Syria.

  Not a populist movement 

  Some clerics and “local factions” in Suwayda have expressed solidarity with the protesters’ demands, and local news outlets have described the protests as “civil disobedience.” But the clerics do not speak with one voice, as some refuse to turn the demands into political ones, a development which reportedly prompted Sheikh Hijri to tone down his separatist rhetoric.

  One website quoted an unnamed source as saying that “the slogans raised in all villages and towns of Suwayda carry political ideas far from economic demands, most notably the overthrow of the regime.” 

  Samira Moubayed, a member of the Syrian Constitutional Committee representing the civil society bloc, told North Press that “the movement will continue until security is achieved in southern Syria. This is part of the process of political change needed and necessary across Syria.” 

  This narrative introduced a regional aspect, positioning “the security of southern Syria” as distinct from that of Damascus and its surroundings. Riad Drar, co-chair of the SDF, countered this view more explicitly, asserting that Kurdish separatists endorse the popular movement and maintain direct communication with its leadership in the south.

  Drar urged protest leaders to safeguard the movement, liaise with Syrian territories outside Damascus’ control, and establish collaborative initiatives with northeastern Syria. He also offered up the US-backed Kurdish administration as a conduit to galvanize international support for a southern secessionist movement.

  The HTS-SDF crossover  

  The US role in Syria’s southern governorates is still unclear, unlike its overt military and financial roles in the country’s north. In June, Syrian opposition media outlets aligned with Turkiye disclosed a US-supported plan to integrate areas controlled by HTS in northwestern Syria with territories directly governed by the Turkish occupation army in the north (northern Aleppo countryside and parts of Raqqa and Hasakah countryside), as well as the Kurdish separatist domains in northeastern Syria, all under a single civilian administration.

  HTS has shown that it is willing to establish channels of communication with the SDF when common economic interests emerge. Confidential sources told Syria TV at the time that HTS had hosted several delegations from al-Hasakah in recent months, including security leaders from the SDF. 

  The talks touched on the possibility of forming a joint civilian administration between the two parties, if HTS gains control over areas held by the Turkiye-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) – previously known as the Free Syrian Army. The SDF, for its part, indicated that the US supports the unification of the northeastern and northwestern regions of Syria.

  In a revealing investigation for The Grayzone, journalist Hekmat Aboukhater detailed discussions within the Syrian opposition “lobby” in the US, where a former US official discussed the scenario of Syria’s division. This envisaged creating a “canton” in the northwest of the country under the administration of HTS, albeit with a different name to disassociate the group from its Al Qaeda origins.

  Earlier this month, HTS accused its second-in-command Abu Maria al-Qahtani, of unauthorized communication with the US-led “International coalition.” Qahtani was purportedly attempting to expand into areas controlled by the so-called SNA and the “eastern sector” within the organization. 

  Rebranding Al Qaeda, yet again  

  A Syrian security source tells The Cradle that this raised concerns within a faction of Turkish intelligence linked directly to HTS, which seeks to oversee the group’s activities and avoid involvement in US-led projects. 

  The actual intention, says the Syrian security source, is to rebrand the organization and reshape its structure, potentially for eventual integration into the Turkish-backed “SNA” confab, followed by discussions with the international coalition or other entities. It is worth noting that HTS has undergone several re-inventions, having previously been known as Jahbat al-Nusra, and, before that, Al Qaeda.

  Meanwhile, on Syria’s eastern border, the SDF has denied participating in military campaigns targeting the bordering (with Iraq) city of Albu Kamal in cooperation with US forces, but the recent visit of former US Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to its areas suggests otherwise.

  Despite himself being illegally in Syria, Miller called for supporting stability in the region, and discussed with the Autonomous Administration the limitations it faces, the threats against it, and the necessity of supporting it economically and politically, according to a statement by the Department of Foreign Relations.

  Dogged pursuit of de facto division

  On August 27, a high-level delegation from the US Congress visited the Turkish-occupied areas in northwestern Syria, particularly the northern countryside of Aleppo. This visit seems to confirm Washington’s intentions to establish a de facto presence in Syrian territory. Concurrently, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat published a report detailing a Turkish project aimed at the Turkification of northern Syria, which involves teaching the Turkish language to approximately 300,000 Syrian children.

  These developments collectively raise the possibility of the US administration supporting efforts to “impose a reality” that could lead to the division of Syria. This prospect could gain traction amid the economic challenges faced by Syria, the waning authority of the central state, and Ankara’s determination to remain in Syrian territory while engineering local demographics. 

  Turkiye has been constructing cities for refugees with Qatari funding, a move that lays the groundwork for scenarios similar to what’s transpiring in Suwayda – and mirroring the model of the US-funded Kurdish Autonomous Administration. Given the existing security, military, and political landscape in Syria, it becomes evident that returning to the 2011 model of popular protests, which eventually transformed into an armed rebellion, remains an uphill task for the US and its allies. 

  Despite their inability to overthrow the government through military means, these actors – comprising the US, its European partners, Turkiye, Qatar, and Israel – remain undeterred in pursuing a de facto division of Syria. 

  Their strategy entails surrounding and economically strangling key areas under the control of the central government in Damascus. Although this may not immediately threaten the government’s stability, it poses an existential threat to the integrity of the Syrian state itself.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 18:00

• US Sanctions Fail Again: Huawei Unveils New Smartphone With Its Own Advanced Chip
  US Sanctions Fail Again: Huawei Unveils New Smartphone With Its Own Advanced Chip

  Huawei Technologies Co., which has faced several years of US semiconductor sanctions, unveiled a new smartphone with a cutting-edge 7-nanometer processor in China. While this processor matches the performance of Apple’s iPhones from 2018, it raises questions about the effectiveness of US sanctions in curbing China’s progress in chip technology. There are concerns this development could enrage Washington. 

  Bloomberg purchased a Huawei Mate 60 Pro. The handset was delivered to TechInsights for a complete teardown. They found a new Kirin 9000s chip manufactured in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. 

  TechInsights said SMIC had used existing equipment and applied its second-generation 7-nanometer process, known as the N+2 node, to manufacture the Kirin 9000s chip for the Mate 60 Pro. This phone with the new chip is on par with Apple’s iPhones launched in 2018. Currently, iPhone chips are made by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, using a 4-nanometer process. 

  

  The unveiling of Mate 60 Pro with the new chip shows China’s advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors have yet to be hindered by US sanctions and suggests the world’s second-largest economy still has a lot of room to innovate. 

  “It’s a pretty important statement for China,” TechInsights Vice Chair Dan Hutcheson said, adding, “SMIC’s technology advances are on an accelerated trajectory, and appear to have addressed yield-impacting issues in their 7nm technology.”

  Paul Triolo, the technology policy lead at the Washington-based business consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group, told The Washington Post, “This development will almost certainly prompt much stronger calls for further tightening of export control licensing for US suppliers of Huawei, who continue to be able to ship commodity semiconductors that are not used for 5G applications.” 

  China’s official broadcaster, CGTN, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, said this is “Huawei’s first higher-end Kirin processor since 2020 after the US government restricted American businesses from selling their products or services to Huawei.” 

  The new Kirin chip is manufactured by #Chinese #semiconductor company #SMIC. It is Huawei’s first higher-end Kirin processor since 2020 after the U.S. government restricted American businesses from selling their products or services to #Huawei. #China #USsanctions #semiconductor https://t.co/uqE5wXEaow

  — CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) August 29, 2023

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

  “Huawei breaks free from US tech blockade,” The Global Times, a state-run communist newspaper in China, posted on X. We have reported: Huawei To Dodge US Sanctions With ‘Secret’ Network Of Chip Factories. 

  #GTCartoon: Huawei breaks free from US tech blockade. @_ValiantPanda_ pic.twitter.com/l19X7nDPfc

  — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) September 3, 2023

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

  SMIC shares in Hong Kong rose 6.1% on the new chip news. 

  

  In mid-Sept., Apple is expected to begin taking preorders for new iPhones built with 3-nanometer chips. Even though Mate 60 Pro is at 7-nanometer, the point is that Washington’s sanctions are failing to cripple China’s chip development.

  … where else in the world have we seen US sanctions fail to paralyze countries? Ah, yes, Russia. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 17:35

• Chicago Teachers' Union President, Hater Of Private Schools And School Choice, Reportedly Sends Child To Private School
  Chicago Teachers’ Union President, Hater Of Private Schools And School Choice, Reportedly Sends Child To Private School

  By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

  Stacy Davis-Gates is undoubtedly Illinois’ most prominent and rabid opponent of school choice — and pretty much everybody and everything associated with it, all of which she labels racist or worse. As president of the Chicago Teachers Union, she is at the forefront of its campaign to kill Illinois’ meager Invest in Kids Act, which currently gives about 9,000 disadvantaged kids scholarships to attend private schools. “It must be ‘game over’” for the program, the CTU says.

  But, as initially reported** by SubX News, she sends one of her kids to to Chicago’s De La Salle Institute, a private, Catholic high school.

  

  Consider that in light of some of what she has said against providing needy parents with the means to attend a private school like De La Salle through school choice programs [emphasis is added]:

  “I’m also a mother, my children go to the Chicago public school,” she said in a webinar. “These are things that help to legitimize my space within the coalition but also helps to amplify my voice as a leader in labor because a white dude whose kids go to school in the suburbs can’t really have that same voice in the same way.”

  When asked in an interview if she had concerns about school-choice and privatization supporters running for the school board, she said, “Yes, we are concerned about the encroachment of fascists in Chicago. We are concerned about the marginalization of public education through the eyes of those who’ve never intended for Black people to be educated. So we’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that type of fascism and racism does not exist on our Board of Education.”

  “I can’t advocate on behalf of public education and the children of this city and educators in this city without it taking root in my own household,” she told Chicago Magazine.

  On Twitter, she has said things like “School choice was actually the choice of racists. It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children.” Private schools are “Segregation Academies,” she wrote on Twitter. “Call them private schools supported by taxpayer funds – vouchers – so your northern cousins understand better,” she said. And she linked to an article titled “The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers.”

  De La Salle, where Davis-Gates sends one of her three kids, has long been a diamond in the rough of Southside high schools. But with tuition at $14,750 per year, it’s open only to those with some means, like Davis-Gates, and the few who are fortunate enough to get financial help.

  School choice is about getting that help to more of the poor –- creating equality of choice with those who have means. The Invest in Kids Act does that, though for too few students thanks to its paltry funding. Davis-Gates’ opposition to it and her statements about private schools, all while constantly claiming status as the poor’s heroine, are hypocrisy at its most revolting.

  In a Chicago mayoral endorsement of Brandon Johnson, she wrote she picked somebody who “values my intersections.”

  Her “intersections” include two faces.

  ** I have reached out to CTU for confirmation that Davis-Gates has a child enrolled in a private school and will update if I get a response. Numerous entries on Twitter have also asked her to respond, but no answers as of the time I wrote this.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 17:10

• Biden Built 'Predictable' Loophole That Resulted In Flood Of Illegal "Family Units" Into US
  Biden Built ‘Predictable’ Loophole That Resulted In Flood Of Illegal “Family Units” Into US

  A change made to US immigration policy by the Biden administration led to a “predictable” rise in the number of “family units” attempting to cross into the US border.

  

  Based on a new report of preliminary Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) data, August was the highest month this year for overall migrant encounters – hitting 91,000. Policy experts say that was ‘entirely predictable’ due to a rule change which exempted ‘family units’ from being automatically denied asylum.

  “Notwithstanding the administration’s claim that they are refusing to consider asylum claims from people encountered between ports of entry, the rule they adopted has huge loopholes. Among those explicitly exempted are family units,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in a Friday statement to Just the News.

  “So, guess what? We are seeing a surge in family units crossing the border illegally and it is not even clear if they really are family units. As we have seen in the past, there have been rent-a-kid schemes to help people take advantage of the laxer rules that apply to adults accompanied by children. The record number of family units encountered at the border was entirely predictable,” he added.

  Since May, immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S. border have been able to request appointments, up to 1,450 per day, CPB says, with immigration officials using the CBP One smartphone application. 

  Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Just the News that the immigrants who use the CBP One app to schedule appointments still have to make it to the border somehow. -Just the News

  “They still have to pay smugglers to get here and the whole thing is a boon for alien smugglers,” said Krikorian. “It’s supposed to only be for people who have made it to Mexico already and even that’s bad enough, because you have to pay a smuggler to get there but the smugglers have figured it out. They’re actually using it.”

  Krikorian also says that the increase in family units was predictable due to current DHS policy.

  “I don’t know what the administration thought was going to happen,” he continued.

  Hilariously, the White House is now claiming that President Joe Biden has “done more” to secure the border “than anybody else.”

  KJP: Joe Biden “has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else. He really has” 🤣

  pic.twitter.com/iXuimrV5vm

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 31, 2023

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

  Secure it for who, exactly?

  According to the CBP, a family is defined as “group of two or more aliens consisting of a minor or minors accompanied by his/her/their adult parent(s) or legal guardian(s).”

  Last Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the number of family units seeking entry into the US hit a record high in August.

  

  The Post reports that the US Border Patrol “arrested at least 91,000 immigrants who crossed as part of a family group in August, exceeding the prior one-month record of 84,486 set in May 2019.”

  And how many didn’t they arrest?

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 16:45

• Drunk Drivers Causing Parental Deaths Now Liable For Child Support In Texas
  Drunk Drivers Causing Parental Deaths Now Liable For Child Support In Texas

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

  Drunk drivers who are convicted of intoxication manslaughter will now need to pay child support if they kill a parent or guardian of a child in a car crash, according to a new Texas law that went into effect on Sept. 1.

  

  The law was a bipartisan bill that Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed in June.

  “Any time a parent passes is tragic, but a death at the hands of a drunk driver is especially heinous,” Mr. Abbott said at the time.

  “I was proud to sign HB 393 into law this year to require offenders to pay child support for the children of their victims.”

  Advocates of the law view it as a way to discourage drunk driving.

  Under the law, Texas House Bill 393, the court shall order a person convicted of intoxicated manslaughter “to pay restitution for a child whose parent or guardian was the victim of the offense.”

  “[T]he court shall determine an amount to be paid monthly for the support of the child until the child reaches 18 years of age or has graduated from high school, whichever is later,” text of the legislation reads.

  The court will weigh several factors when deciding the restitution amount, such as the child’s financial situation and needs. If relevant, the finances of the surviving parent, guardian, or the Department of Family and Protective Services will be taken into account. The child’s standard of living, overall well-being, and any childcare costs due to a working surviving parent will also influence the decision.

  Intoxicated manslaughter in Texas has a potential penalty of up to two decades in prison.

  The person convicted of intoxicated manslaughter must start the child support payments within one year of being released. They can make a plan for the missed payments and must pay everything they owe, even if the payment was supposed to end while they were in jail.

  The payments will continue until each child of the victim turns 18.

  ‘Bentley’s Law’

  The law has been nicknamed “Bentley’s law.” It was created by Cecilia Williams, a Missouri woman who lost her son, daughter-in-law, and four-month-old grandson in a crash that involved a drunk driver on April 13, 2021.

  “I got up out of bed to an officer and a state trooper standing at my door,” Ms. Williams told KSDK-TV in an interview in August 2022.

  “They repeatedly told me that they had died in a fiery crash.”

  Ms. Williams said in a statement on the website of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD): “Bentley’s Law was created out of a tragedy that has affected the lives of two beautiful boys, Bentley and Mason, and the lives of our family. These crashes are totally preventable, and I will continue to fight for change for all who have suffered from impaired drivers. Many families like mine suffer such a loss every second of every day, and Bentley’s Law will bring change to hold the offender accountable for such horrific actions.”

  

  A police officer administers a breathalyzer test to a man at a sobriety checkpoint. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

  Tennessee became the first state to pass “Bentley’s Law” in July 2022.

  Similar laws are being considered in over 20 other states.

  Drunk Driving in Texas

  Texas has among the worst rates of drunk driving in the nation, ranking third according to a Forbes analysis in late 2022. Montana has the highest rate, followed by Wyoming.

  According to the analysis, Texas has the most underage drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes at approximately 1 per 100,000 residents.

  More than 8 drunk drivers per 100,000 were involved in fatal crashes, the second-highest number behind Montana, the report showed.

  And nearly 40 percent of all traffic fatalities in the state were caused by drunk drivers.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 16:20

• Orange Man Disqualified? Adam Schiff Talks 14th Amendment
  Orange Man Disqualified? Adam Schiff Talks 14th Amendment

  Without outright saying so, Democrats have made no secret that their endgame with the various Trump prosecutions is to get him kicked off the 2024 ballot.

  To that end, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday that a legal argument to disqualify the former president is “valid,” and that the part of the amendment that bans those who have “engaged in insurrection” from holding elected office “fits Donald Trump to a T.”

  

  Appearing on MSNBC, Schiff told former Biden Spox Jen Psaki that the 14th Amendment doesn’t even require someone to actually be convicted of insurrection in order to be barred from holding public office – only that they must have engaged in it.

  “I think it is a valid argument. The 14th Amendment, Section 3 is pretty clear. If you engage in acts of insurrection or rebellion against the government, or you give aid and comfort to those who do, you are disqualified from running,” said Schiff. “It doesn’t require that you be convicted of insurrection. It just requires that you have engaged in these acts.”

  Of note, Democrats have floated using another section of the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling.

  “It’s a disqualification from holding office again, and it fits Donald Trump to a T,” Schiff continued, adding that he imagines this legal theory could either be tested by a secretary of state, or a plaintiff challenging Trump’s name on the ballot – and that he expects the issue to potentially make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

  “I think this will be tested when a secretary of state either refuses to put him on the ballot, or puts him on the ballot and is challenged by a litigant. I would imagine it would go up to the Supreme Court, and that’s the big question mark through all of this, which is what will the Supreme Court do?” said Schiff, adding “There are prominent constitutional scholars, as well as prominent progressive scholars who believe that he should be disqualified.”

  And what does Schiff think that the conservative-biased Supreme Court will do?

  “Only time will tell, but I do think it is a very legitimate issue. By the clear terms of the 14th Amendment he should be disqualified from holding office.”

  Watch:

  .@RepAdamSchiff: “By the clear terms of the 14th Amendment, [Trump] should be disqualified from holding office.” pic.twitter.com/SYI4rrpSgC

  — Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) September 3, 2023

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

  And of course, looks like the memo went out.

  While there’s a “powerful argument to be made” that former Pres. Trump is disqualified from running again under the 14th Amendment, Sen. Tim Kaine predicts that the issue while be “resolved in the courts.” https://t.co/gLfhOlFr03 pic.twitter.com/KvpDBqrSAB

  — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 3, 2023

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

  We’re sure that whatever happens it will be conveniently scheduled for maximum election interference.

  Of course, as Andrew C. McCarthy noted in National Review in January, If Trump was not disqualified under the impeachment clause, a remedy that undeniably applied to him, he is not going to be disqualified under the 14th Amendment, which doesn’t.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 15:55

• Zuckerberg's "Twitter Killer" App Struggles For Traction
  Zuckerberg’s “Twitter Killer” App Struggles For Traction

  Authored by Benjamin Kew via The Epoch Times,

  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s microblogging platform Threads, launched to great acclaim as Instagram’s “Twitter Killer” in July, appears to be showing signs of struggle.

  The initial signs for Threads were extremely encouraging.

  The platform—nearly a carbon copy of Twitter, now known as X—pulled in a staggering 100 million sign-ups in less than five days.

  Forbes senior contributor John Koetsier outlined how Twitter had “imploded” under the leadership of Elon Musk and cited the “instant credibility” and “simplicity” of Threads as an alternative.

  

  Yet nearly two months on from its seemingly successful launch, Zuckerberg’s vision of stealing Twitter’s thunder may be little more than a pipe dream.

  Even NBC admitted on Aug. 24 that the platform is “struggling for traction.”

  “An analysis of Android users by Similarweb, a digital data and analytics company, estimated that daily active users on Threads’ Android app peaked at 49.3 million in early July and fell to 10.3 million after a month—a drop of nearly 80%,” the media outlet reported in mid-August.

  A week after its July 5 launch, daily active Threads users peaked at around 26.7 million, then gradually declined to around 13.5 million by month’s end, it said.

  “Some celebrities who joined the platform before it was available to the public, such as Jennifer Lopez and Tom Brady, haven’t posted at all since launch week. MrBeast, the YouTube star who was the first user to reach 1 million followers on Threads, stopped posting about a month ago.”

  One of the most common theories among conservatives for the platform’s underwhelming start is that while Twitter has finally embraced free speech, Threads is a platform governed by strict content moderation and politically driven censorship.

  Allum Bokhari, a senior technology reporter at Breitbart News and author of “Deleted: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase a Movement and Subvert Democracy,” told The Epoch Times that the weakness of Threads lies in its failure to attract subversive content.

  “Threads was touted as the polite, politically correct alternative to Elon Musk’s X. But when the selling point of your platform is inoffensiveness, you can’t be surprised when users simply get bored,” Mr. Bokhari explained.

  “X has become friendlier to edgy, dissident content that polite society would prefer to see banned, and that’s precisely why its users remain loyal.”

  

  This photo illustration shows the X logo (formerly Twitter) on a smartphone screen in Los Angeles, California, on July 31, 2023. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)

  Free Speech Is Not the Only Concern

  Yet, issues of free speech are far from the only concern.

  Jake Denton, a research associate at the Tech Policy Center for The Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that while X is moving forward with offering new features, Threads still provides a disappointing user experience.

  “While Zuckerberg and Meta were quick to boast about the early sign-up numbers for Threads, that momentum has rapidly dissipated, and the platform seems to be in free fall,” he said. 

  “What strikes me most is the stark contrast between the early promises of an exciting new platform and the underwhelming reality that one finds upon logging in.”

  Users eager for a fresh experience encountered “a feed saturated with interactions between mega-corporations and consumer brands as” Mr. Denton said, comparing it to “stumbling into a virtual networking event for their social media managers.”

  “Meta will truly need a miracle to save this platform from irrelevancy. If Zuckerberg can’t find a way to bring interesting content to the platform—content that people actually want to consume—Threads will be dead on arrival,” he predicted.

  Not everyone is as pessimistic about the company’s future.

  Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, warned that Threads could be waiting for X to experience a crisis that it can take advantage of.

  “Threads doesn’t need to be as good as Twitter to dethrone it—all it needs to be is a close-enough substitute … [so] that when Twitter is destabilized and put into crisis, Threads can be there to catch the fall,” he told The Epoch Times. 

  “That crisis can come from several directions: financial, if advertiser boycotts ramp back up; legal, via bankrupting lawfare; and regulatory, via new regulations such as the EU’s new disinformation laws.

  “There are 2.3 billion Instagram users, versus only 450 million Twitter users. That’s a 5x size advantage Threads has to tap into in terms of the Facebook-Instagram-WhatsApp economy into which Threads is being installed. You can’t underestimate that or rule it out. Especially with government and institutional support,” Mr. Benz said.

  He added that, given Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to comply with the demands of the Biden administration, Threads may also benefit from being the app of choice for the U.S. national security state.

  “Zuckerberg has won back much of that support after doing the Biden admin’s bidding on all things content moderation ahead of the 2020 election and throughout this term,” Mr. Benz said. 

  “Because Zuckerberg has proven to be such a reliable ally to the Pentagon and State Department, I would not be surprised if Threads begins to be pushed by the U.S. government for dissident groups funded by the U.S. national security state to use while organizing revolutions or resistance movements abroad,” he said, likening it to the State Department promoting Telegram in 2020 for the attempted color revolution in Belarus.

  “It’s hard to predict at the moment,” Mr. Benz said. “… as the 2024 election approaches, or another pandemic scare, or some other crisis or high-stakes geopolitical event appears, the true nature of the threat posed by Threads will make itself more clear.”

  However, others believe that Threads’ commitment to censoring the political fringes will prove fatal to its long-term survival.

  Among them is former Harvard professor Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, who argued that Zuckerberg’s best hope is that Elon Musk sabotages his own company.

  “I don’t see a way for Threads to overtake Twitter/X in the microblogging domain,” said Mr. Epstein.

  “By minimizing moderation—which Facebook can’t do on Threads—Twitter is attracting more extreme content than it ever has before, and extreme content draws traffic. I don’t see a way for Facebook to compete with that.”

  “Of course, it is always possible that Musk or his appointees will mismanage “X” so badly that the company just implodes,” he continued. “Perhaps Zuckerberg is counting on that.”

  Yet given Mr. Musk’s track record of building successful companies, most notably Tesla and SpaceX, some might argue that this possibility remains remote.

  Mr. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, remains publicly optimistic, insisting that he will spend the rest of the year developing its product and fighting to retain its users.

  “I’m very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together. Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly, 10s of millions of people now come back daily … way ahead of what we expected,” he wrote in late July.

  “The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 09/04/2023 – 15:30

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• Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here
  Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level. 

  On August 25th, a new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union.  Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be “illegal”, “disinformation” or “hate speech”.  That includes content that is posted by users outside of the European Union, because someone that lives in the European Union might see it.  I wrote about this a few days ago, but I don’t think that people are really understanding the implications of this new law.  In the past, there have been times when governments have requested that big tech companies take down certain material, but now this new law will give government officials the power to force big tech companies to take down any content that they do not like. 

  Any big tech companies that choose not to comply will be hit with extremely harsh penalties.

  

  Of course mainstream news outlets such as the Washington Post are attempting to put a positive spin on this new law.  We are being told that it will “safeguard” us from “illegal content” and “disinformation”…

  New rules meant to safeguard people from illegal content, targeted ads, unwanted algorithmic feeds and disinformation online are finally in force, thanks to new regulation in the European Union that took effect this month.

  Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

  When this new law was first approved, NPR admitted that it will enable European governments to “take down a wide range of content”…

  Under the EU law, governments would be able to ask companies take down a wide range of content that would be deemed illegal, including material that promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams.

  In addition to “illegal content” and “hate speech”, the Digital Services Act also applies to “hoaxes” and any material that is considered to be “disinformation”.  The following comes from the official website of the European Commission…

  At the same time, the DSA regulates very large online platforms’ and very large online search engines responsibilities when it comes to systemic issues such as disinformation, hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics, harms to vulnerable groups and other emerging societal harms.

  These new content rules are so vague that they could apply to just about anything.

  And that is precisely what they want.

  From this point forward, if you post something that they do not like, they will have the power to have it taken down.

  Even if you don’t live in the European Union, they can have your content taken down, because someone in the European Union might see it.

  So who will be doing the censoring?

  Well, it is being reported that “hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it”…

  Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetising certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favour or disfavour certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.

  In addition, the official website of the European Commission is telling us that big tech companies must “react with priority” to any content that has been reported by “trusted flaggers”…

  A priority channel will be created for trusted flaggers – entities which have demonstrated particular expertise and competence – to report illegal content to which platforms will have to react with priority.

  This means that far left organizations that have been set up to police content online will now be given extraordinary power to restrict speech on the Internet.

  Needless to say, the Internet is never going to be the same after this.

  Initially, this new law will apply to 19 very large online platforms…

  The online platforms affected are Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X (listed as Twitter), Wikipedia, YouTube, the European clothing retailer Zalando, Bing and Google Search.

  If any of those large online platforms choose not to comply with the new law, the penalties could be extremely severe…

  A firm that does not comply with the law could face a complete ban in Europe or fines running up to 6% of its global revenue.

  Last month, X/Twitter said it was on track to generate $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue. A fine of 6% would be the equivalent of £144m.

  Once we get to February 24th, 2024, the Digital Services Act will also apply to a vast multitude of smaller platforms.

  At that point, it will be very difficult to escape the reach of this new law.

  And just to make sure that they can keep a very close eye on things, the EU just established a brand new office in San Francisco on June 22nd…

  European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton cut the ribbon to commemorate the official launch of the European Union’s San Francisco office on Thursday, June 22, alongside Lieutenant Governor of California Eleni Kounalakis, California State Senator Scott Wiener, and Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs Adrian Vazquez.

  “I am very glad to be here today in Silicon Valley, a global centre for digital technology and innovation, to officially inaugurate the new European Union office in San Francisco,” Commissioner Breton said in his keynote address to an audience of business and technology sector leaders. “As like-minded partners who strive for reciprocity and common principles, all while respecting our respective democratic processes, our transatlantic ties are more relevant than ever in the area of technology.”

  For many years, the Internet was one of the last bastions for free speech.

  But now everything has changed.

  From this point forward, far left European bureaucrats will get to determine what is acceptable and what is not acceptable on our large online platforms.

  Direct government censorship of the Internet is here, and that is going to make it much more difficult to share the truth with a world that desperately needs it.

  These are such dark times, and they are getting darker with each passing day.

  *  *  *

  Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 23:30

• Air Force Wants To Replace Highly Effective Modern A-10 With 'Flying Tinderbox'
  Air Force Wants To Replace Highly Effective Modern A-10 With ‘Flying Tinderbox’

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

  “By scrapping the A-10, the Air Force is guaranteeing more Gold Star families will be created,” according to Charlie Keebaugh, president of the largest group of tactical-air-control party airmen.

  

  The 2024 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (pdf) allows the Air Force to retire 42 A-10 Thunderbolt 2s in 2024, with the remaining 220 or so to be retired with prejudice by 2029. This retiring of the A-10 “Warthog” is predicated on the fantastical disproven idea that the A-10, which to this day is the most cost-effective plane in the Air Force’s inventory, can be replaced by the F-35.

  This power play by the Air Force is just another chapter in the long, ongoing saga of senior Air Force leaders using every tactic, including underhanded tactics, threats, and rigged testing, to justify retiring the A-10. It certainly isn’t about improving our country’s close air support (CAS) capabilities that have saved countless American lives. Instead, it’s about converting A-10 maintainers to F-35 maintainers in order to satisfy the F-35s endless, ravenous appetite for maintenance and support. And it’s about killing off the plane that will continue to show up the F-35 as long as it continues to fly.

  Before talking about the respective CAS capabilities of the A-10 and F-35, an understanding of what’s meant by CAS is necessary. Joint Western military doctrine defines CAS as “air action by fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces.”

  More specifically, CAS pilots must be able to coordinate in real time and near real time with their certified joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC), to be able to dynamically adjust targeting and be able to relay enemy positions and movements back to their JTACs in real time. In a real CAS mission, the plane will be flying close enough to frontlines that even if it’s stealthy, it will still be seen on radar and by plain old human eyes.

  In terms of what you want in a CAS plane, the engineers and experienced CAS pilots who designed the A-10 in the mid-1960s concluded that a CAS attack plane must be able to operate near the frontlines from an austere airfield with short runways, have low maintenance requirements and high reliability, be able to carry a large weapons load including anti-armor capability, be tough enough to survive small arms fire and be resistant to the kind of anti-air weapons one will find at the frontline of a ground battle, have long range and endurance, have a speed of at least 350 knots, have great low-speed maneuverability, and have a low cost of acquisition so that the CAS planes that will inevitably be lost in combat can be quickly and cost-effectively replaced as needed.

  To say that the A-10 design team hit it out of the park is an understatement. And the heavily modernized A-10C, despite unsubstantiated Air Force claims, has the most sophisticated CAS capabilities of any plane in the world. Consequently, modernized A-10Cs, combining modern A-10-enabled tactics with its air defense capabilities, can operate in environments full of anti-air weapons that other aircraft, including the F-35, can’t. And, the Warthog, with its triple redundancy, twin engines, and titanium bathtub to protect its pilot, is the toughest plane in the world that gets its pilot home after sustaining many times the damage that would have downed any other aircraft.

  While the F-35 certainly can fly fast enough, it fails to meet any of the other CAS criteria. And while the F-35, a flying fuel tank, does have decent range when flying stealthily, its inability to fly out of austere air bases located near the frontlines means that it will spend most of its fuel flying back and forth from the battle. In contrast, the A-10, with its ability to fly from austere makeshift airfields with short, unimproved runways, can be based mere minutes from the frontlines and can spend hours in or near the battlefield. This, plus the fact that the A-10 can conservatively double the number of sorties per day of an F-35, means that an A-10 will minimally be able to spend four to eight times more time at or near the frontlines delivering lifesaving, mission-advancing support than an F-35.

  Adding insult to injury is that the A-10 can carry far more ordnance than an F-35 flying in stealth mode. And while the F-35 can swap out stealth mode for its “Beast Mode,” which allows it to carry more ordnance than the A-10, its operational range will be cut in half, meaning that it almost certainly will require infight refueling to be able to use its ordnance.

  So far, the F-35 isn’t looking so great as a CAS plane, but things only get worse, much worse.

  What About the Guns and ‘Danger Close’?

  One of the critical missions that a CAS plane needs to be able to execute is a “danger close” mission. This is an operation in which the CAS plane will be attacking enemy troops and equipment that are within 50 meters of friendly troops. Consequently, explosive ordnance use is restricted or not used out of fear of harming or killing friendlies. In these cases, the A-10’s fearsome GAU-8 Avenger 30-millimeter cannon is vastly superior to the 25-millimeter cannons that the F-35s mount. And much to the chagrin of enemy forces, the A-10 carries 1,174 rounds of ammunition, five to six times what the F-35 carries, allowing it to make multiple attack runs per sortie. However, these comparisons are pointless when it comes to the F-35A, whose gun is hopelessly inaccurate and damages the plane when it’s fired.

  Finally, equipment critical to protecting the F-35 from going up in flames was either stripped off or left off due to weight considerations (pdf). This arguably makes the F-35 the most fragile plane in the U.S. fighter inventory. Not only is the F-35 highly vulnerable to small fragments common to anti-aircraft artillery fire and near missile misses, but it can’t fly anywhere near lightning, while the A-10 is capable of flying in weather conditions that will ground all other aircraft.

  F-35 Will Be Able to ‘Fire and Flee,’ but Can’t Do Real CAS

  The F-35’s extreme vulnerabilities to weapons and weather, and its poor low-speed maneuverability, mean that it won’t be allowed to do genuine CAS; instead, it will fire extremely expensive weapons at ranges far enough from the frontline that the situation will often have changed dramatically by the time the glide bomb or missile reaches its target. The F-35 pilot won’t be able to dynamically adjust targeting second by second, as can an A-10 pilot who can actually see the battlefield, even when electronic jamming is present. Further, the F-35 pilot won’t be providing real-time information on enemy movements and positions as can the A-10 pilot.

  Col. William Smith, a retired Air Force pilot with more than 3,000 hours of A-10 flight time and 128 combat sorties, said in 2015, “We are regularly able to use something that other planes often cannot, the Mark I Human Eyeball, and sometimes there is no substitute for that,” and “we live in the armpit of the guy on the ground.”

  In sharp contrast, the F-35 pilot, in his fragile, flammable, flying tinderbox, will be firing and fleeing many miles away from the frontlines.

  In conclusion, the F-35—with its extreme fragility, high acquisition cost, high cost of support and maintenance, inability to operate near the frontlines, poor low-speed maneuverability, lack of an effective gun, poor sortie generation rate, short loiter times, and lack of ability to carry a large weapons payload without inflight refueling—is the antithesis of a CAS plane.

  Consequently, in canceling the A-10, the U.S. Air Force will be canceling the most important and effective plane it has to execute lifesaving, mission-advancing CAS. And it will be killing the only plane that can do danger close support. This could cost the lives of countless Marines and soldiers. But on the upside, the A-10 maintainers can be moved over to support the troubled, maintenance-hungry F-35s.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 22:30

• 15 Years On, Google's Chrome Has Taken Over The World
  15 Years On, Google’s Chrome Has Taken Over The World

  When Google announced the release of its own web browser Chrome in 2008, many people asked themselves why Google was building a web browser.

  In retrospect, the better question would have been, why Google hadn’t built a web browser earlier. After all, the company’s entire business was people using a browser to access Google’s services.

  As a matter of fact, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong reports, the plan to make a Google web browser had existed for years, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt just hadn’t considered his company ready to enter the resource draining ‘browser wars’. By 2008, Google was making billions of dollars a year and had finally matured enough to go head to head with Microsoft and it’s market dominating Internet Explorer.

  15 years ago, on September 2, 2008, the first official release of Chrome was published and the open-source browser began its steady climb through the ranks. By the third quarter of 2009, Chrome had caught up with Apple’s Safari and set its sights on the next contender: Firefox. It took a bit longer to catch up with Firefox, but in the fourth quarter of 2011, Chrome’s share of global web browsing surpassed that of Firefox. Less than a year later, Chrome became the world’s number one browser, overtaking Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which had utterly dominated the market just five years earlier.

  Remarkably, Chrome’s ascent came almost entirely at the expense of Microsoft’s browser. Since the third quarter of 2008, Internet Explorer’s market share dropped from 68 to 25 percent, while Chrome’s soared from zero to 43 percent. Today, Internet Explorer’s successor, Edge, commands just 5 percent of the global market, while Chrome is sitting at the top of the pile with a slice of the pie consistently and securely above the 60 percent mark – the nearest competitor being Safari with 20 percent in August 2023.

  According to data from web-tracking firm StatCounter, Chrome is the world’s number 1 internet browser. Between July and August 2023, Chrome was used by 63.6 percent of internet users worldwide. Safari ranked in second place, having been used by just under 20 percent of the world’s online community. Edge (5.4 percent), Firefox (2.9 percent), Opera (2.7 percent) and Samsung (2.3 percent) trail much further behind.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Regionally, Chrome is particularly popular in South America where it has a browser market share of 78.9 percent. In Europe and North America, the share is comparatively lower, at 58.6 percent and 53.1 percent, respectively. The United States’ Chrome market share was only marginally below North America’s regional average, with the browser seeing a 51.7 percent use rate, followed by Safari (30.8 percent), Edge (8.4 percent), Opera (3.5) percent, Firefox (3.5) percent and Samsung Internet (1.1 percent).

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Safari ranks as the most prevalent web browser in a number of smaller countries and islands, including North Korea (90.99 percent), Bermuda (92.7 percent), the Faroe Islands (78.52 percent) and Andorra (56.9 percent), while Armenia is one of the only countries worldwide to favor Firefox (Firefox was 55 percent of the online population, Chrome 31.9 percent and Safari 8.7 percent).

  Africa is the only continent where Safari does not take second place, but is pushed to third after competitor Opera.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 22:00

• Conflicting Dates In Trump Trials Unfair, Must Be Resolved, Experts Say
  Conflicting Dates In Trump Trials Unfair, Must Be Resolved, Experts Say

  Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The spiderweb of conflicting court dates in cases involving President Donald Trump places unfair pressure on defense lawyers and must be untangled, according to legal experts.

  

  The former president is scheduled to appear in a pair of major trials, one in Washington and the other in Florida, beginning just 77 days apart. Those are just two of the seven, possibly eight, criminal and civil trials for which President Trump is scheduled during the 12 months prior to the 2024 presidential election, in which he is the leading Republican candidate.

  Stacking the trials virtually on top of one another is unfair to the defendant, according to Kevin J. O’Brien, a New York-based trial lawyer and former assistant U.S. attorney who specializes in white-collar criminal cases.

  “It’s an awfully burdensome responsibility placed on the defense. And in fairness, it really shouldn’t be placed upon them. It should have been the government’s job and the courts’ job to sort these things out and make sure there’s reasonable time between cases,” Mr. O’Brien told The Epoch Times.

  President Trump has maintained his innocence and repeatedly said the criminal cases against him are politically motivated.

  “Keep Indicting your Political Opponent, it makes no difference for what, or why. Keep him off the ‘campaign trail’ and in the courthouse instead. Don’t think of his Rights, the Constitution, or Liberty. Sit back and WATCH AMERICA CRUMBLE!” President Trump wrote on the social media platform Truth Social on Sept. 1.

  President Trump announced his campaign to return to the White House nine months ago. He has consistently led the field of more than a dozen challengers for the Republican nomination by some 40 percentage points.

  In the end, one or more of the trials will have to be rescheduled in the interest of justice, Mr. O’Brien believes.

  Spiraling Calendar

  President Trump’s legal troubles have snowballed since March when he was indicted in state court in New York on charges of falsifying business records related to payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Judge Juan Merchan scheduled that trial for March 25.

  In June, the former president was indicted in federal court in Florida on charges related to classified documents kept at his residence, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach. Additional charges were added in July. Judge Aileen Cannon initially set that trial to begin on Aug. 15 but agreed to delay it until May 20 at the request of the defense.

  In August, President Trump was indicted in Washington, on federal charges for allegedly conspiring with six unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators to overturn the 2020 election results in events culminating on January 6, 2021.

  Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the Florida and Washington cases, asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to schedule the Georgia case to begin Jan. 2. Judge Chutkan set the trial date for March 4.

  Later in August, President Trump and 18 others were indicted in a Georgia state court on charges concerning an alleged conspiracy to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election results.

  Two co-defendants in the Georgia case, former campaign lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have asked that their trials begin on Oct. 23, citing their right to a speedy trial. President Trump has asked to sever his case from that of his co-defendants. Judge Scott McAfee has not ruled on either request.

  In New York, President Trump is named in three civil lawsuits with trials scheduled to begin on Oct. 2, Jan. 25, and Jan. 29.

  Complications for the Defense

  Though the two federal criminal trials will begin 11 weeks apart, other court deadlines overlap, creating a nearly impossible challenge to mounting a defense.

  “It is not a ‘March 4’ trial,” Attorney William Shipley said, referring to the Washington trial.

  “This schedule has the defense attorneys filing motions in December. They have 4 months to review millions of pages of discovery, do their own investigation of matters contained in that discovery—including interviewing witnesses (both [government] witnesses and others who were not part of [government] investigation)—and formulating their own defense plan,” Mr. Shipley, who has represented a number of defendants in cases related to the events of January 6, wrote on the social media platform X on Aug. 30.

  “This is at the same time there are pretrial proceedings already scheduled in the Florida case involving the documents.”

  The schedules for both trials list more than a dozen deadlines for filing motions or other documents. Many of those filings will require a response from the other party, creating the possibility of submitting hundreds of pages of legal documents to each court through the fall and early winter.

  Speaking of Judge Chutkan’s scheduling choice, Mr. Shipley wrote, “What she has done indirectly is derail the FL case—a tactical move to reduce the influence of decisions by the judge in that case that might cause problems for SCO Smith.”

  The proposed trial schedules simply cannot be met, according to Mr. O’Brien. Court cases tend to lengthen as attorneys wrangle over pre-trial questions. And life itself is too complicated to bank on the clockwork precision required to manage even one trial on schedule, let alone eight.

  “I’ve been in big cases before. Scheduling dates have a habit of slipping. Issues come up. Discovery disputes, motions, appeals, lawyers who get sick, witnesses who are unavailable, fights over every issue under the sun—all these things can wreak havoc and even the best-laid plans,” Mr. O’Brien said.

  “Even in the Washington trial lasts until the end of April, it’s still unfair. That’s not nearly enough time to get ready for the second trial,” Mr. O’Brien added. “[The Florida trial] is going to have to be pushed back many, many months to make it a fair process.”

  Solutions

  Judge Cannon could try to resolve the scheduling conflict between the two federal criminal cases by ordering Mr. Smith to state his rationale for requesting a date for the Washington trial that conflicts with the Florida case, according to Mr. Shipley.

  “She could issue an [order to show cause] to the government asking for them to explain why they sought a schedule in that case that interfered with the schedule she already issued in her case. When the [government] doesn’t have a good answer, she could cite [the Department of Justice] for contempt,” Mr. Shipley wrote.

  “What might happen after that would be anyone’s guess.”

  The more likely resolution, according to Mr. O’Brien, is that the judges in the two federal criminal cases will confer to arrange a compromise on the schedules.

  “I suspect this process is just starting. There’s going to be jawboning and discussions behind the scenes with at least the two federal judges. Who knows how it’s going to go, but I think the push is going to be made for the January 6 case to go first,” he said, because the case involves the Constitution and the transfer of presidential power.

  That appears to be Mr. Smith’s intention, evidenced by his requesting an early trial date and by streamlining the case to include only President Trump and not his alleged co-conspirators.

  However, judges, not prosecutors, schedule trials. So the resolution will likely come after a consultation between Judges Cannon and Chutkan, Mr. O’Brien said, and there’s no telling what each might do.

  “[Judge Cannon] has shown that she is willing to buck the norms, to put it mildly, in making decisions involving this case,” Mr. O’Brien said.

  In 2022, prior to President Trump’s indictment, Judge Cannon appointed a third party to review documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago. The 11th U.S. Court of Appeals reversed that order and dismissed a lawsuit filed by President Trump to shield documents from federal investigators.

  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting the criminal case against President Trump in New York, has said that he will defer to the wishes of Judge Merchan regarding the Mar. 25 trial.

  “Ultimately, the judge sets the schedule, and we will follow the court’s lead, but we’ll take a broad look at what justice requires,” Mr. Bragg said in a July 25 radio interview with WNYC.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 21:30

• Japan Seeks Record Defense Budget Amid Threats From China, North Korea
  Japan Seeks Record Defense Budget Amid Threats From China, North Korea

  Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Japan’s defense ministry is submitting a record spending request as part of a larger plan that will double Japan’s total defense spending over five years.

  

  The ministry’s FY24 request for more than $52 billion would bring the Pacific nation closer to realizing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plan to bring defense spending up to a total of two percent of Japan’s gross domestic product in the coming years.

  Mr. Kishida’s administration aims to raise defense spending to a total of about $68 billion by 2027. The move will bump Japan from being the ninth largest military spender in the world to the third, after only the United States and communist China.

  The most recent budget request was approved by Japan’s defense ministry on Aug. 31 and sent to the finance ministry for negotiations.

  If adopted, the request would add more than $6 billion to the defense budget for the second year in a row, and augment Japan’s defense forces with considerable new firepower.

  The budget request includes billions of dollars worth of investments that would fill out Japan’s defense forces with warships, cruise missiles, and hypersonic warheads.

  Among the proposed expenditures is more than $6 billion to secure ammunition and weapons, $4 billion to strengthen logistics capabilities needed to deploy weapons throughout the island chain, $2 billion for new landing ships, transport helicopters, and a new specialized transport team, and another $2 billion to buy 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles to deploy on new and existing ships by 2027.

  Smaller amounts will also contribute to jointly developing weapons systems with the United States, UK, and Italy. These include new interceptor missiles designed to counter hypersonic warheads and new fighter jets.

  Japan Eyes Threats From China, North Korea

  The new weapons and platforms present the latest in a major pivot away from the pacifism that has defined Japan’s post-war defense investments. Such investments are increasingly viewed by the Kishida administration as necessary, however, as Japan faces increasing hostility from the communist regimes of China and North Korea.

  Communist China has flown spy balloons through Japan’s airspace and launched missiles into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone in recent years.

  North Korea, meanwhile, has made repeated threats of nuclear terror against Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

  Japan has thus undertaken historic steps to build up its ability to deter conflict and defend itself and its allies and partners from such actors.

  Japan announced in 2021, for example, that it will deploy 500 to 600 military personnel to the southwestern island of Ishigaki, which is near Taiwan, in a move that experts say will solidify the country’s commitment to defending Taiwan from Chinese communist aggression.

  In January of this year, Japan and the United States signed new commitments regarding defense spending, military modernization, and a new agreement that will extend their mutual defense treaty to apply to space.

  Those deals followed a flurry of activity between the two nations at numerous levels of government, which also resulted in an overhaul in the U.S.–Japan defense posture and strategy, to include an expansion of Japanese forces and a restructuring of the U.S. Marine Corps forces stationed on and around Okinawa.

  Accompanying these actions has been a swift detente with South Korea, through which Mr. Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have worked to ease historic tensions dating to Japan’s occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century.

  Those efforts are now bearing fruit. In February, Japan, South Korea, and the United States agreed to increase their security cooperation and “push back” against China and North Korea’s malign activity in the Pacific. Later, in August, leaders from the three nations met in Delaware for the first-ever stand-alone trilateral summit between the three powers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 21:00

• DeSantis Super PAC Halts Voter Canvassing In 4 States To Refocus Resources Elsewhere
  DeSantis Super PAC Halts Voter Canvassing In 4 States To Refocus Resources Elsewhere

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  A super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2024 run for the White House said it’s pausing voter canvassing in four states and investing some of the freed-up field resources into three early-voting states.

  

  Never Back Down, the PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential bid, is suspending door-knocking operations in Nevada, California, Texas, and North Carolina, The Epoch Times has learned.

  Instead, the PAC will be refocusing its efforts and investing some of those field resources into Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina—three early-voting states.

  “We want to reinvest in the first three, we see real opportunities,” PAC spokeswoman Erin Perrine told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement, referring to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

  “The first three are going to set the conditions for the March states,” she added. California, North Carolina, and Texas hold their primaries in March 2024, according to the GOP primary calendar, while Nevada, an early-voting state, holds its primary in February.

  However, Nevada faces what Ms. Perrine described as a volatile situation, where the state Republican Party has announced plans to hold its own party-run presidential caucus in addition to a statewide primary.

  “When you have that kind of uncertainty about how the election’s going to be conducted, that becomes a pretty unstable environment to be investing the kind of resources that we’re investing,” Ms. Perrine said.

  “Nevada is heading to a lawsuit,” she added.

  Turbulence in California, Nevada

  Nevada Republicans insist on holding their own caucus despite a new state law calling for a primary election.

  Some say that the competing contests could confuse some voters and it seems that the Republican primary wouldn’t count as the party-run caucus plans to decide which candidate will receive the state’s delegates.

  While it’s not yet clear when the Nevada caucus will take place, reports suggest it will be around the same time as the Feb. 6, 2024, primary, which falls after the Iowa caucus and primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

  Ms. Perrine told The Epoch Times that the Nevada GOP’s move is meant to favor former President Donald Trump’s chances at winning in 2024. Other officials at Never Back Down have made similar comments.

  “The situation in Nevada is very clear. They’re eliminating important grassroots processes which doesn’t benefit voters, but it does benefit one person: Donald Trump,” Jess Szymanski, deputy communications director of Never Back Down, told the Washington Examiner.

  “Nevada Republicans continue to lose elections with Trump at the top of the ticket, yet state GOP leaders are so obsessed with appeasing Trump that they’ve rigged their primary to prioritize Trump above their own voters,” Ms. Szymanski added.

  Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, who was heavily involved in the process of maintaining the state’s GOP caucus, told ABC News that it’s a long-standing tradition that is “bigger than Gov. DeSantis” or “anybody that’s running for office.”

  Ms. Perrine told The Epoch Times that the situation with the primaries in California is similar to what’s happening in Nevada.

  “A similar situation in California, where they eliminated the California Republicans’ say in their own primary as well as making grassroots involvement impossible,” she said.

  “Now the central committee will have a convention and a vote at the end of September, which could alter that. But that was a Trump-inspired rigging as well,” Ms. Perrine added.

  In July, California Republicans changed delegate rules (pdf) in a way that a number of political pundits have said makes it less competitive and benefits President Trump.

  Under the new rules, a Republican presidential candidate who receives over 50 percent of the vote in the state’s primary election will be awarded all 169 of the state’s delegates.

  The old rules let Republican presidential candidates win three delegates in each congressional district, letting them target specific areas rather than focusing on expensive statewide campaigns, while allowing multiple candidates to get at least some delegates.

  “When they changed it to a proportional, statewide winner-take-all, that completely eliminated the opportunity for grassroots campaigning,” Ms. Perrine said. “Literally a landmark decision they made with breathtaking speed.”

  “And so with neither state having a fair process, the door knockers that were in Nevada and California, we decided to make them kind of refocus into the first three,” she explained.

  By contrast, California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Patterson argued that the new rules would encourage candidates to campaign more extensively and put forward their proposal to a broader swathe of voters.

  “Republican presidential candidates will not only be encouraged to spend real time campaigning in our state and making their case to voters, but Republican voters will equally be encouraged to turn out to support their chosen candidate to help them win delegates,” Ms. Patterson said in a statement.

  ‘Scam’ PAC Closes

  Elsewhere, Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign said recently that the closure of the Ron to the Rescue super PAC was “welcome news,” while calling the PAC a “scam.”

  “We’ve made clear from the beginning that this was a scam PAC looking to grift off Ron DeSantis, and it comes as welcome news they are no longer attempting to fleece our donors,” Andrew Romeo, communications director for the campaign, said in a statement.

  “Ron DeSantis outraised both [President Joe] Biden and [former President Donald] Trump last quarter, and we look forward to continuing our fundraising success as we capitalize on his strong debate performance and momentum in the early states,” Mr. Romeo added.

  Republican strategist John Thomas launched the Ron to the Rescue super PAC last fall to urge Mr. DeSantis to enter the 2024 presidential race.

  In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Mr. Thomas said he and the committee’s donors had become disenchanted with the governor following his botched campaign launch on Twitter, now X.

  “We were hoping to do like a formal TV campaign of air support when DeSantis officially launched,” he told the outlet.

  “But the problem with that is, with the Twitter Spaces blunder, like almost from the get-go, all of our major donors said, ‘Let’s just see how this plays out.’”

  According to Federal Election Commission filings, the Ron to the Rescue PAC raised just over $1,600, of which more than $1,200 was disbursed to Mr. Thomas’s political consulting firm, Thomas Partners Strategies, for “PAC strategy consulting.”

  Now, Mr. Thomas said he and his donor network intend to shift their support to President Donald Trump, who had surprised him with “a level of campaign savvy and discipline” that he had not previously seen from him.

  “We’re going to see, after the reporting period of Sept. 30, how Trump’s cash on hand is, and then we’re going to try to determine where we can fill in gaps, if it’s needed.”

  Since announcing his third presidential bid, President Trump has maintained his position as the clear frontrunner in the primary contest, with Mr. DeSantis consistently polling in second place.

  According to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, the 45th president holds a commanding 39-point lead over Mr. DeSantis and is supported by 53.6 percent of Republicans.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 20:30

• Oklahoma School Hires Drag Queen Principal Once Arrested For Child Porn, Drugs
  Oklahoma School Hires Drag Queen Principal Once Arrested For Child Porn, Drugs

  Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

  A “drag” performer arrested 22 years ago for possessing both child pornography and illicit drugs has been hired to be the school principal of an Oklahoma City elementary school, and the school district is defending its decision.

  

  Dr. Shane Brent Murnan, 52, the new elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary, had his personal devices confiscated by police in 2001 on suspicion of possession of child pornography, V1SUT reported on Substack. Almost 20 years later, he was investigated for another crime, according to a 2020 court filing.

  Meet Shane Murnan- elementary principal at @wh_isd.

  Shane is a drag queen who performs for children and reads books about gender to kids while dressed in drag.

  Shane was also previously arrested on child porn charges.

  Would you want this person in charge of your kid’s school? pic.twitter.com/yNuZyt3HRK

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 30, 2023

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

  Police arrested the then-30-year-old in August 2001 after a Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) search recovered four deleted images of children engaged in sex acts, according to court records. Police also found 6 grams of marijuana in his home. Murnan, at the time, was a fifth-grade teacher at Stillwater’s Will Rogers Elementary School. After the arrest, school officials suspended Murnan and he resigned in May 2002.

  “From there, some unexplainable legal wrangling began in which Payne County Special Judge Phillip Corley ruled that prosecutors had not proven Murnan had possessed child pornography, claiming it could not be definitively proven the children in the photos were underage,” V1SUT reported.

  Payne County prosecutors appealed Corley’s decision and prevailed in the Payne County Appeals Court.

  In direct contradiction to the earlier ruling, Appeals Court Judge Dave Allen stated in his decision: “It is clear from a review of the pictures that they do represent child pornography”.

  Later on, however, Payne County District Judge Donald L. Worthington reversed the reversal, dismissing the child porn charge.

  Payne County prosecutors gave up, choosing not to appeal. In the end, it appears there was never any disagreement about the existence of the pornographic photos on Murnan’s computer, yet the charge was dropped. Was this a behind-the-scenes plea agreement to allow Murnan to accept only the drug charge (marijuana) and retain his teaching certificate?

  Murnan’s record was expunged in October of 2003 after his short probation period on the drug charge. He spent the next several years creating his “Shantel Mandalay” persona and entering crossdressing pageants such as Miss Gay Oklahoma, V1SUT reported.

  

  Last April, he posted a picture of himself dressed like the Easter Bunny on his “Shantel Mandalay” Facebook page with a message about his previous bad choices and the joys of being an educator.

  

  On his drag queen Facebook page, Murnan posts many pictures of himself in and out of drag cavorting with other drag queens and young homosexuals at drag events and in gay bars.

  

  “When my little sister wants a present for her birthday, I do my best to make it happen,” Murnan wrote in the caption for the picture below.

  

  From 2007-2015, Murnan was back in the classroom, teaching at a small elementary School in Norman, Oklahoma, V1SUT reported. From there, he moved to the much larger Oklahoma City Public Schools district as teacher, teacher trainer/instructional coach, and eventually assistant principal at Prairie Queen Elementary School.

  Prairie Queen is an underperforming school that serves a population that is 82.3 percent Hispanic and 96.5 percent economically disadvantaged. Most parents speak limited English and 69 percent of students are English language learners. These are vulnerable kids.

  In 2018, Murnan reportedly cofounded Oklahoma City Drag Queen Story Hour, Inc. and began promoting the child-grooming library events throughout the state.

  The organization teamed with the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Library System during the COVID pandemic and Murnan’s Shantel Mandalay persona was featured online reading to a target audience of young  children through the library’s Facebook events.

  

  In September of 2020, during Murnan’s time at Prairie Queen Elementary School, the state entered a Criminal Probable Cause Initial Filing for an undisclosed crime with Murnan as the defendant. That case was assigned to Judge Kevin C. McCray.

  

  Now, three years later, the Oklahoma City Public Schools district hired Murnan to be in charge of John Glenn Elementary School in the Western Heights School District (WHSD) in the southwest part of the OKC metro area.

  The district of approximately 2,750 students has been in turmoil since 2021 when the state temporarily took over due to years of financial mismanagement and noncompliance. To simplify, the district gets a lot of funds, spends significantly more than the state average and continues to fail children.

  

  The student population at John Glenn Elementary School is “majority Hispanic, English language learners and overwhelmingly economically disadvantaged,” according to V1SUT.

  In a letter to the school’s parents, Brayden Savage, superintendent of Western Heights Public Schools, addressed the district’s controversial hiring decision.

  “I am writing to address a concern you may read about on social media,”  Savage wrote in the letter obtained by the Daily Caller. “We understand the situation may cause concerns and questions among parents, staff, and community members.”

  According to news reports at the time, those charges were dismissed by the court, and the record of the charges has been expunged,” the letter continues. “Since that time, Dr. Murnan has continued to be certified as an elementary school teacher and principal, including having his certificate renewed in April of 2023 and signed by State Superintendent Ryan Walters. The State Department of Education would have conducted another felony background check upon renewing his certification.”

  Savage said that at the time of “recommendation,” the district gave its school board “all of the information” it had regarding Murnan and the board then voted to approve his hiring.

  He told parents that the district followed “usual hiring practices” in vetting Murnan, checking references and conducting a felony criminal background check.

  “Please know we are aware of the situation and handling this matter with the utmost attention and care,” Savage wrote.

  In a statement to Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) Thursday, the Oklahoma State Department of Education said “anything that might expose kids to inappropriate sexual content at school is cause for serious concern to parents,” and that the department is “looking into all accusations and will take any necessary action to protect kids.”

  Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters issued a strong statement on X Friday condemning WHSD’s hiring of Murnan.

  “This is completely unacceptable,” Walters said. “We know that radical gender theory has been a direct assault on our kids and we can’t allow this in our schools.”

  The superintendent said school districts need to do a better job vetting educators to make sure they reflect “Oklahoma values.”

  “No one want’s to send their kid to school knowing that they could be exposed to this radical gender theory in any capacity,” he added. “This woke war on our kids has to stop.”

  Drag queens in schools do not = Oklahoma values. pic.twitter.com/XQzpNIUnLw

  — Superintendent Ryan Walters (@RyanWaltersSupt) September 1, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 20:00

• "Screw Your Face Diapers!!" Mask Mandate Return Sparks 'We Will Not Comply' Trend
  “Screw Your Face Diapers!!” Mask Mandate Return Sparks ‘We Will Not Comply’ Trend

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A number of people on social media have declared that “we will not comply” with COVID-19 mask mandates as some hospitals and businesses have moved to reinstate such rules in recent weeks.

  

  Notably, former President Donald Trump released a video addressing “every COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom.”

  “Hear these words: We will not comply. So don’t even think about it,” he said. “We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”

  “Amen, Mr. President. WE WILL NOT COMPLY!” wrote Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on X, or Twitter.

  While the former president had no authority to issue lockdowns, officials under his administration came up with national guidelines in early 2020—when the virus first arrived on U.S. soil—in a bid to deal with COVID-19. Later in 2020, President Trump declared that he opposes lockdowns and mandates, saying that “lockdowns are killing countries all over the world” and called on “Democrat governors” to “open up” their states.

  “Just a reminder. We will not comply. Ever again. Screw your face diapers!! #masks,” wrote Fox News’ Tomi Lahren days before on X.

  Former “Saturday Night Live” actor Rob Schneider had a similar message as an Atlanta college confirmed it would reinstate masking. “Regarding your precautionary mask mandate… I have a precautionary Foot I’d like to shove up your [expletive]! But don’t worry, it’s just for the next 14 days! For your own protection! Ps. Students WAKE UP, SHEEPLE! SAY NO!” he wrote.

  “We will not adhere to lockdowns. We will not submit to mandates,” wrote Dr. Simone Gold, the head of anti-mandate America’s Frontline Doctors.” “We will not wear masks. We will not close down schools. We will not comply to COVID tyranny.”

  Conservative journalist Kyle Becker added that people should “make it clear” to businesses that implement mask mandates that “they will not only lose your business but that of anyone you know Put the word out: We will not comply.”

  Reinstated Mandates

  The anti-mandate messaging comes as some hospitals in several states have moved to reinstate mask mandates, although some have only made it mandatory for doctors, nurses, and staff. But some have forced the rule on patients and visitors, too.

  This week, Samaritan Health Facilities announced that it would require masking for staff, patients, and visitors. A public relations official with the hospital, Leslie DiStefano, claimed it is being done because “we know is that [masking] absolutely works,” despite hundreds of studies showing otherwise.

  Earlier this month, United Health Services in Binghamton, New York, confirmed that it would again require masks for patients, visitors, staff, and doctors. “Because of an uptick in COVID-19 cases, masks are once again required in all clinical areas at UHS Wilson Medical Center, UHS Binghamton General Hospital, UHS Chenango Memorial Hospital and UHS Delaware Valley Hospital, as well as primary and specialty care sites,” United Health Services stated on its website.

  The policy, imposed last week, is “in effect immediately for all patients, visitors, employees, medical staff, volunteers, students and vendors.” It added: “Masks are required at nurses’ stations and in conference rooms within clinical departments, including areas where patients register, wait, transport through, or receive testing and care.”

  Masks will also be mandated in “common spaces,” the announcement added. That includes hospital lobbies, hallways, stairwells, cafeterias, and patient care units.

  Elsewhere in New  York, Auburn Community Hospital in Auburn, located upstate, said on Aug. 19, about a month after its previous mask mandate ended, that it would again be requiring masks on-site. That applies to anyone going inside the facility, regardless of vaccination status.

  “Face coverings are mandatory inside our facilities, regardless of your immunization status,” the statement reads. “If you do not arrive with one or yours is deemed inappropriate, a mask will be provided to you. It must be worn at all times and must cover your nose and mouth.”

  Also in mid-August, University Hospital in Syracuse, New York, reinstated masking for everyone entering the building. The hospital’s mandate was only lifted a few months prior to that, in late April.

  Last week, UMass Memorial in Worcester, Massachusetts, again instated its mask policy, but only for staff, doctors, and nurses, according to local reports.

  “We have continued to see a dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 positive employees over the past two weeks, which has led to exposures of both fellow caregivers and patients,” the company said. “In response to this, as a protective measure for our staff and patients, effective immediately we are requiring mandatory caregiver masking for all patient encounters in all licensed clinical areas.”

  The college that Mr. Schneider mentioned,  Morris Brown College in Atlanta, said in August that it would mandate masks after an uptick in COVID-19 cases on a larger campus in Atlanta where the college is located.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 19:30

• "Black Lives Don't Seem To Matter When Taken By Black Lives": Maher, Rogan Go Off
  “Black Lives Don’t Seem To Matter When Taken By Black Lives”: Maher, Rogan Go Off

  Joe Rogan and ‘old school Democrat’ Bill Maher have had it with progressive policies towards crime and policing, and the hypocrisy over ‘black lives’ when blacks are killing each other.

  

  “Murders have been happening way out of control in Chicago among the African-American Community for far too long and not really reported in the same way they should be,” lamented Maher in an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience which aired on Saturday, adding “It’s amazing how black lives don’t seem to matter when they’re taken by black lives,” pointing to the MSM’s asymmetric reporting.

  “Their idea was like go in arrest the big kingpins and then we’ll clean up the city. It didn’t work at all.“

  Maher then asks ‘where are the leaders of the community? The people who have such cache among those young African American men, to say ‘cut it out! What the fuck are you doing to each other?’

  

  (Yes Bill, it would be nice if everything was an episode of the A-Team where ex-gangsters are high-fiving each other over paint rollers as they clean up the graffiti they just made & drug dealers flush their stashes because kingpins finally spoke out).

  According to Rogan, “Austin defunded the police and refunded it far more than they defunded it because they course corrected,” adding “They realized this was not working, and we have to do something to fix it. Which makes me happy because there’s a lot of crime.” (via KanekoaTheGreat).

  “Liberalism was never ‘shoplifting is progressive,'” Maher responded. “And we weren’t interested in legalizing shoplifting, but after the George Floyd murder and riots, there was a movement to disband a lot of the police… And what happened was, of course, crime went up in certain areas, and a lot of the officers who were fired or let go, were hired as private security by the rich people, and their neighborhoods stayed safe. That wasn’t exactly a victory for Liberalism.”

  Watch:

  Bonus: Rogan goes off on the anti-Ivermectin crowd…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 19:30

• 'Mudpocalypse' Hits Burning Man, 73,000 Trapped In 'Toxic' Lake Bed In Nevada Desert
  ‘Mudpocalypse’ Hits Burning Man, 73,000 Trapped In ‘Toxic’ Lake Bed In Nevada Desert

  Update (1925ET):

  On Sunday evening, a White House official said President Biden was briefed on the situation at the Burning Man festival located in one of the harshest environments on Earth.

  President Biden has been briefed on the situation at the Burning Man festival, according to a White House official… via @CNN

  — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 3, 2023

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

  As of Sunday evening, 73,000 attendees are still trapped in the toxic desert full of alkaline mud after a rainstorm transformed the dried-out lake bed into a swamp. Event organizers said, “The Gate remains closed. Please stay off of Gate Road — rain and mud make it impassable at the moment. We will update you when conditions improve. Stay safe!”

  The Gate remains closed. Please stay off of Gate Road — rain and mud make it impassable at the moment. We will update you when conditions improve. Stay safe!

  — Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 3, 2023

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  It’s a muddy hellhole. 

  Lot of stuck vehicles trapped by mud about a mile out attempting to exit from Burning Man. I just walked by about 30 various RVs and cars that can’t move. pic.twitter.com/cqoUag0dTR

  — Lee Fang (@lhfang) September 3, 2023

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  Despite the circumstances, there’s a general sense of calm at #BurningMan

  Rain on Sunday *again* delayed the opening of the roads to leave

  Some are growing impatient as they run out or short on food & water, getting vehicles stuck in clay-like mud@NBCLA @nbcbayarea @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/yc04TYuDF7

  — Chase Cain (@ChaseCainNBC) September 3, 2023

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

  👀🔥Burning Man festival gets hit with torrential rainfall. they have blocked the entrance and the exits everyone’s supposed to shelter in place. they can’t make it in with fuel for all the generators. There’s 6 inches of mud everywhere and they’re expecting more rain tonight. pic.twitter.com/NYW6xTaiYv

  — Todd Paron🇺🇸🇬🇷🎧👽 (@tparon) September 3, 2023

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  *   *   * 

  Food and fuel are running low for the tens of thousands of attendees (and tech bros) trapped at the Burning Man festival located in one of the harshest environments on earth (high desert, on a dried-up alkaline lake bed) in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The situation deteriorated early Saturday when a rainstorm drenched the lake bed, transforming the area into a ‘mudpocalypse.’ 

  Since early Saturday, all entry and exit points of the Burning Man festival remained closed due to the thick, alkaline mud. As of 0900 ET Sunday, event organizers said, “The gate and airport in and out of Black Rock City remain closed. Ingress and egress are halted until further notice. No driving is permitted except emergency vehicles.” 

  Organizers continued to advise the 73,000 attendees to “conserve food and water, and shelter in a warm space.” 

  The gate and airport in and out of Black Rock City remain closed. Ingress and egress are halted until further notice. No driving is permitted except emergency vehicles. If you are in BRC, conserve food and water, and shelter in a warm space. More updates to come. Stay safe!

  — Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 3, 2023

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  The Independent confirmed local officials had reported at least one death but have not released details on the suspected cause of death. A major concern is that the toxic alkali dust that makes up the lake bed is now three inches of mud, and if attendees aren’t wearing socks and closed shoes, it can cause chemical burns called “Playa Foot.” 

  All fun & games until that alkaline rich mud sucks the moisture right out of the skin. Those porta johns are filthy and can’t be emptied. On a sunny day it takes 11hrs to commute into this remote barren lake.
  Burning Man 2023 pic.twitter.com/qrwsSQMSH2

  — Mr. Maverick (@TheMan2Day) September 3, 2023

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  This person really explained burning man so well..like that is a legit safety hazard.. pic.twitter.com/uWNs7VDBHw

  — UghGiveRespect 🇨🇩🇿🇦 (@KANA9371) September 3, 2023

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  More footage of the geniuses who decided to party in a toxic dry lakebed only to find out it occasionally rains in the desert. 

  Burning Man is a mess. Upward of 60,000 people are literally stuck in mud and have been ordered to stay put.

  Food and water running low. pic.twitter.com/HKRZSwkTCY

  — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) September 2, 2023

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

  🔥☔ Mudpocalyptic at Burning Man!

  A challenging situation unfolds as the desert festival site turns into a sea of mud due to unexpected rain, leaving Burning Man attendees trapped. Stay safe, resilient, and support one another, Burners! 🌄🌧️ #BurningMan #RainyDesert… pic.twitter.com/QCVPCeFg3D

  — FlashFactsHub (@FlashFactsHub) September 3, 2023

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  ⚠️BREAKING: More than 73,000 people are trapped in mud at Burning Man in Nevada due to major flooding pic.twitter.com/t7asFadYnK

  — Everything you need to know (@Everything65687) September 3, 2023

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

  Not everyone’s feeling sorry for all the rich folk stuck in the mud at Burning Man [via @YahooNews] https://t.co/zZi3Cu9ONM pic.twitter.com/9CQsTlSIfN

  — Ńasser 1️⃣ Million Tweets 🐦 (@nasser_mo3gza) September 3, 2023

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

  And who attends this drug-infested event? The rich tech bros. 

  

  … rich white tech bros. 

  

  Surely, these ‘informed’ folks who are now stuck in a swamped toxic lake bed understood it was an El Nino year… 

  

  Probably not. They were fixated on the corporate media headlines hyping a non-existent climate crisis (well, that’s according to these 1,600 scientists). 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 19:25

• "Election Interference!" Trump Slams NY Attorney General Over 'Targeted' Prosecution
  “Election Interference!” Trump Slams NY Attorney General Over ‘Targeted’ Prosecution

  Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Friday to accuse New York Attorney General Leticia James of election interference.

  

  “In the NYS A.G. Letitia James case, I was targeted, given no jury, no extensions, no commercial division, no constitutional rights, no anything! The Democrat judge hates Trump with a passion,” he wrote – only in all caps that we won’t burn your eyes out with.

  “The thing I have is a great case based on phenomenal numbers that show a net worth of billions of dollars more than she viciously & falsely claimed, very little debt, big cash, a powerful disclaimer clause, paid off loans, no defaults, ‘happy’ banks, great assets. I was defamed by NYS—election interference!”

  James is suing Trump and two of his children in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit which claims he falsely inflated the value of his properties to obtain more favorable loans. She’s seeking to bar Trump and family from doing business or engaging in real estate acquisitions in New York for five years.

  James is also seeking to bar Trump and his children from serving in any high-level executive roles in any company in New York.

  Oh, and she wants $250 million in penalties too.

  On Wednesday, James asked a judge to render a summary judgement on one of the seven claims brought against Trump, arguing that an “overwhelming amount of evidence” proves that Trump committed fraud and submitted false statements to bankers – inflating his wealth between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year.

  “While this is just the tip of a much larger iceberg of deception Plaintiff is prepared to expose at trial–which would result in carving off billions more from Mr. Trump’s net worth–it is more than sufficient to permit this Court to rule as a matter of law that each SFC from 2011 to 2021 was false or misleading,” reads the filing.

  As the Epoch Times notes, also on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers released, in a court filing, the nearly 500-page transcript of a seven-hour-long interview the former president gave when he was deposed for the case in April.

  In the hours-long deposition, the former president was questioned about the management and dealings of the Trump Organization, where he detailed the value of several of his properties.

  “I never got a default notice. I paid interest every quarter, every month even before it was due, if it came on a holiday,” he said, testifying that the banks and lawyers they worked with had profited and were satisfied with the deals.

  He told the prosecutors that his “brand” value increased during the years he was president, but he purposely refrained from doing any deals, not because it would have been illegal, but because he felt it was unethical, adding that he took his example from George Washington who kept two desks, separating business and state matters.

  President Trump’s lawyers asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that the statute of limitations have run out and that the prosecution had not brought forth proof of harm.

  “The undisputed record further establishes his companies timely paid hundreds of millions of dollars in interest to their lenders and never defaulted on a loan or even been late on a loan payment during the entire 15+ year time period the NYAG has sought to scrutinize in this action,” they wrote, arguing there was no intent to defraud lenders or insurers.

  President Trump, who declared his intention to run for office last November, has maintained that he has done nothing wrong in the several cases brought against him, decrying the legal actions as election interference.

  Several court dates are expected to interfere with his campaign schedule, with another civil case in New York brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll over accusations of defamation beginning Jan. 15, 2024, the same day as the Iowa Republican caucus.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 19:00

• Pharmacists Continuing To Refuse Ivermectin Prescriptions, Raising Ethical Concerns
  Pharmacists Continuing To Refuse Ivermectin Prescriptions, Raising Ethical Concerns

  authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The continued refusal of pharmacists nationwide to fill prescriptions for controversial COVID medications has raised questions over medical autonomy and who ultimately has control over patient care, according to a prominent doctor.

  

  Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a practitioner and founder of Coalition of Health Freedom, told The Epoch Times that many pharmacists nationwide are still refusing to fill prescriptions issued for ivermectin issued to patients for the treatment of COVID, despite statements from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirming that right to doctors.

  

  “This needs to come to an end. In telling my patients what medicines they can and cannot have access to, we effectively have a large group of pharmacists practicing medicine without a license,” said Dr. Bowden. “They have no accountability for this yet they are allowed to dictate patient care.”

  “I see it every single day. Enough is enough,” Dr. Bowden added.

  Ivermectin has been around for decades but became the center of controversy in 2020 after medical opinion became divided over its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID. In the aftermath, many pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for the medication.

  By 2023, the issue had made its way into a courtroom when on Aug. 8 a lawyer representing the FDA confirmed that doctors were free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.

  “FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

  The government lawyer made the statement in defense of the FDA’s repeated calls for people to not take ivermectin for COVID. The FDA on Aug. 21, 2021, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

  On Aug. 17, the FDA issued clarification, this time stating that while it had approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals, it had not issued any statement affirming the safety or effectiveness of the drug for treating COVID. However, the agency again affirmed that it would be left to individual doctors whether or not to prescribe the medication for the treatment of COVID.

  “Health care professionals generally may choose to prescribe an approved human drug for an unapproved use when they judge that the unapproved use is medically appropriate for an individual patient,” the FDA said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 18:30

• California Lawmakers Advance Bill To Let Killers Serving Life Without Parole Request Reduced Sentence
  California Lawmakers Advance Bill To Let Killers Serving Life Without Parole Request Reduced Sentence

  California lawmakers have advanced legislation that would allow killers serving life sentences without parole to request a re-sentencing.

  California Senate Bill 94 now heads to the floor for a full vote by the California Assembly. It would open the possibility of judicial review to reduce sentences for some felons accused of serious crimes, including murder, if the offense occurred before June 5, 1990, and they’ve completed at least 25 years of their sentence.

  Those who were convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer would not qualify, while those who do qualify would now have the opportunity to appear before a parole board, which could deny their release.

  

  California state Sen. Dave Cortese (D) introduced the bill, saying on social media that he was “thrilled that these key bills of mine passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee.”

  Republicans are appalled

  “I’d like to say I am shocked Senate Bill 94 passed out of the Democrat-controlled Assembly Appropriations Committee, but I’m not,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party, said in a statement reported by Fox News. “California Democrats continue to send a crystal-clear message to all Californians: they would rather protect violent murderers than focus their efforts on true public safety and protecting victims.”

  GOP assemblyman Bill Essayli, a former federal prosecutor, said that people sentenced for heinous crimes should serve their full prison term, even if that’s life without the possibility of parole.

  “Killing two individuals with aggravating circumstances isn’t enough to justify a LWOP sentence? Being an accomplice to a mass murderer isn’t?,” he asked. “Killing a peace officer is sufficiently heinous, but killing a firefighter or other public official isn’t? These exclusions are purely political.”

  “LWOP sentences are promises to the victim’s families that they need never fear the person will be let out of prison,” Essayli added. “This will permit a large percentage of LWOP offenders to be re-sentenced to standard first-degree murder and eligible for parole immediately.“

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 18:00

• Florida Doctor Reinstated After Losing Board Certification For Criticizing COVID-19 Vaccines
  Florida Doctor Reinstated After Losing Board Certification For Criticizing COVID-19 Vaccines

  Authored by Natasha Holt via The Epoch Times,

  A Florida physician known for being outspoken about COVID-related topics has regained his board certification that was stripped because he publicly criticized COVID vaccines.

  

  Now, Dr. John Littell is moving forward from the experience with plans to help future physicians defend themselves when disciplined for voicing viewpoints that are not in the majority, he told The Epoch Times.

  Dr. Littell, a longtime family physician in Ocala and a medical school professor, began posting videos sharing his thoughts about COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines early in the pandemic. He was frustrated to find his content often was pulled down from his YouTube channel.

  But he fought against what he saw as censorship by moving the content to other platforms, such as Rumble, he said.

  Then, in January 2022 and again five months later, he received warning letters from the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), the organization that issued his certification for his medical specialty.

  The letter stated that his videos on YouTube and Rumble spread “medical misinformation” and could put his board certification in jeopardy, he said.

  The ABFM declined to comment on the matter because the board’s “policy indicates we are unable to comment about professionalism cases,” an unidentified spokesperson said in an email to The Epoch Times.

  The ABFM is the third largest of the 24 boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties. More than 100,000 family medicine doctors are certified by the board, according to its website.

  

  Protesters concerned about treatment of people who died while being treated for COVID-19 stand outside a board meeting at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023. (Courtesy of Tanya Parus)

  To keep their certification, physicians must uphold the board’s ethical standards and “guidelines for professionalism, licensure, and personal conduct,” the website states.

  In letters from the board, Dr. Littell was told his public statements violated those guidelines. Dr. Littell responded to the letters and continued to speak publicly and post videos about the subjects, he said.

  Months later, when he didn’t hear back, he said he thought the threat was gone.

  “I was very happily under the radar,” he said.

  Outrage Over Ivermectin

  That changed after he was escorted out of a Sarasota Memorial Hospital board meeting in February for approaching a board member behind the dais. He wanted to thank the board member, he said, for letting him speak at the meeting. He didn’t realize that move would be seen as inappropriate, he said. 

  Though he’s cared for many patients in hospitals, he’d never attended a hospital board meeting, let alone a contentious one, he said.

  That day, medical freedom activists filled the boardroom to speak against the public hospital’s policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were angry their loved ones were denied the opportunity to try ivermectin, an antiparasitic for humans and animals widely used by some in treating COVID-19, and other treatments. 

  Dr. Littell spoke cordially to board members from the podium, an Epoch Times reporter confirmed. He told board members how treating patients with ivermectin had been his key to success in helping them recover. And he praised hospital personnel for their work during the pandemic.

  Shortly after that, security guards escorted him outside.

  

  Retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as national security advisor for former President Donald Trump, attended a board meeting of Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023 (Chris Nelson for The Epoch Times)

  A video of Dr. Littell’s removal from the meeting by security guards was posted to social media and received millions of views and media coverage. And that thrust him back in the spotlight as a doctor vocal about COVID-19 policies.

  “I had a target on my back,” he said.

  He questioned whether someone else would have been removed for the same reason.

  Many doctors have faced consequences for questioning the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines and for advocating for the use of medicines such as ivermectin in the treatment of the disease.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote in one social media post about ivermectin: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” It linked to a page entitled “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”

  Three doctors sued the FDA over the statements, saying it had no power to tell doctors which drugs to prescribe.

  On Sept. 1, a federal court ruled that the agency likely overstepped its authority when it told Americans to “stop” using ivermectin against COVID-19. The FDA can inform, but has “no authority” to recommend consumers “stop” taking medicine, U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett wrote in the ruling.

  Accused of ‘Spreading False’ Information

  The month after Dr. Littell spoke in Sarasota, the board sent a letter saying he’d been de-certified for “spreading false, inaccurate, and misleading materials about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccination, and treatment and mitigation of the virus,” The Epoch Times confirmed. 

  A letter reviewed by The Epoch Times stated that if Dr. Littell appealed the decision within 20 days, he would continue to be represented by the board, pending a review of his case by the professionalism committee of the ABFM board of directors.

  The reason for the decision to review his record was because of his past suggestions the COVID-19 vaccine was a product of genetic engineering, causing deaths in children and causing the rise of the Delta variant, the letter indicated. It also referenced “false” statements made by Drs. Ryan Cole and Robert Malone, who spoke at a medical freedom conference Dr. Littell organized in October 2022.

  In the letter, the board also criticized Dr. Littell for “offering to provide medical exemptions from vaccination” to patients across the country and “publicly comparing the U.S. public health system’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to Nazi Germany.”

  After receiving the troubling letter, Dr. Littell sought the help of attorney Jeff Childers, a business attorney in Gainesville, Florida. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, Mr. Childers has become active in lawsuits around the country related to medical freedom. He authors a daily blog called Coffee and Covid, which started by chronicling COVID-19 issues and now tracks other social and political issues, as well. 

  Mr. Childers crafted a 64-page appeal to the board, dissecting every accusation made against Dr. Littell, an Epoch Times reporter confirmed. And as word of the threat to Dr. Littell’s board certification spread—a move that would prevent him from practicing medicine—medical freedom activists rose up to take his side.

  A GiveSendGo.com campaign was started to collect donations to fund his legal fees. More than 6,400 people donated almost $255,000. And more than 1,900 pledged to pray for Dr. Littell. 

  The Global Covid Summit, an international group of doctors focused on medical freedom in COVID-19 treatment, sent a letter signed by 169 doctors to the ABFM in support of Dr. Littell. In the letter, they argued that the board was false in every accusation made against Dr. Littell.

  Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo also voiced support for Dr. Littell.

  “What they’re doing is being a bully,” he said in an interview with The Floridian. “It’s not going to age well.

  “I read the letter from the Board, and it’s dripping with political animosity.”

  Both Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Dr. Littell’s congresswoman, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) sent letters in his defense to the board, Dr. Littell said.

  “I’ve got to believe it’s not in the dozens, but probably in the hundreds of people who called and sent letters to the American Board of Family Medicine,” Dr. Littell said.

  “I never asked them to, but that is what was happening.”

  In July, Dr. Littell received word that the board had reviewed his case and retroactively de-certified him for three months, from March 16 to June 16. He never stopped seeing patients.

  “It’s like a slap on the wrist so they’d feel good about it, but wouldn’t, presumably, have to face any legal action,” he said. 

  His attorney agreed.

  “They did it in a very face-saving way,” Mr. Childers said. 

  But ultimately, he’s pleased with the decision.

  “We were really surprised and gratified that we were able to achieve that result,” Mr. Childers said. 

  Dr. Littell credits it to being  “a God thing” that he was able to keep caring for patients and face a decertification period only retroactively. 

  “If they had said I was decertified, I would not have been able to do what I was doing. I mean, especially with the hospital care patients. I could have gotten into big trouble.”

  He still may face consequences for having the blemish on his record, he said. He’ll have to report it to the hospitals at which he works and explain what happened, he said.

  “Every time I go up for privileges with a hospital or any other institution, they’re going to say, ‘Well, has your license ever been suspended or revoked, and has your board certification ever been revoked?’ So, it’s still an issue. It’s not like you can just forget about it.”

  He’s been advised by some other doctors, such as cardiologist Peter McCullough, to pursue legal action for the disciplinary measure they feel was wrong, he said. 

  Continuing to Speak Out

  Dr. Littell continues to speak out about the same topics. So he suspects he’ll face retribution again, he said. 

  “The way I read the letter, it’s sort of like a warning,” Dr. Littell said.

  The board, he said, seemed to be sending the warning, “If you act up again, we know it’s a privilege to have this board certification, and it can be removed at any time.”

  And the next time, the punishment is likely to escalate. 

  “The implication is that if it happens again, it’s going to be more than just three months,” Mr. Childers said.

  Around the country, a slew of doctors had board certifications removed and licensure threatened for sharing their COVID-related opinions.

  “Most people would probably be surprised to find out there’s a lot of this going on, now that the pandemic is over,” Mr. Childers said.

  “From what I’ve heard, there’s probably more challenges to doctor licensing right now than at any other time.”

  But because most doctors aren’t vocal about receiving discipline, it’s hard to know exactly how often it’s occurring, he said.

  Doctors who have been active on social media seem to be targeted more often by medical authorities, he said.

  

  Dr. Peter McCullough speaks in the Mississippi capitol building on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

  Doctors who were not actively posting their thoughts about COVID-19 on social media “should feel very confident that if they follow a similar approach to what Dr. Littell did, they could hope for a good result at this point,” he said. 

  Obtaining good legal advice is key, he said. It also helps to spread the word.

  “All too often doctors either ignore these kinds of letters until it’s too late because they’re embarrassed, or they try to handle it on their own,” he said. 

  “It’s important that people know when this happens. And if they’ll let folks know, they’ll find that they get a lot of support.”

  Dr. Littell has no plans to keep quiet about what he feels went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic

  “I’m not letting up,” he said. 

  He’s organizing his third annual medical freedom summit in November called “Food, Family & Medical Freedom” in Ocala, Florida at the World Equestrian Center.

  Helping Future Doctors 

  He intends to use the remaining money donated to his legal fund to help others respond to similar licensure problems, especially threats faced by medical students, he said.

  He’s trying “to come up with a legal, legislative, and public relations strategy that helps future physicians,” he said. When they see practicing doctors disciplined and “raked over the coals” for speaking out about medical freedom issues, it deters good people from pursuing a degree in medicine, he said.

  “I would like the medical freedom fighters, as I’m calling them, to create a sanctuary for pre-med, especially, and medical school students.”

  “Early on, even in the colleges, they weed out the physicians who dare to question the narrative or challenge it,” he said, of those who insist that doctors decrees made by federal health agencies.

  But asking questions and challenging prevailing thought is important to the goal of continually improving medical treatments, he said.

  “And that intellectual curiosity is what we’re so desperately lacking now in medicine, and in most professions.”

  He also envisions the network expanding to help connect like-minded educators in colleges, universities, and medical schools to share their ideas without fear of being in opposition to “woke” ideology, he said. 

  He hopes to see that network push back against “lockstep mentality” and help students who are suffering because of it.

  Medical students taught by Dr. Littell often tell him how difficult it is to be entering the field of medicine at this time, he said.

  One student told him that his second-year class was forced to be vaccinated for COVID-19, he said. Classmates were told by their university they’d be “thrown out” of medical school in two weeks if they didn’t comply, Dr. Littell said.

  

  Medical freedom activists upset about COVID-19 vaccines and other issues gather to voice concerns to lawmakers on the first day of the Florida Legislature’s annual regular session at the Capitol in Tallahassee on March 7, 2023. (Courtesy of Justin Harvey)

  The student told him that, although more than half the class didn’t want the vaccine, they felt they had no other option, Dr. Littell said. Weeks later, the mandate was lifted. But it was too late—many students already had submitted to getting the shot they didn’t want.

  “It’s like they [university officials] were playing games,” he said. “And the students didn’t know any better.

  “They just don’t have enough support,” Dr. Littell lamented. “They want to say things, but they’re afraid they’re going to get disciplined if they speak out.”

  He sees bringing people together to unite in their pushback against prevailing opinions as a revolutionary concept.

  “It’s really no different than what our Founding Fathers did,” Dr. Littell said.

  “They realized that they were victims of repression. But there also were people comfortable with the status quo. That’s what is in our medical schools right now and is what we all need to fight against.

  “People should be allowed to question and use their God-given intellect, and not be censored or disciplined for doing so.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 17:30

• GOP Lawmaker Questions DOJ About $280 Billion In Lost COVID Relief
  GOP Lawmaker Questions DOJ About $280 Billion In Lost COVID Relief

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

  Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, wants to know what the U.S. Department of Justice is doing to recover an estimated $280 billion in U.S. COVID-19 relief spending that allegedly flowed to criminals inside and outside the United States.

  

  On Tuesday, Mr. Wenstrup sent a letter (pdf) to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking that he and the DOJ provide a full account of all current and past investigations into the misallocation of U.S. taxpayer funds as part of COVID-19 pandemic relief programs. Mr. Wenstrup cited a June Associated Press analysis, which estimated that around $280 billion of U.S. COVID-19 relief spending was lost to fraudulent schemes carried out both inside and outside the country.

  Mr. Wenstrup further cited a 2021 NBC News report, claiming much of the COVID relief that was lost to fraud went to Russian, Chinese and Nigerian criminal organizations.

  “Some of these fraudulent actors were based outside the United States and may involve international criminal organizations. Estimates imply that at least half of all stolen COVID-19 relief funds went to Russian, Chinese, and Nigerian criminals,” he wrote.

  The U.S. government has been working to account for more than $4 trillion in COVID-19 relief spending. In addition to the $280 billion the Associated Press believes was lost to fraud, the media publication estimated another $123 billion was simply wasted or misspent.

  In a March 2022 press release, the DOJ announced it had recovered about $8 billion worth of COVID-19 relief funds lost to fraud through a combination of criminal prosecutions and civil enforcement actions. That DOJ fund recovery effort amounts to about three percent of the money that may have been lost to fraud, and Mr. Wenstrup said it’s unclear just how much the DOJ has recovered from criminal actors living abroad.

  “It is highly concerning that possibly billions of taxpayer dollars intended to help Americans suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were stolen by organized criminal rings in foreign countries,” the Republican lawmaker wrote. “Therefore, we write today to better understand the full scope of this problem and what actions the Department has taken to investigate international COVID-19 relief program fraud and hold these foreign actors accountable.”

  Mr. Wenstrup requested the DOJ provide a country-by-country account of all current and closed COVID-19 fraud cases and dollar value estimates of COVID-19 relief spending they believe went missing in these fraud cases.

  The DOJ is continuing to bring new cases to recover COVID-19 relief funds. Last week, the department announced it had conducted a nationwide enforcement effort resulting in 718 enforcement actions against 371 defendants, for alleged fraud offenses that resulted in the misallocation of around $836 million.

  Even with this latest DOJ effort, the U.S. is still well short of recovering all of the funds that are likely missing as a result of COVID-19 fraud schemes. It could take years to recover all of those funds, assuming they can all eventually be recovered.

  “The COVID-19 public health emergency may have ended, but the Justice Department’s work to identify and prosecute those who stole pandemic relief funds is far from over,” Mr. Garland said upon announcing the latest DOJ anti-fraud efforts last week.

  Legislation extending the statute of limitations to prosecute pandemic-era fraud cases has enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

  During last week’s anti-fraud announcement, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the department had started a new COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Strike Force in Colorado and another one in Delaware.

  “The two new Strike Forces launched today will increase our reach as we continue to pursue fraudsters and recover taxpayer funds, no matter how long it takes,” Ms. Monaco said.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 16:30

• Corporate Media Gripped A Nation In "Climate Anxiety" Despite Scientists Who Say 'No Emergency'
  Corporate Media Gripped A Nation In “Climate Anxiety” Despite Scientists Who Say ‘No Emergency’

  Politicians ‘north of Richmond’, corporate media outlets, climate crusaders like Greta Thunberg, and new and improved ‘Greta 2.0’ (Sophia Kianni) cheerleaded fuzzy ‘climate math’ at the peak of the Northern Hemisphere summer to warn heat and extreme weather events were alarming milestones of impending climate disaster. 

  In mid-July, when the Northern Hemisphere summer began to peak, ABC, The New York Times, Axios, and Bloomberg cited questionable climate math from a computer model that enabled them to declare “hottest day ever.” However, the math was so fuzzy that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration couldn’t even stand behind the claim, telling AP News, “Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change.”

  Remember the flood of climate doom headlines in July? 

  

  Such propaganda from corporate media would’ve had anyone believe the Earth was on the brink of a climate disaster — but it wasn’t. Just hysteria pushed with fake news. 

  Bloomberg data shows temperature across the Lower 48 versus a 30-year mean didn’t deviate excessively higher than the norm — clearly a different story than what was pitched by corporate media and climate alarmists. In fact, temperatures have been sliding across the country since early August. 

  

  We penned a note weeks ago titled Climate Experts Criticize Alarmist Rhetoric Over Summer Temperatures. Just last week, 1,609 scientists and professionals worldwide signed a declaration, including 321 from the US, to dismiss the existence of a climate crisis and insist that carbon dioxide benefits Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.

  One inconvenient truth the corporate media failed to cover this summer: wildfires across the US burned the lowest amount of acres in a decade. 

  Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said where have you seen this reporting in the news? … nowhere. 

  “Have you seen that reported anywhere?” he asked, referring to Copernicus’ wildfire data is absent from corporate presses. It’s an inconvenient truth that destroys the climate change narrative.

  Data:

  Fire has burned 𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙨𝙩 area in the US in a decade

  Have you seen that reported anywhere?

  Yes, Canada burned much more (constantly reported), but the US, Europe, Africa, Asia burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

  In total, world burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

  🧵 and refs belowhttps://t.co/scZCc2cFi9 pic.twitter.com/ZpxW6BokPI

  — Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

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

  Looking ahead, Peter Geiger, editor of the Farmer’s Almanac, published a note explaining the latest extended weather forecast for the winter 2023-24 season shows cold temperatures, snow, and damp conditions across the Lower 48. 

  

  Geiger wrote in the note, “The ‘brrr’ is coming back! We expect more snow and low temperatures nationwide.”

  Meanwhile, corporate media is responsible for producing a young generation that suffers from “climate anxiety.” 

  “The cover of Newsweek tells ‘a generation gripped by climate anxiety.'”🙄

  Brainwashed and brain-damaged young people ought to be suing Big Media not Big Oil.

  Media should be our bulwark against BS. Instead, it is BS.https://t.co/ZKDpa4ROMQ

  — Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) September 3, 2023

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

  Don’t worry. Corporate media will attribute the changing of seasons from warm to cold to ‘climate change.’ For some context, these climate doomers once spewed the Earth would move into a new ice age by the 21st century.

  It’s big businesses to spread climate misinformation. Just ask Al Gore. 

  

  They’re routinely wrong and have zero accountability.

  

  Remember Greta’s 2018 tweet?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 16:00

• Turley: Biden's Use Of Fake Names In Email Could Cost Him
  Turley: Biden’s Use Of Fake Names In Email Could Cost Him

  Authored by Jonathan Turley, Op-Ed via The Hill,

  Last year, at an event at the White House, former president Barack Obama jokingly referred to the current president as “Vice President Biden.”

  At the time, it was described as the more popular politician “reminding Biden who’s boss.” Yet, this needling carried an added bite, given reports of Obama’s private doubts about Biden’s judgment.

  In 2020, Obama had famously warned fellow Democrats, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f— things up.”

  

  Obama is now being asked to bail Biden out from another debacle of his own making, going back to his time in Obama’s administration. Various committees and private groups are seeking more than 5,000 emails from Biden in which he used an array of aliases during the Obama administration.

  Under the Presidential Records Act, Obama has 30 days to bar the release of the emails and to help shield his former vice president in a growing corruption scandal over the influence-peddling operation run by Biden’s son, Hunter.

  Recently, it was learned that Joe Biden went by a variety of code names and false names, including Robin Ware. Robert L. Peters, JRB Ware, Celtic and “The Big Guy.” House investigators believe that may only be a partial list. For many Americans, it is understandably unnerving to learn that their president has more aliases than Anthony Weiner. However, while the number seems unusual, the practice is not unprecedented.

  Top officials have used such aliases in the past for emails, including former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. During the Obama administration, the practice was defended by then-White House press secretary Jay Carney, who assured the public that any such emails would still be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and congressional inquiries. He added, “We do not use and should not use private email accounts for work.”

  The problem is that there was “work” being discussed on some of these emails, including official foreign travel plans and the hiring of associates of Hunter for high-level positions. More importantly, some emails are relevant to the clients of Biden’s son. Biden has previously lied that he knew nothing of these dealings, but these emails could reveal even more about his knowledge and involvement.

  Congress is investigating more than $20 million that was transferred to members of the Biden family from foreign sources through a labyrinth of shell companies and accounts. Even the Washington Post has been forced to admit that the president has lied in the past about aspects of Hunter’s dealings.  Devon Archer recently confirmed that Joe Biden’s long-standing denial of any knowledge of their business dealings is “categorically false.”

  Most reporters now admit that Hunter was clearly engaging in influence-peddling, Washington’s favorite form of corruption. Yet in the face of this growing evidence, Democrats insist that Hunter and his associates were merely selling “the illusion of influence,” not actual access or influence over Joe Biden.

  Obviously, these foreign clients believed that they were buying more than an illusion for the millions they spent. One corrupt Ukrainian figure said that Hunter Biden was dumber than his dog, but that he paid him anyway for access to his father.

  There are indications that these clients did receive more than illusion. For example, Archer described how Burisma executives were worried about the anti-corruption investigation being conducted by Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin. Archer testified that Hunter immediately “called D.C.” in response to the plea. Shokin was later fired at Joe Biden’s demand.

  The House Oversight Committee has hit a wall in trying to get material from the Bidens and the administration on these past dealings. It has also learned that the president communicated with this son through alias accounts. That led them to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which has resisted the release of the emails. It has been over a year since a group requested these documents, and the NARA review is expected to take years at this pace — until after the next election.

  Both Biden and Obama could easily allow the release of these emails to Congress. After all, the use of aliases has been defended on the basis that these emails are trivial or personal matters. If so, transparency will put all the allegations to rest. If it is not true, it would mean that Biden was using false names to convey important information to third parties, and the question would be why.

  In one email from Hunter’s laptop, Biden associate James Gilliar explained the rules to Tony Bobulinski, then a business partner of Hunter. He was not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions. “Don’t mention Joe being involved,” he wrote, “it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”  Instead, they referred to the Big Guy or Celtic.

  Likewise, a trusted FBI source said that a Ukrainian businessman had said that he paid a bribe to Joe Biden, but noted that they were told to avoid using his name and to transfer the money through a complex series of accounts.

  Moreover, the request of Congress followed the discovery that staffers had used Biden’s fake government account, Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov, to send a message about meeting then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko with a cc to Hunter Biden.

  Once again, there may be innocent explanations for such emails and the use of the alias. However, given the other evidence of corruption and influence peddling, it seems obvious that the information must be reviewed.

  That brings us to the confrontation with NARA.

  The agency could rely on the PRA statute to enforce the refusal of Biden and Obama to allow Congress to review the evidence. Biden actually is supposed to be consulted twice under the law: as the former vice president and as the current president. Both Joe Bidens are likely to have the same negative reaction to exposing his emails.

  However, special access to presidential records is expressly allowed under the PRA “to…Congress” and “to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, to any committee…if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available.” A refusal would deny Congress critical evidence into a corruption scandal and also a possible impeachment inquiry.

  The added resistance to the review of the emails only adds to an already strong case for an impeachment inquiry. Such an inquiry does not mean that impeachment is inevitable. Rather, there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation into whether the Bidens were selling the illusion or the reality of influence. By acting under its impeachment authority, the power of Congress would be at its apex in forcing these disclosures and finding answers on the alleged corrupt practices.

  None of this should be necessary, of course. Biden could remove these obstacles instantly to assure the public that his aliases were innocent, even playful, pseudonyms. “JRB Ware” may be a pun, but it is not necessarily the next “Carlos Danger.” We simply do not know, but there should be no reason why the president would not want to clear the record, particularly in an election year.

  Otherwise, the effort to withhold this evidence could itself prove damaging, if material evidence of corruption or false statements are found. As Obama would say, one should never underestimate that prospect when it comes to his former vice president.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 15:30

• Alaska Military Base Eyes ESG-Friendly Micro-Nuclear Reactors for De-Carbonized Future 
  Alaska Military Base Eyes ESG-Friendly Micro-Nuclear Reactors for De-Carbonized Future 

  The Defense Logistics Agency Energy, on behalf of the US Air Force, is serious about decarbonizing a military base in Alaska. Surprisingly, the focus is on something other than solar or wind but on mini-nuclear reactors.

  According to a press release from Santa Clara-based Oklo Inc., the USAF issued a Notice of Intent to Award a contract for micro-reactors to supply power and heat to Eielson Air Force Base. 

  “This project represents a significant stride towards ensuring a clean and resilient energy supply for critical national security infrastructure,” the company said

  The timeline for the installation wasn’t specified, and Oklo’s design still awaits the green light from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC):

  This selection initiates the acquisition process to potentially award a contract to Oklo. Oklo would obtain a license for its power plant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, construct the power plant, and operate it to deliver both electricity and steam to the Eielson Air Force Base under a long-term power purchase agreement executed by the Defense Logistics Agency Energy. –Oklo

  “We are honored to be at the forefront of increasing resilience and reducing emissions, while driving national security forward,” said Jacob DeWitte, Co-Founder and CEO of Oklo.

  USAF previously announced Eielson AFB would be the preferred location to pilot next-generation energy technology, such as micro-reactors, to supply upwards of 15 megawatts of power. 

  

  Because of its small size, micro-reactors can be constructed cheaper and faster than traditional, giant, light-water reactors, such as the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia that opened this summer, where delays and cost overruns were in the years and billions of dollars. 

  Oklo is one of a dozen companies developing micro-reactors. Earlier this year, NRC cleared NuScale Power’s design for light-water small modular nuclear reactors for a carbon-free future. 

  Besides these small reactors potentially powering a military base, basically a small town, there has been a push for huge data centers to be powered by this on-demand reliable ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) friendly power source. 

  The push for nuclear power comes as a new Pew Research Center survey shows that most Americans now want atomic power. 

  

  We presented a bull nuclear thesis to readers in December 2020, recommending uranium on the belief that nuclear power would eventually be incorporated into the ESG framework, as highlighted in our article “Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze,” which is proving to be accurate.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 15:00

• A Dire Warning: The US Plan To Make Ukraine Into Europe's 'Big Israel'
  A Dire Warning: The US Plan To Make Ukraine Into Europe’s ‘Big Israel’

  In his famous anti-Vietnam War speech, the late senator from South Dakota George McGovern told fellow Congressional leaders, “This chamber reeks of blood.” On Saturday, journalist Max Blumenthal opened a hard-hitting talk at the Ron Paul Institute’s “Which Way America…?” conference in D.C. by quoting those words, but applied them to the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

  Blumenthal said that in Ukraine, Washington continues “wasting the lives and bodies of over 150,000 men, and that’s according to the Pentagon.” Citing recent studies on the immense numbers of Ukrainians who have lost limbs after a year-and-a-half of fighting (which could be surpassing WWI rates), he said the true Ukraine casualty count could be closer to 500,000 – which marks a monumental tragedy and disaster.

  

  The GrayZone journalist then said of today’s Congress that “this chamber” not only “reeks of blood” but.. “they have wasted Ukrainian society on the mantle of anti-Russia hysteria” – as lawmakers in lockstep with the Biden administration continue to sink billions into Kiev.

  Beltway liberal elites, Blumenthal asserted, still think Russia must be punished given they see Moscow as having brought the “bad orange man” to power in 2016. This is a big ideological aspect to what motivates the hawks, he said.

  Further, Blumenthal explained that what’s happening here is that the US ruling class has “militarized the culture wars while depicting Ukraine as the ‘woke side’ vs. Russia as backwards and oppressive.”

  But more importantly, the real “victors” are the major US defense contractors and their appendages like the K street neocon lobbying firms. Blumenthal highlighted that these, and the Biden administration, are operating with the bigger vision in mind of turning Ukraine into Europe’s “big Israel”. 

  By this is meant a permanently militarized ‘Spartan’ wartime state, which is funded and weaponized by Washington in perpetuity, and possesses all the latest cutting edge Western defense tech. But like with the state of things long evident inside Israel (in particular oppression of both Palestinians and Israeli political dissenters), democracy must be eroded at home for this to happen. Still, the defense tech peddlers in the military-industrial complex will ‘win’ no matter how much Ukrainian society and its people are sacrificed. 

  “In order to defend democracy in Ukraine, democracy must be curtailed at home,” Blumenthal emphasized, drawing lessons from current examples of oppression of free speech in the West, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

  

  He noted here that his own investigative media outlet, The GrayZone, has had the bulk of its funding frozen by the popular platform GoFundMe. The outlet explained days ago [emphasis ZH]:

  By this point, we had raised over $90,000 from over 1100 contributors. The generous contributions from our audience were accompanied by hundreds of messages of effusive support for our factual journalism holding imperial power to account.

  And now, Gofundme is holding the donations hostage, refusing to transfer them to us, while failing to inform donors that it has effectively seized their money. The for-profit site has similarly refused to explain its freezing of their donations, issuing nothing more than a vague allusion – “some external concerns” – to pressure from powerful outside forces.

  Gofundme’s financial sabotage follows the de facto sanctions imposed by Venmo and Paypal on our managing editor, Wyatt Reed, after he reported on the Ukrainian military’s targeting of civilians from the separatist side of the Donbas region.

  Again, this is why Blumenthal could draw on recent personal experience in telling the Ron Paul conference audience that “democracy must be curtailed” in America in order to keep unlimited taxpayer dollars flowing into the Zelensky government’s coffers.

  Blumenthal continued… but “now Russia has no incentive to negotiate” given they have the clear military momentum amid a failing Ukraine counteroffensive. The US and UK likely had a window of opportunity in the initial months of the war to more easily open up serious diplomatic peace negotiations, but this was actively thwarted. 

  “We cannot have peace negotiations while war is being incentivized [by Washington interests] to this point,” he continued while also referencing neocons like Bill Kristol, who has been leading a charge to silence any dissenting views from among Republican nominees and politicians on Ukraine.

  

  “These operatives need constant opportunities” which a permanent proxy war in Europe enables, Blumenthal continued – just like with the constant and historic billions in aid flowing to Israel, which serves to cyclically fuel the accompanying global reach and outsized influence of the Israel lobby.

  On this question of whether negotiations are possible even from Kiev’s perspective, Zero Hedge asked Blumenthal what he thinks would happen in the unlikely scenario that Zelensky himself suddenly pursued peace talks with the Russians. Blumenthal responded as follows:

  “If Zelensky were to pursue peace talks now before he’s re-elected… due to the kind of social forces that have been unleashed by Maidan, he will face a far-right Nazi insurgency in his own country, and he will become public enemy number one among some of the most violent and militarized forces.

  …Which is why he went and met with Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov. Zelensky was elected on a platform of peace by 73% of the population because you still had the ethnic Russian population participating in Ukrainian society. They have been completely driven out and the constituency he’s working with is completely different now.”

  Below: Last month, Ukrainian President Zelensky held court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history, Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.

  

  Turning Ukraine into “a big Israel” will involve long-term funding to shape and place “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier not in the Middle East but in Europe,” Blumenthal said.

  But as Ukrainians continue to be slaughtered, it won’t be a happy situation for a country to become a “big Israel”, Blumenthal concluded.

  * * *

  Former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro (from 2011 to 2017) is helping to push this Ukraine as “big Israel” concept forward, Blumenthal pointed out.

  

  A partial list of key elements of Shapiro’s road map for Ukraine was previously published by The Atlantic Council as follows:

  • Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.
  • The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrifice. Civilians recognize their responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the cause. Some even arm themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that the country has this potential. In his comments, Zelenskyy reflected this reality when he said security would “come from the strength of every house, every building, every person.”
  • Self-defense is the only way: If there’s any single principle that animates Israel’s security doctrine, it’s that Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely on no other country to fight its battles. The tragedies of Jewish history have embedded that lesson deep in the nation’s soul. Ukraine’s own trauma, forced to fight alone against a larger aggressor, reinforces a similar conclusion: Don’t depend on the guarantees of others.
  • But maintain active defense partnerships: Self-defense doesn’t mean total isolation. Israel maintains active defense partnerships, chiefly with the United States, which provides generous military assistance, but also with other nations with whom it shares intelligence, technology, and training. While Ukraine will probably not join NATO any time soon, it can deepen security partnerships with Alliance members and receive aid, weaponry, intelligence, and training to bolster its self-defense.
  • Intelligence dominance: From its earliest days, Israel has invested deeply in its intelligence capabilities to ensure that it has the means to detect and deter its enemies—and, when needed, act proactively to strike them. Ukraine will need to upgrade its intelligence services to compete against Russian capabilities and ensure that it’s prepared to prevent and repulse Russian attacks.
  • Technology is key: Although it relies on US assistance, Israel also chooses homegrown technology solutions for many of its greatest challenges. Multi-layer rocket and missile defenses, counter-drone systems, and tunnel detection technology are just recent examples. Ukraine—already home to bright technological minds—will know what threats it faces more than any partner; investing in its own solutions will allow it to be most responsive and adapt to new threats.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 09/03/2023 – 15:00

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• These Are The Richest Billionaires In Each US State
  These Are The Richest Billionaires In Each US State

  The number of billionaires in the U.S. increased 5% compared to last year, going from 720 super wealthy individuals to 775.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop details below, the richest of the rich are concentrated in states like Texas, California, and New York, but there is almost one billionaire in every single state.

  

  This map uses data from Forbes to showcase the wealthiest billionaire in each state.

  The State-by-State Breakdown

  According to Forbes, just four states are home to 61% of the country’s billionaires: California (179), New York (130), Florida (92), and Texas (73).

  Here’s a closer look at the data on who takes the title of the richest in each state:

  Name	State	Residence	Net Worth (Est.)	Source of Wealth
  Jimmy Rane	Alabama	Abbeville	$1.2 B	Lumber
  Arturo Moreno	Arizona	Phoenix	$4.8 B	Billboards, Los Angeles Angels
  Jim Walton	Arkansas	Bentonville	$64.4 B	Walmart
  Larry Page	California	Palo Alto	$105.0 B	Google
  Philip Anschutz	Colorado	Denver	$10.8 B	Energy, sports, entertainment
  Ray Dalio	Connecticut	Greenwich	$19.1 B	Hedge funds
  Ken Griffin	Florida	Miami	$32.7 B	Hedge funds
  Dan Cathy, Bubba Cathy, and Trudy Cathy White	Georgia	Atlanta	$11.0 B	Chick-fil-A
  Larry Ellison	Hawaii	Lanai	$146.0 B	Oracle
  Frank VanderSloot	Idaho	Idaho Falls	$3.2 B	Nutrition, wellness products
  Lukas Walton	Illinois	Chicago	$22.9 B	Walmart
  Carl Cook	Indiana	Bloomington	$10.3 B	Medical devices
  Harry Stine	Iowa	Adel	$6.9 B	Agriculture
  Charles Koch	Kansas	Wichitia	$56.9 B	Koch Industries
  Tamara Gustavson	Kentucky	Lexington	$7.3 B	Self storage
  Gayle Benson	Louisiana	New Orleans	$4.7 B	New Orleans Saints
  Susan Alfond	Maine	Scarborough	$2.7 B	Shoes
  Annette Lerner & family	Maryland	Chevy Chase	$6.3 B	Real Estate
  Abigail Johnson	Massachusetts	Milton	$21.0 B	Fidelity
  Daniel Gilbert	Michigan	Franklin	$19.5 B	Quicken Loans
  Glen Taylor	Minnesota	Mankato	$2.6 B	Printing
  Thomas Duff & James Duff	Mississippi	Hattiesburg	$2.3 B	Tires, diversified
  John Morris	Missouri	Springfield	$8.3 B	Sporting goods retail
  Dennis Washington	Montana	Missoula	$6.4 B	Construction, mining
  Warren Buffet	Nebraska	Omaha	$117.0 B	Berkshire Hathaway
  Mirian Adelson & family	Nevada	Las Vegas	$36.2 B	Casinos
  Rick Cohen & family	New Hampshire	Keene	$18.8 B	Warehouse automation
  Rocco Commisso	New Jersey	Saddle River	$8.0 B	Telecom
  Ron Corio	New Mexico	Albuquerque	$1.7 B	Solar
  Michael Bloomberg	New York	New York City	$94.5 B	Bloomberg LP
  James Goodnight	North Carolina	Cary	$9.3 B	Software
  Gary Tharaldson	North Dakota	Fargo	$1.2 B	Hotels
  Lex Wexner & family	Ohio	New Albany	$6.0 B	Retail
  Harold Hamm & family	Oklahoma	Oklahoma City	$18.5 B	Oil & gas
  Phil Knight & family	Oregon	Hillsboro	$41.8 B	Nike
  Jeff Yass	Pennsylvania	Haverford	$28.5 B	Trading, investments
  Jonathan Nelson	Rhode Island	Providence	$3.1 B	Private equity
  Robert Faith	South Carolina	Charleston	$5.2 B	Real estate management
  T. Denny Sanford	South Dakota	Sioux Falls	$2.0 B	Banking, credit cards
  Thomas Frist Jr. & family	Tennessee	Nashville	$22.3 B	Hospitals
  Elon Musk	Texas	Austin	$230.0 B	Tesla, SpaceX
  Gail Miller	Utah	Salt Lake City	$4.2 B	Car dealerships
  John Abele	Vermont	Shelburne	$1.9 B	Healthcare
  Jacqueline Mars	Virginia	The Plains	$39.4 B	Candy, pet food
  Jeff Bezos	Washington	Medina	$149.0 B	Amazon
  John Menard Jr.	Wisconsin	Eau Claire	$18.1 B	Home improvement stores
  John Mars	Wyoming	Jackson	$39.4 B	Candy, pet food

  Many billionaires in the U.S. are extremely well-known, such as California’s Larry Page, New York’s Michael Bloomberg, or Washington state’s Jeff Bezos.

  Interestingly, Bill Gates doesn’t take the top spot as the richest billionaire in Washington because Bezos has a higher net worth—$149 billion vs. Gates’ $104 billion—although they do live in the exact same town of Medina, WA.

  Nearly every state is home to at least one billionaire, some far wealthier than others, like Nebraska’s Warren Buffett ($117 billion), compared to Alabama’s Jimmy Rane ($1.2 billion). Some new states, which gained billionaires this year include Alabama, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

  Billionaire Wealth

  The number of billionaires globally is following a different trend than the one in the U.S., declining year-over-year, and seeing billionaire wealth overall decrease by $500 billion.

  The U.S. is home to almost 30% of all the world’s billionaires and while a few like Sam Bankman-Fried and Kanye West lost their billionaire status this year, many continue to get richer. In addition to Ron Corio, New Mexico’s first ever billionaire, eight other individuals on the U.S. list gained billionaire status in the last four years.

  Finance and investments, food and beverage, fashion and retail, and technology are the top sources of wealth for U.S. billionaires, with almost 50% of them gaining their fortunes from these specific industries.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 23:00

• Pentagon Extends Troop Deployment At US-Mexico Border Through September
  Pentagon Extends Troop Deployment At US-Mexico Border Through September

  Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will extend the deployment of up to 400 active-duty American troops at the U.S. southern border with Mexico until at least the end of September.

  

  The Pentagon had pulled 1,100 troops from the border last month but extended the deployment of the remaining 400 soldiers.

  “On Aug. 24, 2023, the secretary of defense approved an extension of up to 400 personnel providing support to Customs and Border Protection on the southwest border through Sept. 30, 2023,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Devin Robinson told NBC News on Sept. 1.

  Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved in May the deployment of 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border for 90 days to assist border officials with a possible influx of illegal immigration at the border.

  The Pentagon said the troops will “fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support” but will not directly participate in law enforcement activities.

  The troops were intended to help back up border officials dealing with the end of Title 42, which allowed U.S. authorities to quickly expel tens of thousands of migrants from the country in the name of protecting Americans from COVID-19.

  Spike in Illegal Border Crossings

  Data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Aug. 18 showed that the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 132,652 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border in July, up from 99,545 in June.

  

  Migrants seeking asylum wait for U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to allow them enter the United States at the San Ysidro crossing port on the US-Mexico border, as seen from Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on May 31, 2023. (Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images)

  According to CBP data, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered an average of 2,016 single adults per day in July alone, marking a 66 percent decrease from the 6,164 they encountered per day in the first 11 days of May.

  “CBP’s message for anyone who is thinking of entering the United States without authorization or illegally along the southwest border is simple: don’t do it. When noncitizens cross the border unlawfully, they put their lives in peril,” it stated.

  CBP One App

  The latest numbers also reflect a sharp increase in use of the CBP One mobile app through which up to 1,450 migrants can get appointments at land crossings with Mexico to seek asylum. CBP processed more than 44,700 individuals with CBP One appointments at ports of entry in July.

  CBP One is for people of any nationality in central and northern Mexico entering the United States by land and seeking asylum or humanitarian parole.

  Migrants must book an appointment through the app and show up to the appointment at U.S. ports of entry. If they don’t have an appointment, they would be turned away.

  Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said on July 26 at the House Judiciary Committee hearing that the influx of people at the border has not decreased, noting that the CBP One app “allows migrants to bypass the southern border and enter directly in the United States’ ports of entry.”

  “Instead of bringing them to the southern border, you’re bringing them directly to ports of entry,” Mr. McClintock said.

  

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton makes a statement at his office in Austin, Texas, on May 26, 2023. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration on May 23 to challenge a rule that encourages illegal immigrants to use CBP One app to seek entry into the United States.

  Mr. Paxton said the app encourages illegal immigration to the United States because it “cannot verify that an illegal immigrant would qualify for an exception, which would prevent them from being deported.”

  “The Biden Administration deliberately conceived of this phone app with the goal of illegally pre-approving more foreign aliens to enter the country and go where they please once they arrive,” he said in a press release.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 22:30

• Where Smoking Breaks The Bank (& Where It Doesn't)
  Where Smoking Breaks The Bank (& Where It Doesn’t)

  Australia is the world’s most expensive country in which to be a smoker, with one pack alone tearing a hole of almost US$26 in an Australian smoker’s wallet. Australia’s neighbor New Zealand is almost as pricey with a 20 pack of Marlboros costing upwards of US$22. The third most expensive country in the ranking was Ireland, where the identical pack costs the equivalent of more than US$16, according to Numbeo.

  As Katharina Buchholz reports, the most expensive countries for smokers stayed the same since 2019, with the Norway and the UK rounding off the top 5.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  France – known to be a nation not opposed to smoking – has also upped its prices from $8.88 in 2019 to $11.70 in 2021 and is now contemplating raising prices again.

  Cigarette prices in the U.S. have been rising more slowly – from $7.43 a pack in 2019 to $8.00 a pack in 2021 and $9.00 in 2023.

  Australia’s, as well as New Zealand’s smokers, are probably jealously eyeing Turkish people’s smoking expenses.

  There, they could get almost an entire pack of cancer sticks for the price of one, meaning that Australians pay about as much for a single smoke as people in Turkey do for a whole pack.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 22:00

• San Francisco Records More Than A Dozen Suspected Overdose Deaths In One Day
  San Francisco Records More Than A Dozen Suspected Overdose Deaths In One Day

  Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

  Videos from San Francisco posted on social media Aug. 30 show morgue vans loading bodies amid scenes of widespread addiction, with people folded up and contorted in unnatural positions in what many describe as dystopian settings on the streets of downtown.

  

  Posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, repeatedly shared by locals indicated that as many as 18 overdose deaths took place in San Francisco throughout the day, but a spokesperson for the chief medical examiner’s office told The Epoch Times by email Aug. 31 that 13 deaths occurred and are currently under investigation.

  “Today, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner initiated examinations on 13 cases received within the past twenty-four hours,” the spokesperson wrote.

  “The case and manner of death for these decedents remain under review.”

  No toxicology results are yet available, and the examiner’s office had no further comment.

  Approximately 2,500 people have died from overdose in San Francisco since 2020, according to medical examiner statistics (pdf) including the first seven months of 2023.

  More than 81 percent of such cases revealed fentanyl during toxicology testing.

  While deaths dipped slightly last year, numbers are now on the rise and on pace to set a record, as more than 500 have occurred in the city so far, with 71 accidental overdose deaths in July alone, according to the medical examiner’s data.

  Overdose locations are spread throughout the city and concentrated in certain areas, based on medical examiner records.

  Known for high crime and open-air drug markets, the Tenderloin accounts for approximately 18 percent of deaths, with the SOMA area, which is short for South of Market located blocks from Union Square, and Polk/Russian Hill—known for curvy, picturesque Lombard Street—each accounting for 20 percent.

  

  Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  Fentanyl is responsible for the majority of deaths this year, according to testing results released by the medical examiner.

  Odorless, tasteless, and highly toxic, the insidious nature by which fentanyl poisonings occur in unsuspecting victims is leading to rising numbers of overdose deaths, according to experts.

  New synthetic analogs—drugs that are similar chemically but not identical to fentanyl— and other tranquilizers including Xylazine and Isotonitazine further complicate matters, as they are resistant to opioid reversal medications like naloxone, better known as Narcan. Xylazine is responsible for at least 16 deaths in San Francisco in 2023, according to the report, and isotonitazine is reportedly 20 times stronger than fentanyl, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

  Victim advocates and family members of those lost to addiction wrote thousands of names in chalk on the sidewalk outside City Hall that night, as the deaths occurred one day before San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston held a gathering to bring attention to International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31.

  “Overdoses are at crisis levels,” Mr. Preston wrote on X the same day.

  “Today & every day, I’ll continue to work to ensure our city is using every evidence-based tool at our disposal—including overdose prevention, treatment on demand, recovery resources—to reduce overdoses [and] save lives.”

  Supervisors have faced scrutiny on social media, as concerned residents express disappointment in the public safety issues plaguing the city, and many questioned Mr. Preston’s post with comments about perceived policy failures.

  

  A drug user displays fentanyl in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  At the drug awareness gathering, one advocate for harm reduction—which focuses on education and overdose prevention as opposed to prosecution—was pictured at the event waving a sign declaring “Downtown is for drug users,” and another wore a “police are terrorists” shirt.

  Responsible for nearly 6,000 deaths a year in California, as of the latest statistics from the Department of Public Health covering 2021, fentanyl is drawing attention from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

  Bipartisan bills seeking to increase penalties for fentanyl distribution were met with resistance in the Legislature, with members of public safety committees in both houses voicing preference for rehabilitation and overdose prevention.

  Some lawmakers voiced reluctance to advance any proposals that include punitive measures, including incarceration, arguing that doing so would be extending the “failed War on Drugs.” Subsequently, eight of nine such bills were killed earlier this year.

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in May a joint operation between California Highway Patrol and the National Guard to disrupt fentanyl distribution in San Francisco.

  Since then, hundreds of arrests have been made and enough fentanyl seized in two neighborhoods—56 kilograms—to kill nearly the state’s entire population, according to San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office released Sept. 1.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 21:30

• These Are The Highest-Earning Creators Of The Internet Content Machine
  These Are The Highest-Earning Creators Of The Internet Content Machine

  At the 2023 Streamy Awards which aired Sunday night on YouTube, content creator MrBeast aka Jimmy Donaldson won the main category Creator of the Year as well as the award for Best Collaboration (with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). The 25-year-old who grew up in North Carolina was the only winner taking home multiple awards, showing the resounding success he has had with his YouTube channel focused on over-the-top challenges (and the occasional grand gesture).

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the latest release of Forbes’ list of the most successful internet creators lists Donaldson as the highest-earning of them all – at a yearly gross of $54 million. The MrBeast channel was also the second-most followed on YouTube as of August 2023 – up from rank 4 at the beginning of the year. In this time span, Donaldson has attracted attention for paying for operations making 1,000 blind people see and 1,000 deaf people hear.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  YouTubers generally ranked high among the best-paid content creators. One aspect of this is sponsored posts as well as ads earning more if they are in a video format. According to Forbes, Donaldson is in fact capitalizing on this aspect. However, many creators who have earned millions as social media personalities have done so by outside business deals. Third-ranked Jake Paul who started out as a comedy and music creator on Vine and later YouTube has pivoted to boxing and merchandise sales. Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal of channel Rhett & Link have branched out from YouTube sketch comedy and other entertainment content to live appearances and merch sales. Mark Edward Fischbach, known as Markiplier on YouTube, initially uploaded gaming videos, but now also earns most of his cash with, again, merch sales as well as podcast and TV deals.

  Elliot Tebele might have come the longest way from posting memes on Tumblr to running a media company that includes notable Instagram accounts like FuckJerry, TV productions, consulting and even board games. Jerry Media has worked or is working with notables like Michael Bloomberg (during his 2020 presidential run), Seth Phillips (“Dude With Sign”) and the Instagram egg. Tebele’s brand Jaja Tequila is also bringing in money.

  The highest-earning female content creator (at least in 2021) was Danielle Bregoli aka Bhad Bhabie, making her millions on OnlyFans – a platform with a straightforward monetizing strategy. The 20-year-old actually started out as a meme herself, after a video clip and pictures of her 2016 appearance on TV show Dr. Phil went viral and made her the Cash-me-outside girl at just 13 years old. Bregoli built a sizable music career in the years that followed and has been cashing out on OnlyFans since turning 18 in March 2021. Alexandra Cooper of the Call Her Daddy podcast and TikTok’s biggest name Charli D’Amelio also make the top 10.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 21:00

• Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds Tries To Scrub Her Lockdown Record
  Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds Tries To Scrub Her Lockdown Record

  Authored by Kathleen Sheridan via The Brownstone Institute,

  It seems that everyone is running from the lockdowns they once supported, and that includes former presidents and governors, and probably mayors too. Apologies would be better so we can at least have an honest accounting rather than an attempt to rewrite the history that everyone knows. 

  

  Jack Phillips of Epoch Times alerts readers in his article of August 31, 2023, of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’ recent statement on the subject of lockdowns. The Iowa State Government’s website says the following:

  “Since news broke of COVID-19 restrictions being reinstated at some colleges and businesses across the U.S., concerned Iowans have been calling my office asking whether the same could happen here. My answer—not on my watch. In Iowa, government respects the people it serves and fights to protect their rights. I rejected the mandates and lockdowns of 2020, and my position has not changed.” 

  Governor Reynolds “rejected” the mandates and lockdowns of 2020?

  She did?

  Her position has remained the same? It has?

  Could it be the Governor has forgotten her “orders?” On March 17, 2020, Governor Reynolds issued her first “Public Health Disaster Emergency.” Following her long list of “whereas’s,” she ordered the following:

  • Restaurants and bars: Closed to the “general public”

  • Fitness centers/health clubs, spas, aquatic centers: Closed

  • Theaters/performance centers: Closed

  • Casinos/gaming facilities: Closed

  • Churches: Closed

  • Social, community, spiritual, religious, recreational, leisure, and sporting gatherings and events of more than 10 people, including but not limited to parades, festivals, conventions, and fundraisers: Prohibited. 

  • Senior citizen and adult daycare centers: Closed

  • Salons/barber shops: Closed

  A few weeks later on April 6, 2020, she doubled down. In this second proclamation, the Governor extended the timeline and expanded what she now says she “rejected.” To add insult, she also formally called on law enforcement to “assist in the enforcement of these ‘mitigation efforts’.”

  To wit: 

  “To encourage further social distancing and mitigation efforts, the proclamation orders additional closures effective at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 7th until Thursday, April 30th”: (Highlight and underline added)

  • Malls 

  • Tobacco or vaping stores

  • Toy, gaming, music, instrument, movie, or adult entertainment stores

  • Social and fraternal clubs, including those at golf courses

  • Bingo halls, bowling alleys, pool halls, arcades, and amusement parks

  • Museums, libraries, aquariums, and zoos

  • Race tracks and speedway.

  • Roller or ice skating rinks and skate parks

  • Outdoor or indoor playgrounds or children’s play centers

  • Campgrounds

  Should we afford the Governor the benefit of the doubt? That she “rejected” “mandates and lockdowns” all the way through Mar 16, 2020? Then changed her mind? Hence, rejecting them before implementing them? 

  Should we resist the impulse to accrue to the Governor a little bit of gaslighting in her August 30, 2023 statement? Will she insist that businesses she ordered closed and the behaviors she prohibited* – to be enforced by law enforcement – weren’t “mandated” “lockdowns?” That they were instead “mitigation efforts” as spelled out in her “orders?” That all this merely carried the weight of suggestion? This…so that she can now say that she “rejected” mandates and lockdowns? 

  At best – at best – this PR stunt strains credulity. Especially when simple searches can recall those pesky things called facts. On the record.

  At worst? At worst, why, some might suggest it describes a woman whose actual status rhymes with “fire.” 

  Maybe the Governor needs a chance to explain herself, including her definition of “rejected.” I can just hear her now: “I did reject the lockdowns before I didn’t.” I daresay that would make for some really great reading. 

  In the meantime, some of us who rejected all the unlawful nonsense, who were never fooled by any of these fools, who never cooperated and gave up all – remain unfooled – even when the likes of a Kim Reynolds attempts to rewrite history. 

  I have attached both of Governor Reynolds’ “mitigation effort” orders.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 20:30

• Burger King Must Defend Misleading Whopper Lawsuit, Judge Rules
  Burger King Must Defend Misleading Whopper Lawsuit, Judge Rules

  Fast food chain Burger King finds itself in a flame-broiled fiasco.

  A U.S. judge ruled this week that a lawsuit alleging the company cheated its customers by misrepresenting the size of its Whopper sandwiches, would not be dismissed, per the chain’s request. 

  The ruling came from U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in Miami, Reuters reported this week. The lawsuit alleges that Whopper sandwiches on menu boards in stores mislead customers, creating a breach of contract. The suit is also pursuing negligence-based and unjust enrichment claims, Reuters reports. 

  The class action lawsuit alleges that the burgers appear 35% larger on menu boards, with ingredients that “overflow over the bun”. The suit also alleges that the burgers on the menu boards have “more than double” the meat that the chain actually serves. 

  

  In its response the fast food chain argued that it didn’t need to serve up food that looked “exactly like the picture”. Altman, however, ultimately decided that it would be up to a jury to “tell us what reasonable people think.”

  In a statement, Burger King said: “The plaintiffs’ claims are false. The flame-grilled beef patties portrayed in our advertising are the same patties used in the millions of Whopper sandwiches we serve to guests nationwide.”

  For those looking to follow along with the action at home, the docket is “Coleman et al v Burger King Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 22-20925”.

  In Brooklyn, New York federal court, both McDonald’s and Wendy’s face similar suits, Reuters noted. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 20:00

• There Is No Fed Magic Trick To Achieve A Soft Landing
  There Is No Fed Magic Trick To Achieve A Soft Landing

  Authored by Mihai Macovei via The Mises Institute,

  Economic growth in the United States accelerated to a 2.4 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of 2023, picking up from 2.0 percent in the first quarter, and climbing well above the 1.8 percent rate predicted by economists. Many analysts are surprised that the US economy has continued to expand at a robust pace despite the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) aggressive tightening on monetary policy.

  

  The Fed raised interest rates by more than 500 basis points (bps) since March 2022. And yet, the labor market remains tight with a very low unemployment rate at 3.6 percent while the Standard and Poor 500 stock index is up almost 20.0 percent since the beginning of the year. Economists are optimistic that the Fed could deliver a soft landing by reducing inflation close to the 2.0 percent target while avoiding a recession. But will the Fed’s magic really work?

  Insufficient Monetary Tightening

  Since the financial crisis of 2008, the Fed had followed an “easy money” policy, but during the pandemic, the Fed leaned even further into this stance. As Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation accelerated toward 5.0 percent, Fed Chair Jerome Powell belatedly admitted that inflation wasn’t transitory and shifted course. In March 2022, the Fed started raising interest rates but could not prevent inflation from surging to a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022.

  In 2022, it became apparent that the Fed’s tightening on monetary policy was not hawkish enough and that it was more concerned with avoiding a recession and instability of the financial sector. The interest rate hikes were piecemeal, and largely insufficient, as the real interest rate (the difference between the federal funds rate and the inflation rate) remained negative until April 2023 (figure 1).

  The current positive real interest rate of about 2.0 percent is still rather low by historical standards and likely continues to artificially stimulate growth. Headline CPI inflation, helped by declining energy prices, may have decelerated to 3.1 percent in June but remains above the Fed’s 2.0 percent target. Moreover, core inflation—which excludes volatile food and energy prices—was at a sticky 4.8 percent in June as wage increases sustained strong consumer spending and second-round inflationary effects.

  Figure 1: Federal funds rate and CPI

  

  Source: Data from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  Most important, the Fed cannot rely only on interest rate hikes to tighten monetary policy. It needs to also shrink its balance sheet via quantitative tightening (QT) to reverse its previous quantitative easing, a policy of massive purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities to boost commercial banks’ reserves and liquidity while lowering longer-term interest rates. Quantitative easing made the Fed’s balance sheet explode to a whopping $9 trillion, as of May 2022 (figure 2), and analysts agree that by reducing bank reserves, QT should exert upward pressure on interest rates while curtailing lending.

  Figure 2: Total Fed assets (millions)

  

  Source: Data from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

  In June 2022, the Fed started implementing its QT policy by shedding its holdings of US Treasuries and mortgaged-backed securities at a rate of $95 billion per month. But this process was undermined by the need to provide liquidity to the banking sector after banks, such as the Silicon Valley Bank, experienced hefty deposit runs. As a result, the Fed’s balance sheet declined by around $600 billion (or about 8.0 percent) from its peak to about $8.3 trillion by the end of July 2023, although the volume of held securities outright dropped by about $900 billion over the same period.

  Still Abundant Bank Reserves

  Some analysts claim that the Fed can use QT while also providing additional liquidity to select banks in distress (i.e., have its cake and eat it too). This is obviously not true. The main purpose of QT is to withdraw bank reserves via asset sales to reduce the banks’ lending capacity. But what we see is that bank reserves remained at historically high levels (figure 3) despite the Fed’s attempts at monetary tightening. Since the Fed’s Board of Governors reduced reserve requirement ratios on net transaction accounts to 0.0 percent as of March 2020, these reserves are de facto excess reserves on top of which banks can multiply credit. This means that banks still have ample room to lend even if the Fed has hiked the federal funds rate, which may also explain the uneven rise of loan interest rates and resilience of credit activity.

  Figure 3: Total bank reserves

  

  Source: Data from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

  Impact on Interest Rates and Credit

  Market interest rates went up since the Fed started its monetary tightening (but not proportionally), reflecting lending maturities and other credit market specificities. The Fed hiked the federal funds rate by 525 bps between March 2022 and July 2023. The bank prime loan rate, which is one of several base rates used by banks to price short-term business loans, mirrored the increase in the Fed’s key rate almost one to one (figure 4).

  On the other hand, although longer-term ten-year US Treasury yields rose above 4.0 percent, they went up by less than 200 bps over the same period. The same goes for other bank loan interest rates such as five-year car loans (which went up on average by 330 bps until May 2023), two-year personal loans (which increased by 210 bps), and fifteen- and thirty-year fixed mortgage rates (which rose by close to 300 bps).

  Figure 4: Market interest rates

  

  Source: Data on the bank prime loan rate, the federal funds rate, the ten-year Treasury yield, and the finance rate on new auto loans from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

  This shows that a majority of large and well-capitalized US banks increased loan interest rates much less than the Fed while also paying close to zero interest rates on bank deposits. They can afford it because they have plenty of reserves and liquidity, which the Fed did not mop up, and they continue to lend to the economy. Although the annual growth in total bank credit decelerated from close to 7.0 percent in 2022 to −0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2023, it was primarily driven by the decline in credit to the government, or investment in Treasury securities. At the same time, consumer and real estate loans grew annually by more than 6.0 percent and 5.0 percent respectively in the second quarter of 2023, while commercial and industrial loans recorded a small dip and remained flat in the first half of 2023 (figure 5). As lending to the private sector remained positive, it is unsurprising that economic output also continued to expand.

  Figure 5: Private sector credit

  

  Source: Data on consumer loans, real estate loans, and commercial and industrial loans from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

  Conclusion

  The Fed’s magic trick to achieve a soft landing while aggressively tackling inflation is only smoke and mirrors. The Fed’s piecemeal interest rate hikes were not only insufficient to slow the economy down, but they also received very little support from quantitative tightening (i.e., the withdrawal of the liquidity that was previously injected into the system). Left with plenty of reserves, banks helped the economy to grow by continuing to lend while also refraining from increasing lending rates as much as the Fed. As a result, taming inflation is not yet a done deal, as core inflation remains sticky and well above the Fed’s target.

  The money supply shrinkage signals economic trouble ahead when the monetary overhang is likely to be worked out in earnest. The Fed’s dovishness has just pushed forward a day of reckoning. Moreover, a steady deterioration of fiscal deficits alongside Gargantuan public projects to boost domestic demand and spur high-tech green infrastructure investment magnify recession risks as the Fed may be forced to further tighten to reduce inflation pressures. Fitch’s recent downgrade of the US’s long-term credit rating over rising public debt and deterioration of governance is just another confirmation that macroeconomic policies have been unsound for too long.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 19:30

• Civil Unrest Fears Grow As Youth Unemployment Accelerates
  Civil Unrest Fears Grow As Youth Unemployment Accelerates

  In nearly every country in the world, youth unemployment is much higher than general unemployment.

  Unfortunately, the pandemic only exacerbated matters. During a crucial stretch of their early careers, young adults were locked out of entry-level jobs, destroying their ability to pick up work experience and potentially impacting their long-term earnings.

  Now, nearly three years after COVID-19 first hit, young adults from some countries, like China, are struggling to find jobs. Using data from the OECD and the National Bureau of Statistics of China, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao and Niccolo Conte chart out the youth unemployment rate for 37 countries.

  

  Ranked: Countries With the Highest Youth Unemployment

  At the top of the list, Spain has the highest youth unemployment in the OECD, with nearly one in three young adults unable to find a job.

  ℹ️ Unemployed people are those who report that they are without work, are available for work, and have taken active steps to find work in the last four weeks. The youth unemployment rate is calculated as a percentage of the youth labor force.

  A mismatch between educational qualifications and the labor market has been cited as a significant reason for Spain’s lack of employed adults between the ages of 15–24.

  Meanwhile, the country’s reliance on temporary contracts and dependence on seasonal sectors—like tourism—to generate jobs are some of the many reasons for its persistently high reported unemployment across demographic groups.

  Listed below is the youth unemployment rate for all the OECD countries, and China, as of the second quarter of 2023.

  Rank	Country	Average Youth Unemployment Rate
  1	🇪🇸 Spain	27.4%
  2	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	27.1%
  3	🇸🇪 Sweden	24.9%
  4	🇬🇷 Greece	23.6%
  5	🇨🇳 China	21.3%
  6	🇮🇹 Italy	21.3%
  7	🇨🇱 Chile	19.8%
  8	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	19.6%
  9	🇸🇰 Slovakia	18.8%
  10	🇨🇴 Colombia	18.7%
  11	🇵🇹 Portugal	17.2%
  12	🇹🇷 Türkiye	17.0%
  13	🇫🇷 France	16.9%
  14	🇫🇮 Finland	15.8%
  15	🇪🇪 Estonia	15.6%
  16	🇧🇪 Belgium	13.9%
  17	🇱🇹 Lithuania	13.8%
  18	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	13.7%
  19	🇭🇺 Hungary	13.3%
  20	🇬🇧 United Kingdom	11.4%
  21	🇱🇻 Latvia	11.0%
  22	🇵🇱 Poland	10.3%
  23	🇳🇴 Norway	10.2%
  24	🇨🇦 Canada	10.2%
  25	🇦🇹 Austria	9.6%
  26	🇩🇰 Denmark	9.3%
  27	🇳🇱 Netherlands	8.3%
  28	🇺🇸 United States	8.0%
  29	🇦🇺 Australia	7.8%
  30	🇮🇪 Ireland	7.4%
  31	🇮🇸 Iceland	7.3%
  32	🇩🇪 Germany	6.1%
  33	🇸🇮 Slovenia	5.6%
  34	🇰🇷 Korea	5.4%
  35	🇮🇱 Israel	5.3%
  36	🇲🇽 Mexico	5.2%
  37	🇯🇵 Japan	4.2%

  Announced in June, China’s youth unemployment rate has climbed to 21.3%, a meteoric rise since May 2018, when it was below 10%. The Chinese economy is in the midst of a slowdown and its steadily climbing youth unemployment prompted the government to suspend age-specific unemployment data for the near future.

  On the other side of the spectrum, in Japan, only 4.2% of young adults are without a job. A key reason for this is Japan’s shrinking and aging population that’s made for a tight labor market.

  Youth Unemployment: Men vs Women

  In most OECD countries, it’s common to see young men experiencing a higher unemployment rate compared to young women.

  This contrasts with the trend across all age groups in the OECD, where the unemployment rate is 6.3% for women and 6% for men.

  We visualize the countries in the dataset with the biggest gaps in youth unemployment below.

  

  There is no singular reason that explains this common gap.

  Across the OECD, more young women opt for tertiary education than young men, which may lead to better employment prospects. At the same time women are overrepresented in the health and social welfare sectors—both growing rapidly thanks to an aging population—that may make it easier for them to find jobs.

  Why Does Tracking Youth Unemployment Matter?

  Aside from being an indicator of general opportunities within a country, youth unemployment is a key metric to track, because it can be a bellwether for future economic prospects.

  High rates of youth unemployment also correlate to brain drain within a country, as young adults move elsewhere to find better jobs.

  Finally, large increases in unemployed youth have historically led to the potential of civil unrest, which makes it a politically-charged metric to identify and monitor for governments.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 19:00

• A World Running On Empty: The Decline Of Fossil Fuel Supply
  A World Running On Empty: The Decline Of Fossil Fuel Supply

  Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

  • Analysis of 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy data shows constrained global supplies of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas, particularly in inter-regional trading.

  • Constraints in supply are affecting energy prices, making them highly variable and less affordable for consumers, thereby affecting the global economy, including industries like manufacturing.

  • The cost-intensive infrastructure needed for long-distance natural gas exports is becoming increasingly unsustainable, posing risks to both investors and consumers.

  For many years, there has been a theory that imports of oil would become a problem before there was an overall shortage of fossil fuels. In fact, when I look at the data, it seems to be clear that oil imports are already constrained.

  

  Figure 1. Interregional trade of fossil fuels based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  As I look at the data, it appears to me that coal and natural gas imports are becoming constrained, as well. There was evidence of this constrained supply in the spiking prices for these fuels in Europe in late 2021 and early 2022, starting well before the Ukraine conflict began.

  Oil, coal, and natural gas are different enough from each other that we should expect somewhat different patterns. Oil is inexpensive to transport. It is especially important for the production of food and for transportation. Prices tend to be worldwide prices.

  Coal and natural gas are both more expensive to transport than oil. They tend to be used in industry, in the heating and cooling of buildings, and in electricity production. Their prices tend to be local prices, rather than the worldwide price we expect for oil. Prices for importers of these fuels can jump very high if there are shortages.

  In this post, I first look at the trends in the overall supply of these fuels, since a big part of the import problem is fossil fuel supply not growing quickly enough to keep pace with world population growth. I also give more background how the three fossil fuels differ.

  After this introductory material, I provide charts and some analysis of fossil fuel imports and exports by region, based on data from the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy. Theoretically, the total of regional imports should be very close to the total of regional exports. This analysis gives a little more insight into what is going wrong and where.

  [1] On a worldwide basis, total supplies of both oil and coal seem to be constrained.

  

  Figure 2. World consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  Figure 2 shows that world supplies of all three fossil fuels follow the same general pattern: They tend to rise in close to parallel lines, with oil supply on top, coal next, and natural gas providing the least supply.

  The total supply of fossil fuels needs to be shared by the world’s population. It therefore makes sense to look at supply on a per capita basis.

  

  Figure 3. World per capita consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas, based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  On Figure 3, the top line, oil supply per capita, is almost perfectly level, suggesting that having a greater supply of oil enables having a larger world population. This relationship makes sense because oil is used to a significant extent in growing today’s food, and shipping it to market. Oil products also make herbicides, insecticides, and drugs for animals that enable the growing supply of food needed to feed today’s population. Oil products are also helpful in road making, and in providing lubrication for machinery of all kinds.

  We might conclude that oil supply is essential to the growth of human population. It is only by way of a huge change in the economy, such as the one that took place in 2020, that there is a big dip in oil usage. Even now, some of the changes are “sticking.” Some people are continuing to work from home. Business travel is still low. People are still not buying fancy clothing as much as before 2020. All these things help reduce fossil fuel usage, particularly oil usage.

  Figure 3 also shows that on a per capita basis, coal supply has fallen by 9% since its peak in 2011. This fact, plus the fact that coal prices have been spiking around the world in recent years, leads me to believe that coal supply is already constrained, even apart from the export issue.

  [2] The share of oil traded interregionally is more than double the share of coal or natural gas traded interregionally.

  The reason why oil is disproportionately high in Figure 1 compared to Figure 2 is because a little over 40% of oil is shipped between regions. In comparison, only about 18% of coal production is traded with other regions, and about 17% of natural gas production is shipped interregionally. Oil is much easier (and cheaper) to transport between regions than either coal or natural gas. Shipping costs tend to escalate rapidly, the farther either natural gas or coal is shipped.

  Natural gas has a second problem over and above the high cost of shipping: It requires storage (which may be high cost) if it is not used immediately. Storage is needed for both natural gas and coal because both fuels are often used for heat in winter, either by direct burning or by creating electricity that can be used to heat buildings. Storage for coal is close to free because it can be stored in piles outside.

  Besides heat in winter, coal is also used to provide electricity for air conditioning in summer, so its demand curve has peaks in both summer and winter. Natural gas is much more of a winter-heat fuel in the US, so it has a large peak corresponding to winter usage (Figure 4).

  

  Figure 4. Coal and natural gas consumption by month based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.

  Storage for natural gas needs to be available in every area where users expect to use it for winter heat. The cost of this storage will be low if there are depleted natural gas caverns that can be used for storage. It is likely to be high if above ground storage is required. Natural gas importing areas often do not have suitable caverns for storage. The easy approach is to try to get by with a bare minimum of storage, and hope that imports can somehow make up the difference.

  The big question for any fuel is, “Can consumers afford to pay a high enough price to cover all the costs involved in getting the fuel from endpoint to endpoint, at the time it is needed?“

  Citizens become very unhappy if the cost of winter heat becomes extremely expensive. They demand subsidies and rebates from the government, in order to keep costs down. This is a sign that prices are too high for the consumer.

  Both coal and natural gas are also heavily used in manufacturing. Their prices vary greatly from location to location and from time to time. If coal or natural gas prices rise in a particular location, the cost of manufactured goods from that location will also tend to rise. These higher prices will particularly hurt a manufacturing country, such as Germany, because its manufactured goods will become less competitive in the world marketplace. GDP growth will be reduced, and the profitably of manufacturers will tend to fall.

  Because of these issues, long-distance trade in both coal and natural gas tend to hit barriers that may be difficult to see simply by looking at the trend in world production.

  [3] Natural gas exports may already be becoming constrained, even though the total amount extracted still seems to be rising.

  A huge amount of investment is needed to make long-distance sale of natural gas possible. Such investment includes:

  • The cost of developing a natural gas field for export use, usually over many years.

  • Pipelines covering every inch traveled by the natural gas, other than any portion of the trip for which transfer as liquefied natural gas (LNG) is planned.

  • Special ships to transport the LNG.

  • Facilities to chill natural gas, so it can be shipped overseas as LNG.

  • Regasification plants, to make the natural gas ready to ship by pipeline after it has been transferred as LNG.

  • Storage facilities, so that sufficient natural gas is available for winter.

  Not all of these investments are made by the same organizations. They all need to provide an adequate return. Even if “only” very long-distance pipelines are used, the cost can be high.

  Pipelines work best when there is no conflict among countries. They can be blown up by another country that seeks to raise natural gas prices, or that wants to retaliate for some perceived misdeed. For this reason, most growth in natural gas exports/imports in recent years has been as LNG.

  Organizations investing in high-cost infrastructure for extracting and shipping natural gas would like long-term contracts at high prices in order to cover their costs. Without a stable long-term supply contract, natural gas purchase prices can be extremely variable. Japan has tended to buy LNG under such long-term contracts, but many other countries have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward prices, hoping that “spot” prices will be lower. They don’t want to lock themselves into a long-term high-priced contract.

  There are two different things that tend to go wrong:

  • Spot prices bounce up above even what the long-term contract price would have been, creating a huge high-price problem for consumers.

  • Spot prices, on average, turn out to be too low for natural gas exporters. As a result, they cut back on investment, so that the amount of future exports can be expected to fall.

  I believe that there is a significant chance that natural gas exports are now reaching a situation where prices cannot please all users simultaneously. Not all investors can get an adequate return on the huge investments that they have made in advance. Some investments that should have been made will be omitted. For example, there might be enough natural gas storage for a warm winter, but not for a very cold winter in Europe.

  A prime characteristic of a fossil fuel (or any resource) that is not economic to extract is that the industry has difficulty paying its workers an adequate wage. Recently, there has been news about a union strike against Chevron at an Australian natural gas extraction site used to provide gas for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export. This suggests that natural gas may already be hitting long-distance export limits. Prices can’t stay high enough for producers to pay their workers an adequate wage.

  [4] Oil imports by area suggest that the rapidly growing manufacturing parts of the world are squeezing out the imports desired by high-wage, service-oriented countries.

  Because oil is so important in international trade, I looked at the amounts two ways. The first is based on trade flows, as reported by the Energy Institute:

  

  Figure 5. Oil imports by area based on the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  The second is based upon a comparison of reported production and consumption for the same year, using the assumption that if consumption is higher than production, the difference must be attributable to imported oil. The problem with this later approach is that it can easily be distorted by changes in inventory levels. There may also be difficulties with my approach of netting out flows in two different directions, especially if the flows are partly of crude oil and partly of “oil products” of various types.

  

  Figure 6. Oil imports based on production and consumption data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute. Amounts adjusted to include “Refinery Gain,” as reported by the US Energy Information Administration.

  In both charts, imports for China, India, and Other Asia Pacific are clearly much higher in recent years, while imports for the US, Japan, and Europe are down. The peak year for imports (in total) was about 2016 or 2017. Imports were about 3.5 million barrels a day lower in 2022, compared to peak, with both approaches.

  [5] Oil imports by area indicate that nearly all oil exporters around the globe are having difficulty maintaining export levels.

  Here, again I show two indications, using the same methods as for oil imports. Since trade is two sided, I would expect total import indications to more or less equal the total of all amounts exported.

  

  Figure 7. Oil exports by area using trade flows based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  On Figure 7, peak oil exports (in total) occur in 2016, with the runner up year being 2017. US oil exports are shown to be nearly zero, even in recent years, because US imports and US oil exports more or less cancel out.

  

  Figure 8. Oil exports based on production and consumption data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute. Amounts adjusted to include “Refinery Gain,” as reported by the US Energy Information Administration.

  The indications of Figure 8 show that apart from Canada, the amount of oil exported for all the other export groupings shown is lower in recent years than it was a few years ago. This is also evident in Figure 7, but not as clearly.

  To some extent, the lower production in recent years is related to the cutbacks announced by OPEC+ (including what I call Russia+). While these cutbacks are “voluntary,” they reflect the fact that based on current oil prices, and based on investments made in recent years, these countries have made the decision to cut back production. No oil exporter would dare mention that it is running short of oil that can be extracted without considerably more investment.

  On Figures 7 and 8, “Mexico+South” refers to all the oil being produced from Mexico southward. Besides Mexico, this includes Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador, and a number of other small producers. Most of them are experiencing falling production. Brazil is doing a bit better, but it does not seem to be experiencing much growth in exports.

  Africa’s peak year for oil exports seems to have been in 2007 (both approaches), with recent exports at a much lower level.

  With respect to Russia+, its exports seem to be down from their peak in 2017 or 2018, but not any more than for oil producers from the Middle East. The European Union oil embargo doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact.

  The star performer seems to be Canada, with its rising production and exports from the Canadian Oil Sands.

  In this analysis, I have “netted out” imports and exports. On this basis, the US hasn’t moved into significant oil exporter status yet. I am sure that there are some people hoping that the oil production of the US will continue to increase, but whether this will happen is unclear. The growth of US oil production in recent years has helped offset (and thus hide from view) the falling exports of many countries around the world.

  [6] Coal exports appear to have peaked about 2016. Europe has reduced its imports of coal, leaving more for other importers.

  

  Figure 9. Coal imports by area using trade flows based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  The peak in coal imports seems to have occurred about 2016. In particular, Europe’s imports of coal have fallen significantly since 2006. At the same time, coal imports have risen for many Asian countries, including China, India, South Korea, and Other Asia Pacific. Even Japan seems to have been able to obtain a fairly consistent level of coal imports for the 22-year period shown on Figure 9.

  

  Figure 10. Coal exports by area based on trade flow data from the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  One thing that is striking about coal exports is that they are disproportionately from countries in the Far East. Even the coal exports of the US and Canada are from North America’s West Coast, across the Pacific. Russia’s coal exports tend to be from Siberia.

  The coal exports of South Africa have declined significantly since 2018, and other African countries are eager for their imports. Today’s largest source of coal exports is Indonesia. Coal exports from Russia+, at least until 2021, have been been a source of coal export growth.

  A major share of the delivered price of coal is transportation cost, which tends to be fueled by oil, particularly diesel. Overland transit is particularly expensive. The real reason for Europe’s decline in coal imports since 2006 (shown in Figure 9) may be that there are practically no affordable coal exports available to it because it is too geographically remote from major exporters. Of course, this is not a story politicians care to tell voters. They prefer to spin the story as Europe’s choice, to prevent climate change.

  [7] Natural gas imports and exports have only recently started to become constrained.

  

  Figure 11. Natural gas exports by area based primarily upon production and consumption data from the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  Figure 11 shows that natural gas exports from Russia+ (really Russia, with a little extra production from other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States) have stayed fairly level, except for a big drop-off in 2009 (probably recession related) and in 2022.

  The overall level of natural gas exports has been rising because of contributions from several parts of the world. Africa was an early producer of natural gas exports, but its exports have been dropping off somewhat recently as local gas consumption rises.

  More importantly, exports have increased in recent years from the Middle East, Australia, and North America. With this growing supply of exports, it has been possible for importers to increase their imports.

  

  Figure 12. Natural gas imports by area based upon production and consumption data from the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  Europe was able to maintain a fairly stable level of natural gas imports between 1990 and 2018, and even to increase them by 2021. China was able to ramp up its natural gas imports. Even Japan was able to ramp up its natural gas imports until about 2014. It has tapered them back since then. India and Other Asia Pacific both have been able to add a small layer of imports, too.

  [8] What lies ahead?

  The countries that have the greatest advantage in using fossil fuel imports are the countries that don’t heat or cool their homes, and that don’t have large numbers of private citizens with private passenger automobiles. Because of their sparing use of fossil fuel imports, their economies can afford to pay higher prices to import these fossil fuel imports than other countries. Thus, they are likely to be winners in the competition for fossil fuel imports.

  Europe stands out to be an early loser of imports. It is already losing oil and coal imports, and it also seems to be an early loser of natural gas imports. However, for all its talk about preventing climate change, the reduction in European imports of fossil fuels hasn’t made much of a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions (Figure 13).

  

  Figure 13. CO2 emissions for Europe and the Rest of the World, based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute.

  I am afraid that no country will really come out ahead. In some sense, the United States is better off than many countries because it is producing slightly more fossil fuels than it consumes. But it still depends on China and other countries for many imported goods, including computers. Given this situation, the United States likely cannot continue business as usual for very long, either.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 18:30

• Biden Admin To Provide "Up To $12 Billion" To Retrofit Auto Plants To Produce EVs
  Biden Admin To Provide “Up To $12 Billion” To Retrofit Auto Plants To Produce EVs

  Automakers are looking to finish the week with strength after it was announced on Thursday that the Biden administration would be making “up to $12 billion” available to retrofit facilities to make both EVs and hybrids.

  The money will include $10 billion from a US Energy Department loan program for clean vehicles and an additional $3.5 billion in financing to expand domestic battery manufacturing, according to Bloomberg. 

  The United Auto Workers, currently in negotiations with Detroit, has argued that a shift to EVs will cost the industry union jobs. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Thursday that the funding would help Detroit retain workers.

  However, we’ve seen this “bailout” business model to save jobs before – at banks and during Covid, to name two examples – and it always winds up turning into a company cash grab before ultimately firing workers regardless. The UAW will try to prevent such a situation from taking place as it negotiates.

  

  UAW President Shawn Fain “cautiously” welcomed the news after warning earlier this month that the White House should not push an EV agenda if it means the loss of jobs in Detroit. 

  Almost like the government should stay out of the auto industry as a whole, right? But that would make too much sense. 

  “The EV transition must be a just transition that ensures auto workers have a place in the new economy,” Fain said this week. Meanwhile, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a Washington lobby group that represents most Detroit automakers, said this week the funding “will further advance the domestic automotive supply chain and globally competitive battery manufacturing platform that automakers have already made sizable investments.”

  Instead, Bloomberg calls the move the Biden administration “doubling down on efforts to support carmakers’ transition to EVs”. In a statement this week, President Biden said: “This funding will help existing workers keep their jobs and have the first shot to fill new good jobs as the car industry transforms for future generations.”

  The Biden administration continues to aim for half of all vehicles on the road being EVs by 2030. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 18:00

• An Important Lesson From Chicago On Confronting The Enemies Of Free Speech
  An Important Lesson From Chicago On Confronting The Enemies Of Free Speech

  Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

  The modern left’s assault on free speech is perhaps the most terrifying element of the madness we have succumbed to for the simple reason that democracy is meaningless without it. The assault has been largely successful. Voices that should be heard are muzzled and, more insidiously, countless other voices are frightened into silence.

  We see that suppression routinely.

  Too often, readers here tell us of being intimidated into silence by the cancel mob, a mob now controlling much of our government. The iron boot of government on one’s throat is no small matter: Fear of the cost of litigating against a government intent on suppressing free speech is particularly intimidating.

  That intimidation must come to an end. Help is often available – a resource you should prize.

  A number of law firms specializing in free speech are now available, pro bono – free or at reduced cost. And they are winning, thanks to federal courts that still recognize the First Amendment right to free speech.

  A Chicago company’s free speech case is an illustration.

  

  Townstone Financial is a smallish, Chicago-based home mortgage originator. It marketed itself primarily through a weekly one-hour show on AM 560 called The Townstone Financial Show. They discussed issues of interest to homebuyers and offered advice to listeners and callers, sometimes getting into topics like crime, policing, movies and the like.

  In 2020, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued Townstone claiming that the company violated a fair lending law by discriminating against African-Americans.

  However, the CFPB never alleged any case of Townstone discriminating on mortgage applications.

  Instead, the CFPB said Townstone discriminated through its marketing in its radio show by “discouraging” applications from Blacks. The CFPB’s evidence was a handful of comments on the show made over a four-year period representing perhaps 10 minutes of air time out of about 10,000 minutes.

  Some of those comments might be regarded as offensive or in bad taste. They referred to a particular Jewel food store at Clark and Division Streets in Chicago as “Jungle Jewel” and included talk of certain Black areas having “hoodlum weekend” and approaching “a real war zone” or as “crazy” and places “to be driven through quickly” while avoiding eye contact.

  But the CFPB did not produce even one example of anybody being discouraged from applying with Townstone. Nor, according to Townstone’s lawyers, has the company ever received any complaint about its show.

  The comments from the show cited by the CFPB were taken out of context and meant little, Townstone believed. For example, the “Jungle Jewel” was commonly called that by people in the area, and referred to as such even by a Black blogger, who called it “a socioeconomic nightmare and a haven for street crazies.”

  As Towntone’s lawyers later argued, if speech like Townstone’s is illegal, what wouldn’t violate the law? “Are creditors permitted to talk about crime at all? Education? Homelessness? Welfare? Poverty? Income distribution? Are they permitted to criticize the Black Lives Matter movement? Support the police? Criticize the Catholic Church about child abuse scandals? Support the BDS movement? Criticize the BDS movement? Support abortion rights? Oppose immigration?”

  The lawsuit threatened to entirely destroy Townstone.

  Its owner decided to fight.

  But how do you fight against the government, which has unlimited resources?

  Enter the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit with free speech expertise, which represented the company.

  A federal court in Chicago threw out the CFPB’s lawsuit in February.

  However, the ruling was based mostly on the court’s conclusion that the CFPB had authority only to regulate actual discrimination in lending, not marketing conduct that might be deemed “discouraging.” The court therefore didn’t need to get to the First Amendment defense.

  However, the CFPB has now appealed to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, so the free speech defense is being raised again, and Townstone is getting still more help. Among the other firms filing amicus — friend of the court — briefs are Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, America’s Future, Free Speech Coalition, Free Speech Defense and Education Fund, U.S. Constitutional Rights Legal Defense Fund, and Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund.

  Lawyers from one of those firms, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, were guests on our podcast last year discussing legal issues with the University of Illinois’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies and Gov. Pritzker’s gas tax signage law.

  It’s amicus brief in Townstone’s case summarizes it nicely: “Congress has not deputized CFPB as the ‘Tasteful Joke Police,’ nor would the First Amendment permit that delegation…. By conflating candid discussions of crime with the disparagement of African-American communities, CFPB seeks to do just that. Under the First Amendment, it cannot.”

  If you think Townstone’s case or other First Amendment cases you’ve heard about are isolated examples, you are dangerously uninformed.

  The assault on free speech is massive. Much of the government, social media and the press are partners in the Censorship Industrial Complex. That term was coined by Michael Shellenberger, who laid out 56 pages of evidence in congressional testimony last year. The Missouri v Biden case, now on appeal and likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, is already blowing the lid off much of the unholy alliance. Read about the massive evidence of record, discussed in the trial court’s Independence Day order.

  And if you think the assault on free speech isn’t ongoing in Illinois, you are again dangerously uninformed. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul essentially thumbed his nose at the First Amendment when he personally drafted the Illinois law targeting alleged pro-life “misinformation” given out by crisis pregnancy groups near abortion clinics. A federal judge ridiculed it and enjoined its enforcement earlier this month. Chalk up that victory to another of the pro bono law firms available to help on First Amendment issues, the Thomas More Society.

  Gov. JB Pritzker “is gaining a reputation as a hard-left culture warrior who is happy to silence political opponents,” as the Wall Street Journal recently said. “Pritzker apparently thinks that invoking the name Trump is a justification to get away with saying or doing anything. Not under the U.S. Constitution,” wrote the Journal.

  He told CNN, “There ought to be a private right of action for anybody that’s dissuaded or told something that’s false, that’s the important thing.” That would be flagrantly unconstitutional.

  Under the guise of banning book bans, the General assembly passed and Pritzker signed a bill delegating control over what books libraries carry to a group run by an open Marxist. Most recently, they passed an “anti-doxing” law that flies in the face of textbook First Amendment law, as we explained here.

  Illinois Senators Durbin and Duckworth have been among the progressives jawboning tech platforms to do more censorship. And Illinois Congressman Sean Casten introduced a bill to strip courts of the power of judicial review — their power to declare laws invalid as violations of the First Amendment, or anything else.

  Do not stand silent when your right to free speech is suppressed. Know that quality legal firms are often available for free. There are more beyond those I’ve mentioned here.

  The assault on free speech must be defeated at all cost. Do your part.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 17:30

• A Dire Warning: The US Plan To Make Ukraine Into Europe's 'Big Israel'
  A Dire Warning: The US Plan To Make Ukraine Into Europe’s ‘Big Israel’

  In his famous anti-Vietnam War speech, the late senator from South Dakota George McGovern told fellow Congressional leaders, “This chamber reeks of blood.” On Saturday, journalist Max Blumenthal opened a hard-hitting talk at the Ron Paul Institute’s “Which Way America…?” conference in D.C. by quoting those words, but applied them to the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

  Blumenthal said that in Ukraine, Washington continues “wasting the lives and bodies of over 150,000 men, and that’s according to the Pentagon.” Citing recent studies on the immense numbers of Ukrainians who have lost limbs after a year-and-a-half of fighting (which could be surpassing WWI rates), he said the true Ukraine casualty count could be closer to 500,000 – which marks a monumental tragedy and disaster.

  

  The GrayZone journalist then said of today’s Congress that “this chamber” not only “reeks of blood” but.. “they have wasted Ukrainian society on the mantle of anti-Russia hysteria” – as lawmakers in lockstep with the Biden administration continue to sink billions into Kiev.

  Beltway liberal elites, Blumenthal asserted, still think Russia must be punished given they see Moscow as having brought the “bad orange man” to power in 2016. This is a big ideological aspect to what motivates the hawks, he said.

  Further, Blumenthal explained that what’s happening here is that the US ruling class has “militarized the culture wars while depicting Ukraine as the ‘woke side’ vs. Russia as backwards and oppressive.”

  But more importantly, the real “victors” are the major US defense contractors and their appendages like the K street neocon lobbying firms. Blumenthal highlighted that these, and the Biden administration, are operating with the bigger vision in mind of turning Ukraine into Europe’s “big Israel”. 

  By this is meant a permanently militarized ‘Spartan’ wartime state, which is funded and weaponized by Washington in perpetuity, and possesses all the latest cutting edge Western defense tech. But like with the state of things long evident inside Israel (in particular oppression of both Palestinians and Israeli political dissenters), democracy must be eroded at home for this to happen. Still, the defense tech peddlers in the military-industrial complex will ‘win’ no matter how much Ukrainian society and its people are sacrificed. 

  “In order to defend democracy in Ukraine, democracy must be curtailed at home,” Blumenthal emphasized, drawing lessons from current examples of oppression of free speech in the West, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

  

  He noted here that his own investigative media outlet, The GrayZone, has had the bulk of its funding frozen by the popular platform GoFundMe. The outlet explained days ago [emphasis ZH]:

  By this point, we had raised over $90,000 from over 1100 contributors. The generous contributions from our audience were accompanied by hundreds of messages of effusive support for our factual journalism holding imperial power to account.

  And now, Gofundme is holding the donations hostage, refusing to transfer them to us, while failing to inform donors that it has effectively seized their money. The for-profit site has similarly refused to explain its freezing of their donations, issuing nothing more than a vague allusion – “some external concerns” – to pressure from powerful outside forces.

  Gofundme’s financial sabotage follows the de facto sanctions imposed by Venmo and Paypal on our managing editor, Wyatt Reed, after he reported on the Ukrainian military’s targeting of civilians from the separatist side of the Donbas region.

  Again, this is why Blumenthal could draw on recent personal experience in telling the Ron Paul conference audience that “democracy must be curtailed” in America in order to keep unlimited taxpayer dollars flowing into the Zelensky government’s coffers.

  Blumenthal continued… but “now Russia has no incentive to negotiate” given they have the clear military momentum amid a failing Ukraine counteroffensive. The US and UK likely had a window of opportunity in the initial months of the war to more easily open up serious diplomatic peace negotiations, but this was actively thwarted. 

  “We cannot have peace negotiations while war is being incentivized [by Washington interests] to this point,” he continued while also referencing neocons like Bill Kristol, who has been leading a charge to silence any dissenting views from among Republican nominees and politicians on Ukraine.

  

  “These operatives need constant opportunities” which a permanent proxy war in Europe enables, Blumenthal continued – just like with the constant and historic billions in aid flowing to Israel, which serves to cyclically fuel the accompanying global reach and outsized influence of the Israel lobby.

  On this question of whether negotiations are possible even from Kiev’s perspective, Zero Hedge asked Blumenthal what he thinks would happen in the unlikely scenario that Zelensky himself suddenly pursued peace talks with the Russians. Blumenthal responded as follows:

  “If Zelensky were to pursue peace talks now before he’s re-elected… due to the kind of social forces that have been unleashed by Maidan, he will face a far-right Nazi insurgency in his own country, and he will become public enemy number one among some of the most violent and militarized forces.

  …Which is why he went and met with Andriy Biletsky, the founder of Azov. Zelensky was elected on a platform of peace by 73% of the population because you still had the ethnic Russian population participating in Ukrainian society. They have been completely driven out and the constituency he’s working with is completely different now.”

  Below: Last month, Ukrainian President Zelensky held court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history, Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.

  

  Turning Ukraine into “a big Israel” will involve long-term funding to shape and place “America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier not in the Middle East but in Europe,” Blumenthal said.

  But as Ukrainians continue to be slaughtered, it won’t be a happy situation for a country to become a “big Israel”, Blumenthal concluded.

  * * *

  Former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro (from 2011 to 2017) is helping to push this Ukraine as “big Israel” concept forward, Blumenthal pointed out.

  

  A partial list of key elements of Shapiro’s road map for Ukraine was previously published by The Atlantic Council as follows:

  • Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.
  • The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrifice. Civilians recognize their responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the cause. Some even arm themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that the country has this potential. In his comments, Zelenskyy reflected this reality when he said security would “come from the strength of every house, every building, every person.”
  • Self-defense is the only way: If there’s any single principle that animates Israel’s security doctrine, it’s that Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely on no other country to fight its battles. The tragedies of Jewish history have embedded that lesson deep in the nation’s soul. Ukraine’s own trauma, forced to fight alone against a larger aggressor, reinforces a similar conclusion: Don’t depend on the guarantees of others.
  • But maintain active defense partnerships: Self-defense doesn’t mean total isolation. Israel maintains active defense partnerships, chiefly with the United States, which provides generous military assistance, but also with other nations with whom it shares intelligence, technology, and training. While Ukraine will probably not join NATO any time soon, it can deepen security partnerships with Alliance members and receive aid, weaponry, intelligence, and training to bolster its self-defense.
  • Intelligence dominance: From its earliest days, Israel has invested deeply in its intelligence capabilities to ensure that it has the means to detect and deter its enemies—and, when needed, act proactively to strike them. Ukraine will need to upgrade its intelligence services to compete against Russian capabilities and ensure that it’s prepared to prevent and repulse Russian attacks.
  • Technology is key: Although it relies on US assistance, Israel also chooses homegrown technology solutions for many of its greatest challenges. Multi-layer rocket and missile defenses, counter-drone systems, and tunnel detection technology are just recent examples. Ukraine—already home to bright technological minds—will know what threats it faces more than any partner; investing in its own solutions will allow it to be most responsive and adapt to new threats.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 17:00

• The Left's Relentless War On Donald Trump And Everyone Who Disagrees With Them
  The Left’s Relentless War On Donald Trump And Everyone Who Disagrees With Them

  Authored by Allen Mashburn via American Greatness,

  It’s never been about Trump… it’s about forcing Americans into submission…

  

  In the tumultuous landscape of American politics, one name has become emblematic of the Left’s unyielding battle: Donald Trump. His presidency ignited a firestorm of opposition, revealing not just a political clash, but a broader war against those who hold opposing beliefs. As the dust settled on his term, it became evident that the Left’s war on Trump is just one facet of a broader campaign that aims to silence any dissenting voices. To preserve our freedoms, there must be an issued call to arms for patriotism, courage, and bravery from all citizens—willing to rise to protect the futures of their children and grandchildren.

  The Left’s relentless pursuit of Donald Trump transcends mere political opposition. Every step he takes is scrutinized, every word analyzed, and every policy decision met with fervent resistance. Trump, in his own way, emerged as a representative man of the common people – an unconventional politician who resonated with those who felt unheard by the political establishment—and he is a master at rallying his troops. This made him a lightning rod for the Left’s ire, a symbol of everything they sought to dismantle. Yet, beneath the surface, this battle is not solely against a single individual; it is a struggle against any opposition to their ideological agenda. The political spectrum forever changed in America with the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. The Left’s hand has been shown by his antics of unfiltered communication with America—which got him de-platformed from social media. His call for American independence from foreign entities goes totally against the sellout agenda of the Left that pushes America towards globalism, risking our national sovereignty. He has become a rock in the proverbial shoe of the establishment elites and leftists. He challenges their motives, logic, and their allegiance to Country—for that they hate him vehemently.

  The war against Donald Trump is but one example of the broader campaign the Left wages against anyone with opposing beliefs. Their goal is not only to marginalize Trump and his supporters but to ensure that anyone who dares dissent is castigated and suppressed. This phenomenon is not confined to the political realm; it permeates everyday conversations, social media, and public discourse. As we witnessed during Trump’s presidency, the Left’s intolerance of opposing viewpoints extends far beyond the political elite and directly affects ordinary citizens who dare to voice their opinions.

  This intolerance for differing beliefs is a dangerous precedent for the future of our Republic. A healthy society thrives on a diversity of opinions, encouraging open debates that lead to thoughtful and balanced decision-making. However, when one side seeks to silence the other, it not only weakens the deliberative process but threatens the very foundations upon which the nation was built.

  The call for patriotism, courage, and bravery is not an abstract notion; it is a rallying cry for ordinary citizens to stand up for their country and its principles. As the Left’s war against opposing beliefs rages on, it is not just politicians and activists who must defend these ideals, but every American who values the preservation of freedom. Just as soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy with unwavering tenacity, citizens must stand firm against attempts to suppress their voices. Multitudes have had to die to provide us with this freedom. If it is to be passed to future generations, then it must be conserved through the strength and perseverance of the citizenry.

  The erosion of the First Amendment stands at the heart of this struggle. The right to freedom of speech, expression, and assembly is the bedrock of America, enabling citizens to voice their concerns, challenge the status quo, and hold those in power accountable. However, over the last decade, we have witnessed a steady encroachment on these rights. Online censorship, the suppression of dissenting viewpoints, and the vilification of opposing voices have all contributed to a chilling effect on free speech.

  The dismantling of our First Amendment rights is not a distant possibility; it is a present reality. Just as the Left relentlessly pursues Donald Trump, they also are chipping away at the very liberties that ensure a robust nation. This trend affects all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, and it poses a grave threat to the multiplicity of thought that is essential for a healthy society.

  To combat this erosion of rights and preserve our freedoms, every American must be willing to put everything on the line. The fight for freedom is not for the faint-hearted; it requires courage, determination, and an unyielding commitment to the principles that define our nation. Just as soldiers displayed incredible bravery while fighting in the communist jungles of Vietnam, citizens must exhibit the same courage to defend their rights against ideological tyranny.

  Ordinary citizens, irrespective of their backgrounds or beliefs, must recognize the urgency of this fight. As we seek to secure the futures of our children and grandchildren, we must stand united against any attempts to silence, suppress, or marginalize the voices of conservatism and common sense.

  The Left’s relentless war against Donald Trump is emblematic of a broader campaign aimed at stifling dissenting voices and eroding the founding principles of our nation. This battle is going to require resolve, and love for our families and country. We have no choice. We are at war. It has never been about Donald Trump—it’s about forcing Americans into submission. The sooner we realize it, the sooner you will begin to fight, and win.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 16:30

• 'Election Variant' Prompts NYC Mask Advisory
  ‘Election Variant’ Prompts NYC Mask Advisory

  New York health authorities are asking residents to mask up during Labor Day weekend amid the latest wave of Covid-19 cases, and a broader resurgence of hysteria over the disease which generally laughs at face masks & kills less than 0.01% of those who contract it – with newer strains generally weaker than their predecessors, as tends to happen.

  

  And according to the CDC, the latest variant of the virus – BA.2.86, “may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines,” but notes “At this point, there is no evidence that this variant is causing more severe illness.”

  

  NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan and NY Gov. Kathy Hochul have teamed up to urge extra precautions this weekend, including “proven prevention tools” such as masks.

  According to the latest data from the New York City Health Department, there have been 825 daily cases of COVID-19 on average over the past week. While this is several times higher than the seven-day average of 230 cases reported on July 4, it is far lower than the 2,000-plus cases around this time in 2022.

  Even though overall COVID-19 indicators are much lower than a year ago, some institutions have started to adopt mask mandates, sparking pushback in some circles and a “we will not comply” trend on social media. –Epoch Times

  Former President Donald Trump has openly called fear-monger over new COVID-19 variants nothing more than a ploy to force vote-by-mail in order to rig another election.

  “We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates,” Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social.

  Read the NYC advisory below (via The Conservative Treehouse),

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 16:00

• "Remarkably Dishonest" DA Fani Willis Violates The Law
  “Remarkably Dishonest” DA Fani Willis Violates The Law

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary (subscribe here),

  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has gone from criminalizing court filings to committing crimes with respect to her own court filings.

  

  Georgia law makes it unlawful to knowingly file a court document “knowing or having reason to know that such document is false or contains a materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation.” Ga. Code Ann. § 16-10-20.1(b)(1).

  DA Willis is well-aware of this law; she charged a number of Defendants – including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and John Eastman – with a violation of that law for filing in a document that contained a “materially false statement in federal court.” And she just violated it this week.

  

  For background, Georgia law allows for a speedy trial demand in accordance with the Sixth Amendment, which provides that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” Two Defendants, Kenneth John Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have made that request pursuant to Georgia law.

  DA Willis responded to these speedy trial demands with an utterly false Motion to Advise to inform the Court and the Defendants of the “consequences” of their requests for a speedy trial. This Motion was a violation of § 16-10-20.1(b)(1). By no means are we making a stretch – the statutory violations are clear and obvious. DA Willis and her team invented legal theories and misled the Court about relevant caselaw that allegedly supported her position. Let us explain.

  DA Willis made four main assertions in her Motion (quoted in full below):

  

  All of these statements are demonstrably false.

  First, DA Willis alleges that because of Defendants’ speedy trial demand, they “cannot now argue that they are entitled to the State’s discovery responses ten (10) days in advance of trial. Smith v. State, 257 Ga. App. 88, 90 (2002); Ruff v. State, 266 Ga. App. 694, 695 (2004)”.

  This is not true. Georgia law requires DA Willis to produce a broad spectrum of evidence “no later than ten days prior to trial.” Ga. Code Ann. § 17-16-4. A Defendant’s request for speedy trial does not waive this obligation.

  Furthermore, the Defendants are not precluded from arguing they are entitled to evidence under Georgia law by the mere fact they requested a speedy trial. Those cases DA Willis cites in support of her position? They do not apply, they do not stand for the claim DA Willis says they do. The Smith case involved a criminal defendant that requested a continuance. The Ruff case had to do with a defendant rejecting a continuance offer from a trial court where the State did not disclose witnesses in a timely manner. Neither case precludes the ability of a defendant to object to late disclosure of evidence.

  Second, and DA Willis states “The Defendants cannot now argue that they are entitled to notice of the State’s similar transaction evidence ten (10) days in advance of trial. Brown v. State, 275 Ga. App. 281, 287 (2005)”.

  Again, this is false. Rule 31.1 requires DA Willis to provide notice of intent to present similar transactions to be “given and filed at least 10 days before trial unless the time is shortened or lengthened by the judge.”

  The Defendants did not waive that obligation to benefit DA Willis. It still exists, and it still binds DA Willis. The case DA Willis cites – Brown v. State – does not stand for the proposition that this requirement is waived by a request for a speedy trial. In fact, both the Brown case and Rule 31.1. contemplate the necessity of briefing and arguments where the 10 day notice is violated.

  Third, DA Willis alleges the request for a speedy trial precludes the Defendants “from calling any witnesses whose statements were not provided to the State at least ten (10) days in advance of trial. Clark v. State, 271 Ga. App. 534, 536 (2005).”

  Another falsehood. Georgia law allows for this 10 day witness statement requirement to be shortened or lengthened “as the court permits.” Ga. Code Ann. § 17-16-7. Whether witnesses are excluded for a violation of the notice rule is up to the Judge; there is no outright preclusion, as alleged by DA Willis.

  And again, the case DA Willis cites just doesn’t stand for what she says it does. Clark v. State involved a criminal defendant who violated that 10 day witness statement requirement. The trial judge in Clark gave the defendant the option of not calling the witness or the ability to continue his case to a later date so that the witness could testify. There is no outright prohibition from calling a witness where the statement was produced with less than 10 days for trial, as maintained by DA Willis.

  Fourth, Willis claims “The Defendants cannot now complain that they received less than seven (7) days notice of the trial date in this case. Linkous v. State, 254 Ga. App. 43, 47 (2002).”

  False. Rule 32.1 requires notice of a trial date “not less than 7 days before the trial date or dates.” This notice requirement, which falls on the Court, exists to protect the due process rights of a criminal defendant. (The surprise of a trial date means an attorney cannot effectively represent their client.) It does not go away where speedy trial demand.

  And as you might have guessed, the case cited by DA Willis does not stand for the proposition that a speedy trial demand means a criminal defendant waives the 7 day trial notice. The case cited by DA Willis is Linkous v. State, which concerns the remedies where there is a violation of Rule 32.1. It doesn’t excuse non-compliance with Rule 32.1.

  At a minimum, the motion from DA Willis was deserving of sanctions. The trial judge, however, denied the motion without full briefing from the Defendants. He wasn’t concerned with accountability.

  Finally, you might be curious about the purpose of the filing from DA Willis. Here’s our guess: DA Willis plans to violate her discovery obligations. She doesn’t want to take these cases to trial within the timeline the speedy trial demands afford. (Chesebro is set for trial on October 23, 2023.) Thus, she will violate her discovery and notice requirements, putting the Defendants in the tenuous position of either (1) proceeding to trial without adequate notice; or (2) having to continue the case to another date so that they may adequately prepare for trial.

  This is nothing more than dishonest gamesmanship, a violation of Georgia law and an affront to prosecutorial ethics. If DA Willis wants to punish false statements to a court, she should turn herself in.

  Read more from Techno Fog at The Reactionary

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 15:30

• Calls Grow For Staten Island To Secede From NYC As Illegal Immigrant Crisis Escalates
  Calls Grow For Staten Island To Secede From NYC As Illegal Immigrant Crisis Escalates

  Authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times,

  Growing safety concerns over the city’s bussing of illegal immigrants into the outer boroughs have intensified efforts from Staten Island to break away from the Big Apple.

  

  “The values of New York City are not in line with those of Staten Island and they haven’t been for a long time and that divide is only growing larger,” Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella told the Epoch Times.

  “There is this very real sense that the city won’t listen to our concerns and that we have reached a boiling point.”

  “The people feel like we are on a tugboat attached to the Titanic,” Fossella said.

  “The people can see that the city is sinking, and unless we are okay with sinking too, there is a need to separate.”

  

  Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella (at right, wearing black shirt and white pants) at a protest outside a Catholic school that was converted into a shelter for illegal immigrants on Aug. 29, 2023. (Courtesy of the Office of the Staten Island Borough President)

  Staten Island, long known as the forgotten borough, has often flirted with the idea of breaking off from the rest of the city. It has always been an outlier within the five boroughs, with a majority conservative Republican population that is often at odds with the rest of the city. Despite New York City’s status as a blue stronghold, the borough mostly voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. However, in recent years, many residents have reached a breaking point over increases in crime and, more recently, the bussing of illegal immigrants into residential neighborhoods, according to Mr. Fossella.

  “They dump these individuals into our neighborhoods and to my knowledge none of them have been vetted,” said Mr. Fossella.

  “One of these migrant shelters is located directly across the street from two elementary schools and they just expect the people to take it. Why would we want to take that risk?

  “The concern is legitimate. We are not as safe as we should be and the people are fed up.”

  Staten Island is facing the consequences of a growing surge of illegal immigrants into New York City, the only locality in the state considered to be a “Sanctuary City.” Where to put the influx of new illegal immigrants has become an issue of controversy and inter-party tensions.

  The city has long claimed a legal obligation to provide housing for every resident under the so-called “right to shelter” law, which was first established in 1981. The rule came into existence after advocates for the homeless claimed the right to shelter in a lawsuit. The city agreed with the homeless advocates, signing a “consent decree,” which pledged to provide shelter to anyone suffering “physical, mental, or social dysfunction.”

  City officials claim an estimated influx of 100,000 illegal immigrants has strained the city’s resources and services. Mayor Adams has insisted that New York City can’t sustain the numbers of new illegal immigrants, even by utilizing the outer boroughs, and has called on the rest of the state to help ease the burden.

  “Governor Hochul has been a partner on subway safety, on crime, on a host of things, but I think on this issue the governor is wrong,” Adams told students during an Aug. 22 appearance at New York Law School.

  “She’s the governor of the state of New York. New York City is in that state. Every county in this state should be part of this.”

  Governor Kathy Hochul has pushed back on sharing the burden, declaring during a speech last week that “we cannot and will not force other parts of our state to shelter migrants, nor are we going to be asking these migrants to move to other parts of the state against their will.”

  In preemptive motions, upstate county leaders have issued their own emergency orders to block Adams’s attempts to ship illegal immigrants into their communities. The Adams administration is challenging the legality of the emergency orders in court.

  Staten Island officials understand that as long they remain part of the city, the busloads of illegal immigrants entering the borough will continue unimpeded.

  “Almost no one here wants this, but there is nothing we can do,” said Mr. Fossella. “No one will listen.”

  The Staten Island battle for independence faces an uphill climb. Any chance of secession depends on the approval of both the New York City Council and the state Legislature. However, despite the long odds, a growing chorus of local officials are determined to keep fighting for the borough’s right to self-determination.

  At an Aug. 29 protest outside the former Catholic school where the city has set up a migrant shelter, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) called for Mr. Adams to allow the island to secede.

  “What we’re simply asking is, for common sense. We want the mayor to end this. Stop doing what you’re doing and listen. Secure the damn border. We do not have a border. We do not have a nation,” Ms. Malliotakis said during the protest, according to her office.

  “If you’re not going to do your job, mayor, then let Staten Island secede.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 14:30

• Hoax-Funding LinkedIn Founder Introduced Jeffrey Epstein To Trump's Inner Circle To Meet 'Top Russian Diplomat'
  Hoax-Funding LinkedIn Founder Introduced Jeffrey Epstein To Trump’s Inner Circle To Meet ‘Top Russian Diplomat’

  Was Jeffrey Epstein involved in a plot to tie the 2016 Trump campaign to Russia?

  A disturbing new report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman introduced Trump’s inner circle to Jeffrey Epstein, who then introduced them to a ‘top Russian diplomat.’

  

  As a reminder, Hoffman;

  • Bankrolled an online disinformation hoax against Roy Moore, conducted by a former Obama administration official – who also created the “Hamilton 68” propaganda website purporting to track Russian bots. Hoffman later apologized when caught.
  • Bankrolled Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll.
  • Gave $600,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm which prepared documents for the infamous ‘Trump Tower’ setup meeting with Don. Jr. and facilitated the Hillary Clinton-funded Steele Dossier.
  • Was a major Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2016 US election.

  According to the Journal, Hoffman emailed people in Trump’s orbit to introduce them to Epstein, who then invited one of them – Peter Thiel – to meet with Russia’s ambassador to the UN!

  In March 2014, fellow billionaire and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democrats, emailed Thiel to introduce Epstein and arrange a meeting at Thiel’s San Francisco home. 

  “Meet one of the guys who invented derivatives, Jeffrey Epstein?” Hoffman wrote, echoing an inaccurate claim Epstein sometimes made. Hoffman wrote that Epstein was “mostly fun, very interesting guy, you may find him perverse, but very smart on biology, computation, macro econ.” 

  Hoffman said he regrets all his interactions with Epstein and that he made the introduction to help fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  …

  Epstein scheduled lunches with venture capitalist Peter Thiel and real-estate investor Thomas Barrack in 2016, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. At the time, both were high-profile financial backers of Trump’s campaign. 

  Epstein invited Thiel and Barrack to separate meetings with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Churkin, who died of an apparent heart attack in early 2017, had at least eight meetings scheduled with Epstein between 2015 and Churkin’s death, the documents show. -WSJ

  So, Epstein – pal to the Democrats and a prolific pedophile, had extensive dealings with a Russian diplomat that he tried to connect with Trump’s inner circle?

  The report also notes that “The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, don’t make reference to any meetings or conversations between Trump and Epstein,” and “don’t specify Epstein’s purpose in scheduling meetings with Trump’s associates or the Russian ambassador.”

  Notably, these Epstein-Russia meetings happened when the Russiagate hoax was in full swing with the FBI’s involvement.

  Yet, according to Thiel, the October 2016 meeting with Epstein and Churkin featured “nothing memorable.”

  

  “I was rather naive,” Thiel told the outlet, “and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been.”

  Meanwhile, a Trump campaign spokesman said: “None of these people were Trump campaign officials, and in fact President Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.“

  As the Journal further notes:

  Epstein met with and donated to Democrats more often than Republicans, according to the documents and campaign donation records. The Journal has reported that his schedules included meeting several people who had served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his townhouse, Epstein hung a painting that depicted Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels. 

  In 2019, a spokesman for Bill Clinton said the former president had cut off ties more than a decade before and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The spokesman said then that Bill Clinton took four flights on Epstein’s plane and once visited the townhouse, each time with his Secret Service team and for reasons related to the Clinton Foundation’s work. The spokesman declined to comment for this article.

  Public records show Epstein donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 campaign for the Senate, and tax records indicate he donated $25,000 in 2006 to what is now the Clinton family’s global philanthropic foundation. A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment.

  After his conviction, Epstein maintained connections with some former members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, including Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury secretary, and Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary. He also met with Clinton alumni leaving the Obama administration, including Ruemmler and the current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns.

  Which begs the question, was Epstein just another prong in the Democrats’ attempts to tie Trump to Russia in 2016?

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 14:00

• US, Israel To Conduct Joint Drills Simulating Attacks On Iran
  US, Israel To Conduct Joint Drills Simulating Attacks On Iran

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The US and Israel will simulate striking Iranian nuclear facilities as part of a series of joint military exercises that will be held in the coming months, The Times of Israel reported Wednesday, citing Israeli TV.

  Back in January, the US and Israel conducted the Juniper Oak exercises, which were the largest-ever joint drills between the two nations. The Israeli military said Juniper Oak was just the first of a series of drills that the US and Israel will hold this year.

  

  Israel’s Channel 12 reported one of the upcoming drills would simulate Israel facing a multi-front missile attack that will involve the US deployment of Patriot missile systems. Another drill will rehearse a joint US-Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

  The plan to simulate attacks on Iran has not been publicly confirmed by the US or Israel, but the two nations have previously rehearsed bombing Iran, including during drills that were held over the Mediterranean Sea in November 2022.

  While nuclear facilities would be the target in the simulated drills, there’s no sign Iran is looking to build a nuclear weapon, which was affirmed by a recent US intelligence report.

  Often missing from the conversation about Iran’s civilian nuclear program is the fact that Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program and an arsenal of nukes that the US does not acknowledge exists.

  The report comes amid heightened tensions between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf. The US seizure of a tanker carrying Iranian oil in April provoked two Iranian tanker seizures, and the US responded by beefing up its military presence in the region.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 09/02/2023 – 13:30