Apr 19

Today’s News 19th April 2024

  • Illegal UK Immigrant Who Protested With Sign Saying "Migrants Are Not Criminals" Pleads Guilty To Rape Of 15-Year-Old Girl
    Illegal UK Immigrant Who Protested With Sign Saying “Migrants Are Not Criminals” Pleads Guilty To Rape Of 15-Year-Old Girl

    Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

    A Congolese migrant who had his deportation from the U.K. blocked by an airline’s cabin crew and previously campaigned outside a detention center with a sign that read, “Migrants are not criminals,” has pleaded guilty to raping a 15-year-old girl.

    Anicet Mayela entered his guilty plea at Oxford Crown Court last Friday for one count of rape of a former economics student.

    The court heard how there was a high level of “dangerousness” surrounding the attack, which is understood to have taken place between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31 last year.

    The Congolese national had been living in Britain since 2004 when he paid smugglers to help him escape his country of origin where he claimed he was being persecuted.

    Several attempts by the U.K. Home Office to deport him were thwarted by feigned injuries and legal challenges, including an incident back in May 2005 when a planned deportation flight was prevented from taking off by Air France cabin crew who claimed public officials had broken Mayela’s hand after handcuffing him.

    With the aid of left-wing charities, including the Institute of Race Relations, and immigration lawyers, the Congolese national won leave to remain in Britain later that year after successfully arguing a return to his homeland would be a violation of his human rights.

    Mayela used the opportunity to actively campaign against the deportation of illegal migrants, participating in a demonstration near his detention center in Oxford where he spoke to the BBC and hung a sign around his neck that read, “Migrants are not criminals.”

    “I am here to support my friends. I have been inside here, and at Colnbrook,” he told the U.K.’s public broadcaster from outside the detention center.

    On Friday, Mayela was ordered to remain in custody while a pre-sentencing report was prepared.

    He is scheduled to return for sentencing on May 10.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 02:45

  • BRICS – The Project Of The Century
    BRICS – The Project Of The Century

    Authored by Peter Hanseler via VoiceOfRussia.com,

    The Western media are prioritizing the Ukraine conflict, the green revolution and the woke revolution. In the shadow of this media coverage, BRICS is changing the world.

    We bring you the latest figures and place them in the current geopolitical environment. – An analysis.

     

    Introduction

    One of the main topics of this blog is BRICS. We have written numerous articles, followed and analyzed the development of this organization. Significantly, the first independent post on this blog was dedicated to BRICS on November 18, 2022 “The unstoppable rise of the East“.

    Our last dedicated BRICS-only article from 24 September 2023 “BRICS will change the world – slowly” gave an overview of the development and summarized the results of the BRICS summit in South Africa in August 2023. This article was published by ZeroHedge, the GloomBoomDoom report by Dr. Marc Faber and Weltwoche (print and online).

    From the density of our coverage, it is clear that we ascribe paramount importance to BRICS for the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world. Based on the facts, we have come to the conclusion that BRICS will change the world more than all other developments of the last 100 years put together. The developments around BRICS have already triggered a tectonic shift in the geopolitical balance of power; the Ukraine conflict and the accelerating crisis in the Middle East are merely pieces of the mosaic by comparison.

    The Western media are setting their priorities differently and focusing on topics that we believe are of lesser importance: Mortal enemy Russia, wokeness and green ideology.

    Reporting on BRICS in the West, if it takes place at all, is limited to portraying BRICS either as an instrument of China to achieve world power – as the Financial Times put it,

    «How the BRICS nations risk becoming satellites of China»

    FINANCIAL TIMES – 26 JULY 2023

    or to trivialize the success of BRICS – according to the NZZ,

    “We explain in the video why this extension only promises limited success.”

    NZZ, 14 DECEMBER 2023

    Preliminary remarks on the figures

    We proceed as we always do and develop a fact-based foundation for a discussion.

    Membership doubled as of January 1

    Since January 1, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia have joined the existing members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as new members.

    Argentina not participating

    In August 2023, Argentina was invited to become the sixth member. However, the new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, decided not to accept this invitation and to rely on the USA and Donald Trump to rescue his economy.

    It is impossible to judge at this point whether this decision will prove to be the right one. For the second largest country in South America, which was once one of the richest countries in the world, it is to be hoped that Milei can pull the cart out of the deep mire. Milei is fighting against the establishment in Argentina, which has driven the country economically to the wall. These former rulers are serious opponents who are fighting for sinecures that Milei must wrest from them if he wants to save Argentina. We hope that Javier Milei can prevail and wish him every success and good luck. The first signs of success appear to be emerging: The country was able to report a positive budget for the first time last month. It seems to be heading in the right direction.

    Saudi Arabia

    According to Western media reports, Saudi Arabia is not yet fully on board. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor is reported to have told Reuters that “Saudi Arabia has not yet responded to the invitation to join BRICS. It is still being considered”.

    Saudi Arabia, or rather the ruling Saud family, has been an ally of the USA since the end of the Second World War, and this relationship has been further strengthened since the agreement of the ” Petrodollar” in 1974.

    Since President Biden has been in power, the relationship with the USA has suffered massively, while at the same time cooperation with China and Russia has strengthened to an unprecedented level.

    The problem that Saudi Arabia now has is the gigantic investments that the state and private individuals have made, particularly in the USA and the UK. Government investments in the USA alone amount to over USD 35 billion and investments in the UK are said to be around USD 75 billion. Due to the geopolitical situation in the world and the West’s aggressive sanctions policy, the concerns of Saudi Arabia that these investments could be confiscated in the event of a BRICS accession are definitely justified. As Saudi Arabia is important to BRICS and China has overtaken the US as Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner, we expect Saudi Arabia to join BRICS as soon as China might make commitments to the Saudis in the event of Western expropriation.

    BRICS-10 in numbers

    Map

    Dark green BRICS until August 2023 – light green – the new BRICS members – Source: VoicefromRussia

    Numbers

    In our figures, we compare the BRICS-10 with the G7 and the world as a whole to give you a feel for the ratios. The parameters we use are population, GDP (adjusted for purchasing power), oil production, gas production and gold production.

    We show the gross national product adjusted for purchasing power. If you use the US dollar as a measure of GDP, the economic power of a country is distorted: if you want to measure financial strength realistically, it makes a big difference whether, for example, a Big Mac in US dollars costs twice as much in one place as elsewhere. The so-called Big Mac Index is reason enough to use purchasing power-adjusted figures when comparing GDP figures. The reason why Western media use the unadjusted figures is pure marketing to disguise the devaluation of the US dollar and make it appear stronger than it is.

    Charts

    Graphical representation of the figures – Source: VoicefromRussia.

    Interim result

    All factors show that the BRICS 10 far outstrip the G7 and it seems incomprehensible that the West is simply suppressing this fact. A look beneath the surface reveals facts that reinforce the impression of the bare figures.

    Assessment of these figures

    Oil production

    The following additional facts should be taken into consideration when evaluating the oil production figures:

    Firstly, although the USA is still the largest oil producer in the world, accounting for around 18% of global production, it also consumes the most oil, with a share of over 20%. This means that the USA is currently not even able to cover its own consumption. This fact alone is a compelling reason for the US to pressure Saudi Arabia not to join BRICS.

    Secondly, the major oil-producing members of BRICS have a great deal of influence or even control over OPEC. As BRICS thus also controls OPEC and therefore controls the price and distribution of a large proportion of oil, BRICS can be said to have an (indirect) monopoly position.

    Thirdly, the production costs for US oil are around 2.5 times higher than the production costs for Saudi oil.

    These factors therefore further strengthen the BRICS’ position of power with regard to oil.

    Natural gas

    With regard to natural gas, it should be noted that with Iran’s accession to BRICS, the two largest natural gas producers in the world are joint members of BRICS: Russia and Iran.

    The largest non-BRICS gas producer is Qatar, which is (still) allied with the USA. BRICS is therefore also a real center of power when it comes to natural gas.

    Gold

    With regard to gold, it should be briefly mentioned that China and Russia are number 1 and 2 in global gold production respectively. I mention gold here because there is a good chance that gold will again play an important role in future monetary systems at some point – more on this below.

    Russia holds the BRICS chairmanship in 2024

    Over 220 BRICS conferences will be held in Russia over the course of 2024. The topics are diverse: science, high technology, healthcare, environmental protection, culture, sport, youth exchange and civil society.

    President Putin’s statements at the beginning of the year at the opening event of BRICS 2024 in Moscow were interesting. He mentioned several times the closer cooperation between the members on security issues. It seems that BRICS will therefore not only focus on economic aspects, but also on security-related aspects more and more. The apparent coordination of the BRICS states in connection with the Middle East conflict at the UN in New York clearly indicates close cooperation on non-economic issues.

    Various non-official sources have reported that the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) is moving closer to BRICS and may even merge with it. In addition to China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Iran has also been a member of the SCO since July 2023.

    This is extremely important due to the heightened geopolitical tensions and the two major conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. If these two organizations were to merge, there would be a new counterweight to NATO. NATO is already increasingly being characterized by experts as a mere chattering club, particularly due to its performance in the Ukraine conflict, which was not a success. As a result, NATO has almost lost its threatening potential. If the BRICS-SCO merger becomes a reality, NATO would finally degenerate into an empty shell.

    Formal applications for admission – BRICS+

    Candidates

    Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam and Belarus have formally applied for membership.

    Green: BRICS 10 (light green Saudi Arabia) – Yellow: formal membership applications

    Figures

    Charts

    Assessment

    It should be noted in this list that the formal applicants will probably not all be admitted in 2024. This illustration shows the maximum and the broad formal interest in this organization. The applications for admission from some countries harbor great potential for conflict with the USA.

    In my opinion, the greatest potential for conflict from an American perspective is the possible accession of Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela. Mexico’s membership would be seen by the USA in the same way as the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 – “enemy on the doorstep of the USA”. This is probably also the reason why it was reported on March 3 that Mexico had not submitted a formal application for membership. Fear is breathing down the necks of the Mexicans and the USA is exerting pressure in the background.

    In Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, the US has been trying for years to overthrow President Maduro and install a puppet.
    Last August, it was not enough to gain admission and the USA will do everything in its power to prevent this oil giant from joining. However, the USA has a losing hand with the Venezuelan population, as it is imposing sanctions on the beleaguered country to bring about a collapse and accepting that the Venezuelan people are suffering from hunger.

    The list of formal applications for admission could therefore change considerably between now and October, when the decisions on who will be invited to Kazan are made. What is certain, however, is that the G7 – especially the United States – is devoting huge energies to slowing down the development of BRICS. In my opinion, however, this organization is already too powerful to be weakened by the West.

    BRICS turns its back on the US dollar

    The petrodollar – US dollar as a reserve currency

    The greatest danger of this ever stronger community is to the USA. We have discussed many times that the Petrodollar is the real foundation of American supremacy and not the American armed forces.

    It is of existential importance for the USA that international trade, especially commodity trade, is conducted in US dollars. We explain why.

    The US dollar as a global trading currency means that practically all countries have to hold US dollars in reserve in order to be able to settle their trade invoices. This makes the US dollar a reserve currency.

    However, central banks do not hold the US dollar in cash, but in US government securities in order to earn interest. This makes the world’s central banks the biggest buyers of US government securities, regardless of whether they think they are a good investment. As a result, the US can refinance its debt on terms that are not based on the strength of the US economy, but on these systemic purchases. French President Giscard d’Estaing rightly described the petrodollar in the 1970s as an “exorbitant privilege”, as it leads to the automatic refinancing of the USA.

    Abuse of this exorbitant privilege

    However, the USA has been abusing this privilege for decades. Whenever a country implements something that the US does not like, it is cut off from the US dollar. The US can implement this without any problems, as all US dollar transactions go through the US. The consequences for the country concerned are catastrophic, as it is effectively banned from the commodities trade.

    Theft of Russian central bank reserves

    However, by blocking the foreign currency reserves of the Russian central bank in March 2023, the US has overstepped the mark, because now the entire Global South is afraid to hold US dollars, as they may suffer the same fate. Although every legal expert declares that the freeze was already carried out without an international legal basis, the West is about to go one step further and prepare the confiscation. This is the unequivocal statement made by Janet Yellen on February 27:

    “I also believe it is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction.”

    JANET YELLEN AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE BEFORE THE G20 ON FEBRUARY 27, 2024

     

    The EU under Ms. von der Leyen and even exponents in Switzerland are preparing to put this planned raid into practice and thus not only continue to block these funds, but to steal them.

    De-dollarization is already here

    Until 2022, Russia conducted 80% of its trade in USD and EUR, 50% in US dollars. Today it is only 13%.

    In the same period, Russia’s trade activity in roubles and yuan rose from 3% to 34% for both currencies.

    These figures are clearly the result of the sanctions against Russia. However, it is a declared goal of all BRICS countries to no longer trade with each other in US dollars, but in the respective local currencies.

    If you look at the current size of BRICS – 36% of global GDP – this will herald a tectonic development away from the US dollar; if you add the formal applicants, this figure rises to 42% of global GDP.

    According to Bloomberg, the use of the US dollar as a reserve currency is collapsing.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Consequences for the US

    De-dollarization poses an existential threat to the USA, as it will result in the loss of buyers of US government bonds and thus the USA’s ability to refinance its highly deficit-ridden national budget. As US government bonds are a product like any other, whose price is determined by supply and demand, a collapse in demand also leads to a collapse in the price of US government bonds. As the interest rate on bonds moves inversely to the price, the interest rate on bonds and therefore inflation will rise.

    Debt in the USA is currently accelerating at an unprecedented rate. Debt currently amounts to over USD 34 trillion. It will soon take just one month to accumulate the next trillion in debt – apocalyptic. When President Reagan was in power, the total US debt amounted to less than one trillion. It therefore took just under 200 years to build up the first trillion in debt; soon this amount of debt will be a reality within a month.

    One of the reasons for this is that the USA will already have to pay one trillion US dollars (1,000,000,000,000) in interest payments on its own debt this year alone. This is more than the USA spends on its entire military expenditure, which is gigantic in itself, as the USA spends more money on its military than the next 13 countries combined.

    Source: Wikipedia

    If the willingness of the countries of the Global South, and in particular the BRICS members, to buy decreases, the USA will sooner or later find itself in an existentially dangerous situation.

    BRICS’ own currency

    Trading currency

    There is a lot of talk about a new currency that would serve as a payment and financing instrument for the BRICS. There were voices – including James Rickards – who were convinced last August that a BRICS single currency would be created as early as 2023. We were skeptical about this timing and took the view that it would take longer, and we were right. However, this does not mean that James Rickards was wrong, he was just a little early.

    We have seen above that the BRICS countries are in fact hardly using the US dollar among themselves any more, instead using their local currencies.

    Use of local currencies

    The consequence of this is that the BRICS members accumulate currencies of their trading partners over the course of a trading year if they sell more goods than they buy. Example: Russia and India use Roubles and Rupees in their trade. Since Russia sells more to India (especially raw materials) than India sells to Russia, the Russians are sitting on large amounts of Rupees at the end of the year. This problem arises regularly throughout the BRICS region among the various members in bilateral trade when deficits or surpluses build up.

    Settlement with gold

    I believe that the bilateral use of national currencies will continue for the time being, but that the first step will be to look for a mechanism to balance these surpluses or deficits at the end of a trading year.

    Gold is an obvious choice here, not gold calculated in US dollars, Rupees or Roubles, but gold in units of weight. The trade differences at the end of a year or month would be settled in gold (kg or tons). Whether in this case the gold is actually physically delivered or merely recorded in a ledger depends on the trust between the parties. I also assume that in such a case, gold warehouses would be opened in various locations in the BRICS region, where the member countries would store their gold and their holdings would be confirmed by a BRICS auditing company.

    A final issue would then be to determine the exchange rate of the local currencies. This seems to be one of the major sticking points so far.

    Indications that the trend is towards gold

    Evidence always comes from the facts. The world produces around 3,000 tons of gold per year.

    According to the World Gold Council, central banks have been net buyers of gold since 2010 and the trend in gold purchases has increased steadily in recent years.

    The Chinese bought the most gold (225 tons).

    Caution is advised with regard to the official reported gold reserves.

    It is very possible – and in my opinion probable – that the gold reserves of China and Russia are much larger than officially reported.

    It is clear that central banks are buying more gold than they have since the 1960s. This is an indication that they are not only arming themselves against inflation, but also for the settlement of commodities.

    It will be interesting to see what exactly will happen this year, but I assume that at the next BRICS summit, which will take place in Kazan in October, announcements will be made that will surprise the West. In addition to new members, I believe that a trade clearing system as described above or even more is within the realm of possibility.

    Future of BRICS – many new members

    Preliminary remarks

    Looking to the future, BRICS has the potential to unite many countries of the Global South and completely eclipse the Collective West.

    We have compiled the data of those countries that are interested in joining. This is for the future, but in times of geopolitical tensions and military conflicts, history teaches us that a lot can happen in a short time, especially after decades, without major changes. For this reason, we are merely providing a framework below and are not making any predictions regarding the timeline, but rather letting the figures speak for themselves and refraining from commenting at this stage.

    Map

    Green: BRICS 10 – Yellow: formal requests for membership – Blue: countries that show interest

    Numbers

    Charts

    Conclusion

    After BRICS became BRICS-10 last August by doubling its membership and thus far outstripping the previous economic colossus G7, the current year is set to continue in giant strides. The gap to the G7 will definitely widen further at the BRICS summit in Kazan. It is still uncertain which of the formal applicants will actually be invited and thus become new members on January 1, 2025.

    In my opinion, however, one thing is already a fact: the hegemony of the USA will come to an end as a result of de-dollarization. The combination of astronomical debts, rampant new borrowing and the fact that more and more countries in the Global South are turning away from the US dollar is accelerating the demise of the hegemon that ascended to the throne in 1945 and is increasingly harming itself through its aggressive geopolitics.

    No world power has ever left voluntarily and peacefully. The aggressive stance of the USA towards Russia and China and its adherence to the alliance with Israel are de facto proof of the aggressive behavior of the sick hegemon.

    This attitude could lead to a war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine, where a local conflict is still taking place, all the more so as the Americans have so far been on the way to inciting France, Great Britain and Germany to wage war against the giant empire.

    In the Middle East, the attitude is downright perverse. In order not to alienate the Jewish lobbies in the USA, which traditionally have a major influence on presidential elections, the USA is supporting a genocide that has been clearly designated as such by the International Court of Justice. In addition to purely electoral considerations in the USA, the USA also supports Israel in order not to lose its last power base in the Middle East. These two ends obviously justify the means – and the means is genocide. The Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon has already begun and so there is ever less in the way of a burning Middle East.

    Finally, they are also trying to provoke a conflict over Taiwan – a conflict that would be fought between Chinese and would therefore be a civil war. China’s intention to reach a diplomatic agreement with Taiwan in the next 20 to 30 years – that was the plan – is in jeopardy due to Washington’s aggressive stance.

    The behavior of the US is unfortunately typical – the downfall is predetermined, the facts and figures in this article prove it. Whether the smouldering fires already blazing in American society will bring about a change and whether they will be aggressive or more balanced cannot yet be guessed. We will have to wait for the presidential elections in the USA, but a lot can still happen between now and November.

    For a geopolitician, the world could hardly be more exciting – but for humanity, a little less tension and pressure would be a blessing. After all, people under pressure, especially politicians, have a tendency to make big mistakes.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 04/19/2024 – 02:00

  • N.Y. Gives Trump The Anne Boleyn Treatment
    N.Y. Gives Trump The Anne Boleyn Treatment

    Authored by Richard Porter via RealClear Politics,

    Jury selection is underway now complete in the case of The People of the State of New York vs. Donald J. Trump, which alleges that the defendant lied to his own check register, and lied to the general ledger of his own company, when the invoice given to him by his lawyer was paid and recorded by someone else, and that the misstatement he made to himself in his own records was done “with the intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof.”

    It is often noted that this is the first time that a former U.S. president is being tried for a crime, although Ulysses S. Grant may (or may not) have been cited for speeding in his carriage. The federal government chose not to prosecute Bill Clinton, who lied under oath during a sexual harassment lawsuit and then dissembled again about sex before a grand jury. Clinton lost his law license, settled the case on unfavorable terms, and was sanctioned by both federal and Arkansas state courts.

    So, this is a first. And let’s be honest about who is doing what to whom and why.

    The prosecutor elected in New York County of New York state indicted Trump, after Trump announced his 2024 run for president, for allegedly violating New York Penal Laws 175.05 and 175.10 seven years ago.

    That local prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, is a member of the Democratic Party – and the voters who elected Bragg and from whom the jury will be chosen support the Democratic Party. In 2016, the people of New York County voted 87% for Hillary Clinton and 10% for Donald Trump, and in 2020, 87% for Joe Biden and 12% for Donald Trump. In other words, the jury pool is chosen from one of the most partisan jurisdictions in the country – a place where almost all the judges are Democrats as well.

    So the Democratic prosecutor elected in the second most Democratic county in the United States will try the former Republican president and current putative Republican Party presidential nominee before a Democrat-appointed judge and a jury drawn from a pool 87% of whom voted against him (and who are being asked if they watch Fox News or listen to talk radio in the screening process).

    One wonders if the law even matters. But let’s review the two statutes at issue to highlight what the law requires the prosecution to prove. First, the prosecutor must prove that Trump violated the relevant statute, which requires a finding that he falsified business records with intent to defraud – that he “makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.”

    By the way, falsifying business records in the second degree is a misdemeanor, not a felony. Moreover, New York’s statute of limitations requires that misdemeanor prosecutions be commenced within two years of the commission of the act, meaning that under the last provision, this case should never have been filed.

    Bragg elevated this misdemeanor into a felony by including New York  Penal Law 175.10 in the indictment – falsifying business records in the first degree. That statute reads this way:

    “A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

    There are other obvious difficulties with this case beyond the credibility of the witnesses (a porn star who denied any affair numerous times and a disbarred lawyer convicted of perjury).

    For example, why does the entry in the check register or the general ledger matter at all? When would those entries, as opposed to the allegedly false invoices, be shown to anyone for any nefarious purpose? And were the entries even false? Was there any intent to fool someone to obtain something in making the entries – who was the target of the allegedly false entry in private books and records? If there’s no mark, no victim, then how could there be an “intent to defraud”? Defraud whom? And what is the other crime that the person making the book entry intended to commit or hide? If the other crime is not a New York crime but a federal crime, does every county prosecutor in the United States, including Alvin Bragg, have the jurisdiction to enforce an alleged federal crime indirectly through a state crime?

    We shall see.

    The political nature of this trial is obvious, and unprecedented in the United States. Even with irrefutable DNA evidence that Bill Clinton committed perjury, the special prosecutor declined to press criminal charges against him. In America’s recent past, prosecutors tended to exhibit a modicum of restraint. Those days are apparently gone.

    I reviewed an interesting law review article of political show trials down through history, from the trial of Socrates in Athens to the famous show trials in the 1930s Stalinist Soviet Union, curious to see if I could find historical precedent for this trial.

    The closest precedent is probably Anne Boleyn’s trial for adultery in 1536. It was about sex, the trial was in a hostile jurisdiction controlled by her accuser, and the whole point of the exercise was to lop off the head of someone who stood in the way of the regime’s continuity. But that’s what Democrats have lusted for since Donald Trump first arrived on the scene, isn’t it? They made no secret of it.

    Richard Porter is a lawyer in Chicago and National Committeeman to the RNC from Illinois.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 23:40

  • FBI Repatriates Revolutionary War-Era Firearms At Philadelphia's Museum Of The American Revolution
    FBI Repatriates Revolutionary War-Era Firearms At Philadelphia’s Museum Of The American Revolution

    The FBI announced the return of several Revolutionary War-era firearms during a repatriation ceremony at Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution last week, according to CBS.

    These guns, stolen in the 1960s and 1970s from around Valley Forge Park, were recovered following a lengthy investigation involving the FBI’s Art Crime Team, the Department of Justice, and the Upper Merion Township Police Department. The agency is now seeking public assistance to locate more missing artifacts.

    Special Agent Jake Archer, a member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team said: “We were all committed to seeing justice — not just bringing the objects back home, but seeking a proper prosecution of those who perpetrated these crimes.”

    CBS reported that in 2009, an investigation was triggered when a tipster informed Upper Merion Township police about a gun, suspected of being stolen, seen at a local antique show. Although it turned out not to belong to the Valley Forge collection, this tip led detectives to probe the thefts more deeply.

    They collaborated with the Museum of the American Revolution, which now holds the collections previously managed by the dissolved Valley Forge Historical Society, and obtained a list of missing items.

    As the investigation unfolded, Michael Corbett, Scott Corbett, and Thomas Gavin admitted to stealing items from Valley Forge Park and the Valley Forge Historical Society, according to the FBI. They assisted investigators in locating some of the stolen artifacts.

    The collaborative effort expanded to include the FBI’s Art Crime Team, and together, they pursued leads on the thieves and the artifacts. Currently, the search continues for ten items: four firearms stolen on October 24, 1968, from Valley Forge and six other items taken from different locations.

    The museum is actively working to refine the descriptions of the missing objects to include more distinctive details that may jog public memory, hoping that some artifacts might have been inherited unknowingly by individuals. The FBI and other involved agencies are still seeking public assistance to recover these pieces.

    Scott Stephenson, president and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution, concluded: “The fact is, the vast majority of people want to do the right thing.”

    You can see photos and descriptions of the missing items on the FBI website.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 23:10

  • "This Is Too Stupid For It Not To Be The Plan" Holter Hammers Globalist Agenda 'Driving America Into A Brick Wall'
    “This Is Too Stupid For It Not To Be The Plan” Holter Hammers Globalist Agenda ‘Driving America Into A Brick Wall’

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Back in February, when everyone was predicting a Fed rate cut, precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter said rates would be going up and not down.  Since that call, the 10-Year Treasury is up more than 30 basis points.  It closed today at 4.67%.  Now, Holter is still calling for higher interest rates that will coincide with higher gold and silver prices. 

    Why?  It’s called inflation, and it’s not temporary. 

    Holter explains, “Foreigners are backing away from buying Treasuries…”

    “That is the only thing that has kept the doors open, so to speak, is the fact we are able to borrow an unlimited amount of money because we are the world reserve currency. 

    Foreigners backing away from our debt is going to lead the Federal Reserve to be the buyer of last, and then, only resort.  So, you will have direct monetization between the Fed and the Treasury. 

    What that will cause is a currency that declines in purchasing power.  It will decline in a big way, and it will decline rapidly. 

    So, what I am describing is inflation that turns into hyperinflation.”

    But that is not the end of our problems.  Holter points out, “I do think it is going to get worse, and that means interest rates will go higher, and that will put on much more pressure…”

    ”  We are at 4.65% on the 10-Year Treasury now.  We went from 3.75% to 4.65% (in a short amount of time).  We run through 5% on the 10-year Treasury, and everything blows up. . . . The bottom line here is we are at the end game of a fiat currency.  Young people have never experienced high inflation. . . . Where we are this time around, Paul Volker (Fed Head in 1979) was able to raise rates to 16% or 17% and crush inflation.  He was able to do that because there was not a ton of debt.  The U.S. debt back in 1980 was 35% of GDP.  Now, it is 125% plus debt to GDP.  If you raise rates to 6% to 8%, you will blow up the entire system because much of this debt was put on during the 1% to 3% interest rate time. . . . The inflation is going to push rates higher no matter what the Fed says.”

    Gold is hitting one new record high after another.  It’s not greed, but fear, and Holter says:

    “Big money is buying gold because they are looking for protection.”  

    The other wild card is war, and Holter says, “War is a way to keep the system propped up.”

    In closing, Holter contends, what you are seeing is not a series of mistakes by incompetent people.  Holter says,

    “This is too stupid for it not to be the plan. . . .This is not a Republican or Democrat thing.  We are being steered directly into a brick wall because the globalists can’t take over the world with the US standing. 

    They have to take the US down, and if they take the US down, so will the western financial system fall.  If that happens, the globalists can have their way.”

    Bill also added that according to his former business partner, Jim Sinclair (who died in October of 2023) said at some point gold will start a rally that you never sell. 

    Holter thinks the rally in gold and silver going on now is the rally Sinclair was talking about years ago.

    There is much more in the 46-minute interview.

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter for 4.16.24.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here.

    Bill Holter’s new website is still growing, and it is totally free.  It’s called BillHolter.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 22:40

  • Moar Power: White House Considers Invoking "Unprecedented" Climate Emergency
    Moar Power: White House Considers Invoking “Unprecedented” Climate Emergency

    How best to grab power when there’s no convenient emergency to use as excuse? Invent one!

    That’s right: if you had ‘climate emergency’ on your ‘list of disasters to prompt mail-in balloting’ bingo card, you may soon be able to cross that square off. That’s because the Biden administration is reportedly renewing discussions “about potentially declaring a national climate emergency,” according to Bloomberg. 

    Such an “unprecedented” declaration could “unlock federal powers to stifle oil development”, among other things, the report says. 

    Bloomberg reports, according to sources who requested anonymity as a final decision has not been reached, top advisers to President Joe Biden are reconsidering the possibility of declaring the emergency.

    This action could lead to restrictions on crude exports, a suspension of offshore drilling, and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sources say.

    Within the White House, opinions are split on this issue. Some advisers believe that declaring a climate emergency wouldn’t grant Biden sufficient new powers to enact significant changes. Others, however, contend that it could energize voters who prioritize climate issues.

    “President Biden has treated the climate crisis as an emergency since day one and will continue to build a clean energy future that lowers utility bills, creates good-paying union jobs, makes our economy the envy of the world and prioritizes communities that for too long have been left behind,” said White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez.

    Historically, U.S. presidents, including former President Donald Trump, have declared national emergencies for various reasons. A climate emergency declaration would be unprecedented and likely face legal challenges.

    The Biden administration considered this in 2022 amidst a deadlock on clean-energy legislation, but shelved the idea after the Inflation Reduction Act passed. Last year, President Biden said he had effectively used his authority for climate action by imposing conservation and clean-energy measures, and this year he halted new natural gas export licenses.

    Environmental groups, however, are pushing for more aggressive actions. Emergency declarations could allow the president to halt crude exports, suspend offshore drilling, and restrict oil and gas transportation.

    Youth environmental organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Fridays For Future USA, and the Campus Climate Network are planning Earth Day protests to demand that Biden declare a national climate emergency.

    Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Sunrise Movement’s executive director, said Biden must “use every tool at his disposal to tackle the climate crisis and prepare our communities to weather the storm” of “another summer of floods, fires, hurricanes and extreme heat”. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 22:10

  • Conservatives Call For House Hearing On Google Gemini Ahead Of 2024 Election
    Conservatives Call For House Hearing On Google Gemini Ahead Of 2024 Election

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    Conservative activists have been calling for the House GOP to hold congressional hearings regarding the threat of Google Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) program, and its left-wing biases ahead of the 2024 election.

    As reported by Just The News, a letter signed by multiple conservative groups was sent to Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, this week demanding that Congress take action to investigate possible collusion between Big Tech platforms such as Google and the Biden White House.

    “With President Trump the decisive favorite to win in November, it’s clear that Big Tech giants will try to pull the same tricks as last time to throw the election to the Democrats,” the letter reads in part.

    “Unfortunately, as tech giants ramp up their crusade against Trump ahead of the 2024 election, 15 new technologies like generative AI will give them even more powerful tools to boost Democrats’ electoral prospects than four years prior,” the letter continues.

    “[I]t’s more important than ever for Republicans in Congress to scrutinize Google’s monopolistic AI efforts, particularly given the threat it could pose to election integrity in 2024 and beyond.”

    The letter was signed by the leaders of six conservative groups: The New York Young Republican Club, the Bull Moose Project, the American Principles Project, Citizens for Renewing America, American Accountability Foundation Action, and the National Constitutional Law Union.

    Jordan has previously ordered Big Tech companies to hand over documents regarding their communication with the Biden Administration, as well as any influence the White House may have had over Google’s development of Gemini.

    In addition, the Biden Administration has been hit with multiple lawsuits over its efforts to coerce social media companies into censoring conservative viewpoints, particularly regarding the Chinese Coronavirus and widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 21:40

  • Markets Dump Then Rebound As Israel Retaliates To Iran In Oddly Toothless, Performative Response
    Markets Dump Then Rebound As Israel Retaliates To Iran In Oddly Toothless, Performative Response

    SUMMARY: 

    • Iran says its nuclear facilities remain unharmed: Reuters
    • Situation in Iran’s Isfahan is normal, no explosion taken place on ground: PressTV
    • CNN: Two US oficials say Israel indicated they would not attack nuclear targets. US didn’t “green light” this attack.
    • Unconfirmed: IRGC states that Iran will target Israeli nuclear sites with counterattack.
    • Iran Space Agency: “all that happened is a failed and humiliating attempt by Israel aviation” – via Sky News
    • Iranian officials and outlets are claiming that all explosions heard tonight are due to interceptions and that no explosions have occurred “on the ground”
    • Bloomberg: Israeli officials notified the US earlier today they planned to retaliate in the next 24-48 hours.
    • Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) tells passengers that all flights have been canceled and they should exit the airport.
    • Fox News: Israeli strikes in Iran came from unmanned aircraft
    • US claims IDF attacks in Iran were limited.
    • Three large explosions heard in Isfahan south of Tehran, US officials confirm.
    • The Natanz nuclear facility is located in Isfahan.
    • Unconfirmed simultaneous explosions have also been reported in Syria and Iraq (Baghdad and Babil/Babylon province).
    • Iran has established a no-fly-zone over its western region.
    • Market reaction: initial panic selling, but gradually as it becomes clear that this is just a token “scripted” response to the token “scripted” initial attack by Iran – which achieved absolutely nothing – markets are rebounding.

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    Israel – having once again ignored Biden’s pleadings not to escalate the already tense situation – is retaliating against Iran’s weekend strike, which was itself a retaliation against Israel bombing Iran’s embassy in Syria on April 1.

    Moments ago futures dumped, oil prices spiked, and treasury yields slumped amid social media reports and Reuters headlines that there have been three “huge explosions” near the central Iran cities of Natanz (location of an Iranian nuclear power plant) and Isfahan (location of the Iranian Nuclear Technology Center which is suspected of being the center of Iran’s nuclear weapons program), as well as simultaneous explosions in Iraq and Syria, where the Israel air force appears to be targeting pro-Iranian militias.

    • IRANIAN MEDIA CONFIRMS AN ISRAELI ATTACK ON IRANIAN TERRITORY

    • IRANIAN STATE MEDIA IS REPORTING THAT TONIGHT’S AIRSTRIKE BY THE ISRAEL AIR FORCE MAY HAVE TARGETED THE 8TH TACTICAL AIRBASE OF THE IRANIAN AIR FORCE, WITHIN ISFAHAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, WHICH CONTAINS MULTIPLE SQUADRONS OF F-14 “TOMCAT” FIGHTER AIRCRAFT.

    • ABC NEWS REPORTS THAT ISRAELI MISSILES HIT A SITE IN IRAN

    • IRAN STATE MEDIA SAYS ‘NO FLY ZONE’ ESTABLISHED OVER WESTERN REGION

    • IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF TEHRAN

    • JERUSALEM POST: SIMULTANEOUS EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN IRAN, SYRIA, AND IRAQ ACCORDING TO INITIAL REPORTS

    • IRAN’S FARS NEWS AGENCY SAYS EXPLOSIONS HEARD IN CENTRAL ISFAHAN AIRPORT, REASON UNKNOWN

    • ISRAELI MISSILES HIT IRAN SITE, US OFFICIAL SAYS: ABC

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    Some more reports:

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    Here is Marco Rubio telling us more or less what happened:

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    A video of the explosions in Iran:

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    There have also been reports of drone activity over Iraq:

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    Flights above central Iran are diverting from their designations:

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    … as the airspace over the region is rapidly clearing:

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    Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Israeli airstrikes are targeting a building where a high level meeting was being held among groups supported by Iran and the IRGC:

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    The market reaction has been immediate, with S&P futures dumping initially but then, as speculation grows that this is another measured, scripted response to the measured, scripted initial attack by Iran, the market is starting to normalize fast.

    … with oil initially surging, then dropping.

     

    … and gold also first surged above $2400, only to slide right back…

     

    … with Silver fading all the gains…

    …and Treasuries are aggressively bid but they too are now fading.

    Even as the Bitcoin algos reprice WW3… for the second time in 5 days.

    And as traders brace for the worst, because even if Israel hopes to present a “measured” retaliation now it’s a question of what Iran will do next, it once again appears that this was just the latest episode in the carefully scripted middle-eastern “war” soap opera.

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    More as we get it, until then, fear not: he is watching everything… closely.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 21:25

  • Democrats Believe This Is Their Winning Strategy In 2024 Election
    Democrats Believe This Is Their Winning Strategy In 2024 Election

    Authored by Lawrence Wilson and Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Florida Supreme Court issued a long-awaited ruling on April 1, upholding a 15-week abortion ban that was signed into law in 2022. The ruling paved the way for a six-week abortion ban to take effect on May 1.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    A second ruling on the same day allowed an initiative to amend the state constitution to guarantee abortion access to be placed before voters. An abortion advocacy group had already secured the required signatures, so a constitutional question on abortion will be on the Florida ballot in November.

    Barely a week later, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions in the state. Three days later, the Biden campaign initiated a seven-figure ad buy in the Grand Canyon State, including a billboard that reads, “Abortion is banned in Arizona thanks to Donald Trump. He won’t stop until it’s banned nationwide. #TrumpsAbortionBan.”

    Democrats are leveraging abortion as a central issue in the 2024 election, and they are waging that campaign through ballot initiatives in key battleground states.

    The theory is simple, according to political analyst Keith Nahigian. “Ballot questions help to get more independent expenditures for ‘get out the vote’ campaigns,” he told The Epoch Times.

    In Arizona, a campaign is underway for a ballot measure amending the state constitution to provide the “fundamental right” to abortion up to the point a baby could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. It also would allow later abortions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health.

    In Nevada, a petition drive is in the works to include an amendment on abortion access. In Colorado and Maryland, voters will decide on abortion-related  amendments in November.

    “The Democrats’ strategy heading into this election cycle was to put these measures on the ballot in every big swing state,” Phoenix-based Republican strategist Marcus Dell’Artino told The Epoch Times.

    Republicans are using the same tactic with election integrity—placing related measures on the ballot in nine states, including in Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin.

    Both sides appear to believe their efforts will aid them in the fall and ballot measures themselves are a successful way to further a cause.

    In the 2022 election, voters in 38 states decided on 140 statewide ballot measures, according to Ballotpedia. Voters approved 69 percent of the measures and rejected 31 percent.

    The movement to amend state constitutions to guarantee abortion access is a calculated strategy by the Democratic Party to rally voters to the November election.

    The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee laid out the strategy in an April 5 memo.

    The committee attributed a ballot measure to add abortion to the state constitution in Ohio for the “historic” turnout during an off-year election in November 2023. Voters in the state passed the measure 57 percent to 43 percent—a margin of 14 percent. President Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.

    (L–R) Arizona Supreme Court Justices William G. Montgomery, John R. Lopez IV, Ann A. Scott Timmer, Chief Justice Robert M. Brutinel, Clint Bolick, and James Beene listen to oral arguments in Phoenix on April 20, 2021. (Matt York/AP Photo, File)

    “When abortion is on the ballot, voters turn out to defend their rights,” the memo states. “Seven battleground states are on track to have abortion measures on the ballot in 2024 … this further guarantees that reproductive freedom will remain a driving issue for voters this November.”

    Capitalizing on Momentum

    Momentum around the issue of access to abortion has been building since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, the seminal decision that, for decades, limited restrictions states can impose on the procedure.

    Within 18 months of the Dobbs decision, seven states put abortion-related ballot questions before the public. In red and blue states alike, voters came down on the side of access to abortion.

    Voters in Kansas voted to stick with the status quo, which provides the right to abortion in the state constitution, while Kentucky voted to reject an amendment that said there was no constitutional right to an abortion.

    Montana voters rejected a measure that would have declared a child born alive at any stage of pregnancy to be a legal person and required medical care for that child. The measure also included criminal penalties for health care providers who violated the “born alive” portion of the law, by establishing a maximum of a $50,000 fine and/or 20 years in prison.

    Meanwhile, voters in California, Michigan, Vermont, and Ohio amended their state constitutions to include a right to “reproductive freedom,” defined to include abortion and contraception.

    Democrats have hammered the issue for over two years while Republicans have been slow to admit that many of their own voters don’t favor a near-complete abortion ban.

    In Virginia, Democrats took advantage of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s interest in a 15-week abortion ban to campaign on abortion access in 2023. They retook control of the state’s General Assembly, prompting prominent Democrats to make abortion a centerpiece of the 2024 campaign.

    “The prospect of a national abortion ban is real,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in December 2023.

    Ms. Whitmer launched the Fight Like Hell PAC in June 2023 to raise campaign funds for Democratic candidates who are “unapologetic in their fight for working people and their basic freedoms.”

    The Biden campaign released an emotionally charged ad on April 8 featuring a Texas woman who was denied an abortion after being told her baby would not survive birth. Over the woman’s tearful sobs, text appears on the screen:“Donald Trump did this.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 21:00

  • 'China Is Xenophobic & Cheating': Biden Ramps Up Anti-Beijing Rhetoric On Campaign Trail
    ‘China Is Xenophobic & Cheating’: Biden Ramps Up Anti-Beijing Rhetoric On Campaign Trail

    President Biden has ramped up his anti-China rhetoric on the campaign trail ahead of November, looking to grab headlines away from Trump while touring northern industrial states, and he has just called for major increases to some tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products.

    “These are strategic and targeted actions that are going to protect American workers and ensure fair competition,” Biden told a small crowd of members at the United Steelworkers. “Meanwhile, my predecessor and the MAGA Republicans want across-the-board tariffs on all imports, from all countries, that could badly hurt American consumers.”

    Getty Images

    According to more from Biden’s speech via the NY Times, he said he would tell US trade representative Katherine Tai to increase tariffs “to what White House officials said would be 25 percent on certain Chinese products that now face tariffs of 7.5 percent, or none at all, pending the outcome of an administration review of the China tariffs initially imposed under Mr. Trump.”

    But as fully expected, Biden’s words once again inflamed tensions with Beijing, given that in the remarks he slammed China as “xenophobic” while commenting on the Asian powerhouse’s current economic struggles. 

    “They’ve got a population that is more people in retirement than working. They’re not importing anything. They’re xenophobic—nobody else coming in. They’ve got real problems” Biden said further on Wednesday.

    He had also accused China of cheating and policies that do harm against fair competition. The president said according to the White House readout:

    Because Chinese steel companies produce a lot more steel than China needs, it ends up dumping the extra steel into the global markets at unfairly low prices.  And the prices are unfairly low because Chinese steel companies don’t need to worry about making a profit, because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily. 

    They’re not competing. They’re cheating. They’re cheating. And we’ve seen the damage here in America.

    You know, back in the early 2000s, the Chinese steel began floating the mar- — flooding the market wi- — in steel towns all across Pennsylvania and Ohio, who were hit very hard.

    The accusation of xenophobia and cheating marks the most aggressive rebuke of China thus far on the campaign. 

    China’s foreign ministry was quick to respond Thursday by once again highlighting US ‘hypocrisy’ – with spokesman Lin Jian lashing out sarcastically, “China wants to ask the U.S. whether it is referring to China, or the U.S. itself.”

    Biden on his Pennsylvania tour also pledged to continue seeking to deny China advanced technology like computer chips. “They can’t be sent to China because it would undermine our national security,” Biden said. “When I spoke with Xi Jinping he said ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because you’d use it for all the wrong reasons, so you’re not gonna get those advanced computer chips.’“

    US-China relations have someone stabilized of late, also amid the Biden-Xi phone call of two weeks ago. Also, this week Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Chinese counterpart for the first time in two years, as the two sides work to restore regular military-to-military communications.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 20:40

  • Top Military Official Lied About Jan. 6: Whistleblowers
    Top Military Official Lied About Jan. 6: Whistleblowers

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

    The secretary of the Army on Jan. 6, 2021, lied about multiple details regarding what unfolded as the U.S. Capitol was breached, National Guard whistleblowers said during a congressional hearing on April 17.

    Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy testifies to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on Dec. 3, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

    Then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy made multiple false claims, including that he spoke to the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard on two separate occasions after officials requested that the Guard be deployed to the Capitol, the whistleblowers said.

    After Maj. Gen. William Walker conveyed a request from the U.S. Capitol Police for Guard personnel, Mr. McCarthy called Maj. Gen. Walker at 2:14 p.m. and instructed the Guard to stand by, according to a Guard timeline of Jan. 6, 2021. But that call and others that Mr. McCarthy or one of his top advisers were said to have made later authorizing the Guard for mobilization and deployment did not happen, according to the Guard officials.

    “At no time did Gen. Walker take any calls, nor did we ever hear from the secretary on any of the ongoing conference calls or the secure video teleconferencing throughout the day,” Capt. Timothy Nick, who served as Maj. Gen. Walker’s personal assistant on Jan. 6, 2021, said during the hearing. “This I know because I was with the command general the entire time recording the events.”

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    Capt. Nick has not previously discussed publicly what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021, and neither has Brig. Gen. Aaron Dean, who was the National Guard’s adjutant general on the day that the Capitol was breached.

    The Department of Defense (DOD) inspector general report on Jan. 6, 2021, which relied heavily on Mr. McCarthy and other military officials, was rife with “inaccuracies,” Brig. Gen. Dean said. “I believe it is my duty and moral obligation to stand before you today and illuminate the truth,” he told the hearing, which was held by the House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight.

    Despite Mr. Walker conveying the request for assistance at about 1:50 p.m., the Guard was not deployed to the Capitol until about 5:10 p.m.

    “This was a dereliction of duty by the secretary of the Army,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), one of the members of the committee, said.

    Mr. McCarthy refused to appear before the panel, Dr. Murphy said.

    Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense at the time, authorized Guard deployment at 3:11 p.m., but Mr. McCarthy took the order and decided to draw up a plan before ordering the deployment, according to military timelines and testimony from Mr. McCarthy and others.

    “You never would employ our personnel, whether it’s on an American street or a foreign street, without putting together a [plan],” Mr. McCarthy told the now-disbanded House Jan. 6 committee.

    Mr. McCarthy could not be reached for comment. The Army declined to comment.

    “We stand by our January 6th Report and have no further comment at this time,” a DOD inspector general spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

    From left to right, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Brooks, Col. Earl Matthews, Brig. Gen. Aaron Dean, and Capt. Timothy Nick, all of the District of Columbia National Guard, are sworn in during a hearing in Washington on April 17, 2024. (House Administration Committee via The Epoch Times)

    Other Leaders

    The whistleblowers also testified that Army officials Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt and Gen. Charles Flynn, during a 2:30 p.m. conference call on Jan. 6, 2021, expressed concern about the optics of having the Guard at the Capitol.

    “I did hear the word optics. And they did use it. Specifically, Gen. Piatt said ‘optics.’ And his concern was that he did not want soldiers or airmen on Capitol grounds, with the Capitol in the background,” Brig. Gen. Dean said. “They were giving every other reason why we should be around the Capitol, away from the Capitol, and not responding to the Capitol.”

    The officials lacked familiarity with the Guard and the Guard’s capabilities, Brig. Gen. Dean said.

    Lt. Gen. Piatt has been quoted by Maj. Gen. Walker and others as saying during the call: “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a line with the Capitol in the background. I would much rather relieve USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] officers from other posts so they can handle the protestors.”

    Lt. Gen. Piatt has told lawmakers that he did not recall using the words optics, visuals, or image during the call or in any other conversations on Jan. 6, 2021. But he later said, “I may have said that,” citing people who took notes during the call.

    Gen. Flynn told the House Oversight Committee in 2021 that he “never expressed a concern about the visuals, image, or public perception of sending the D.C. National Guard to the U.S. Capitol.”

    Col. Earl Matthews, a lawyer who was with Maj. Gen. Walker on Jan. 6, 2021, and who has challenged the Pentagon Jan. 6 narrative, and District of Columbia National Guard Command Sgt. Michael Brooks, a senior officer with the Guard until he retired in 2022, also testified during the hearing in Washington.

    None of the Guard officials who testified were formally interviewed by the House Jan. 6 committee, which was primarily run by Democrats and disbanded at the end of the previous Congress.

    The officials said the Guard was ready to act and could have made a difference if not for the delay.

    “I know if we were able to deploy immediately when Gen. Walker made the request, the National Guard could have helped end civil disturbance and restore order quickly,” Capt. Nick said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 20:20

  • Watch: Chasing Trump
    Watch: Chasing Trump

    With an ominous soundtrack throughout, Chasing Trump is the very first documentary produced by American Greatness.

    The documentary does a deep dive into the backgrounds of the four prosecutors handling former President Trump’s various legal cases, making the case that they are all “politically corrupt”, and accusing them of trying to “get Trump” because they fear he will win the November 2024 US presidential elections.

    With the former President facing increasingly restrictive gag orders, Donald Trump Jr said “‘Chasing Trump’ is an important documentary that exposes the leftwing prosecutors weaponizing the government to target my father,” adding that:

    “It’s the first documentary to do a deep dive into the backgrounds of the prosecutors behind the four cases against him and is a must watch for anyone who cares about preserving the rule of law and protecting our constitutional rights.“

    “Four corrupt, politically motivated prosecutors. One target: Donald Trump,” the narrator begins…

    “They say they’re upholding the law. But a close examination reveals politics of the very worst kind meant to influence the 2024 election.”

    Specifically, the mini-documentary makes the case that Trump is being punished for taking on the status quo and reinforces the narrative that he is subject to a witch hunt.

    Curt Mercadenta, managing editor of American Greatness, said it would shock anyone who believed the legal system was free from partisan political considerations.

    “With the 2024 election starting to heat up, it’s imperative that Americans have the opportunity to learn more about the truth behind the prosecutions targeting President Trump, along with the partisan prosecutors behind the cases.”

    Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, which was set up to press for conservative judicial nominees and now campaigns against what it sees as liberal activism in the courts, said:

    “These four prosecutions against President Trump are nothing more than partisan political activism masquerading as the rule of law.”

    “‘Chasing Trump’ exposes the leftwing prosecutors behind these cases as nothing more than puppets for Joe Biden and his political machine.”

    Watch the full documentary free here…

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 20:00

  • Watch: Biden Falsely Claims That WWII Uncle Eaten By Cannibals, Twice
    Watch: Biden Falsely Claims That WWII Uncle Eaten By Cannibals, Twice

    Joe Biden has always been a prolific liar and plagiarist, but on Wednesday he took things to another level.

    While attempting to disparage former President Donald Trump for ‘skipping out’ on a 2018 visit to a military cemetery outside Paris (when in fact the Navy made a ‘bad-weather‘ call), Biden claimed that his uncle, 2nd Lt. Ambrose J. “Bozey” Finnegan Jr., was shot down in World War II and eaten by cannibals.

    “He was a hell of an athlete, they tell me, when he was a kid. He flew those single-engine planes as reconnaissance over war zones, and he got shot down in New Guinea. They never found the body because there used to be, there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,” Biden said during a Wednesday stop in Pittsburgh – an account which appears in the official transcript of his remarks.

    “They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found some parts of the plane,” Biden continued.

    Except that’s total bullshit of course

    As Jonathan Turley points out, there was a survivor who gave a detailed account of how Finnegan and another man remained in the plane as it sank. What’s more, Bozey’s plane was not shot down – it was a Douglas A-20 Havoc with two Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior 9-cylinder radial engines. The plane had mechanical problems when it crashed near New Guinea and simply sank into the ocean.

    “On May 14, 1944, an A-20 havoc (serial number 42-86768), with a crew of three and one passenger, departed Momote Airfield, Los Negros Island, for a courier flight to Nadzab Airfield, New Guinea. For unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard. Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash. One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.”

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    What’s more, Biden repeated it more than once! Watch:

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    So for those keeping track:

    – Not shot down

    – Not a single engine plane

    – Not eaten by cannibals

    All of which was has been in the public domain for decades. And not one reporter following him around pushed back on what could have been googled within seconds.

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    And according to AP – Biden was simply “off on details.”

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    Meanwhile, Biden has falsely claimed at least 13 times that his uncle Frank won the Purple Heart, and said that he (Biden) was picked twice to attend the Naval Academy, when no supporting evidence exists.

    In 2021, Biden told Jewish leaders that he remembered “spending time at” and “going to” Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 after 11 people were murdered in a mass shooting – which also never happened. The White House covered by later claiming he was thinking about a 2019 phone call with the synagogue’s rabbi.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 19:55

  • Biden Wins Endorsement Of Kennedy Family Members
    Biden Wins Endorsement Of Kennedy Family Members

    Authored by Emel Akan and Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Joe Biden on April 18 traveled to Philadelphia, the final stop of his three-day tour of the crucial battleground state, where he received the Kennedy family’s endorsement for his reelection campaign.

    President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Martin Luther King Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Penn., on April 18, 2024. (Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

    More than 15 members of the Kennedy family, who had previously criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid for the White House, endorsed President Biden at a campaign event in Philadelphia.

    Speaking at the event, Kerry Kennedy, the sister of RFK Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy’s seventh child, praised President Biden, stating that reelecting him is the best way forward for the country.

    “President has been a champion for all the rights and freedoms that my father and uncle stood for. That’s why nearly every single grandchild of Joe and Rose Kennedy supports Joe Biden,” Ms. Kennedy said.

    “In 2024, there are only two candidates with any chance of winning the presidency,” she added.

    Speaking at the event, President Biden thanked the family members for the endorsement.

    Six of RFK Jr.’s siblings stood alongside President Biden on stage at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center in Philadelphia.

    “I don’t want to become emotional. What an incredible honor to have the support of the Kennedy family,“ President Biden said. ”Most meaningful introduction I’ve ever gotten in my life.”

    RFK, Jr. entered the presidential race in April last year, challenging President Biden for the Democratic Party nomination.

    After encountering multiple hurdles by the DNC and accusing the organization of “rigging the primary” and not allowing any candidate to compete against President Biden, Mr. Kennedy announced he would run as an independent in October 2023.

    Many believe Mr. Kennedy’s third-party challenge threatens President Biden more than former President Trump.

    In the RealClearPolitics average of polls as of April 17, President Trump leads with 41 percent, followed by President Biden (35.7 percent), and Mr. Kennedy (11.7 percent).

    Multiple times on the campaign trail, Mr. Kennedy has pointed out that he has more than 100 family members and said that many of them are working on his campaign.

    Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, his daughter-in-law, is his campaign manager.

    RFK Jr. responded in a social media post to his family members’ endorsement of President Biden.

    “I hear some of my family will be endorsing President Biden today. I am pleased they are politically active—it’s a family tradition,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on X on April 18. “We are divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other.”

    During a recent interview with CNN, Mr. Kennedy criticized President Biden, saying he is a bigger threat to democracy than President Trump.

    “I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history—the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent,” Mr. Kennedy said.

    In March, the DNC announced the creation of a team to counter third-party and independent presidential candidates.

    It hired Lis Smith, a veteran Democrat strategist who managed Pete Buttigieg’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, to spearhead an aggressive communication plan to combat Mr. Kennedy, independent Cornel West, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

    In October 2023, Mr. Kennedy’s sister, Rory Kennedy, called her brother’s campaign “dangerous” in a post on X.

    “I feel strongly that this is the most important election of our lifetime, and there’s so much at stake. And I do think it’s going to come down to a handful of votes in a handful of states.

    “And I do worry that Bobby just taking some percentage of votes from Biden could shift the election and lead to Trump’s election,” she told CNN in March when asked about her comment.

    Campaign Events in Pennsylvania

    President Biden traveled to Pennsylvania this week for a three-day tour of the battleground state, starting with a campaign event in his hometown of Scranton on April 16.

    In Scranton, the president highlighted a contrast between his economic agenda and that of his 2024 presidential rival and predecessor, former President Trump.

    He also reiterated his push to raise taxes on the rich and big corporations.

    “Folks, where we come from matters. When I look at the economy, I don’t see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago; I see through the eyes of Scranton,” President Biden said.

    On April 17, President Biden traveled to Pittsburgh, where he announced dramatically higher tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China, a move likely aimed at pleasing blue-collar voters in the battleground state.

    With 19 crucial electoral votes, the state is a key focus for the Biden campaign.

    The campaign says it believes it has a clear advantage in Pennsylvania for the 2024 election, and is making significant investments in key voter groups, including black and Latino communities in the state.

    Last month, for example, the campaign opened 14 offices in a single week, enlisted 1,700 volunteers, and formed key coalitions around the state to reach out to various demographics.

    The campaign has seven offices in Philadelphia to mobilize voters and ensure a high turnout in November.

    “In contrast, the Trump campaign still has no public presence—and across Pennsylvania, local media have reported there are no signs of the Trump campaign.

    “The RNC was even forced to scrap plans to open a minority outreach office in Allentown, Pennsylvania,” the Biden campaign said in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 19:40

  • America's Confused Commander-In-Chief Warns Israel Against Attacking Israel
    America’s Confused Commander-In-Chief Warns Israel Against Attacking Israel

    While Democratic strategists have long tried to downplay and dismiss President Biden’s obvious age and cognitive issues—which have been on continual display of late—he has just made fresh comments which illustrate the dangers of these persistent issues for the Commander-in-Chief and for the nation at a moment the Middle East stands on the brink of major war.

    The 81-year-old president said in an interview with Nexstar Media’s Reshad Hudson that he is urgently trying to de-escalate tensions centering on Gaza and Iran, following Iran’s Saturday night unprecedented attack on the Jewish state. That’s when he explained that he urged Israel to exercise restraint, and in his words he “made it clear to the Israelis: don’t move on Haifa.” Watch below:

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    He then began immediately mumbling: “It’s Just Not, I Mean, Anyway…” – and trailed off, apparently losing his train of thought before moving on to speak about the Saturday Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack on Israel.

    Biden was apparently intending to refer to Rafah in the comments, which is the Palestinian city in the far southern Gaza Strip, and not the third largest city in Israel. The Netanyahu government has for weeks said it is preparing to move militarily on the refugee-packed enclave. 

    The US is worried that an IDF ground offensive will trigger further regional escalation, including the potential for attacks on American bases from Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

    But the obvious question is: will Israeli leaders really taking Washington’s stance seriously when they hear the American president, or “leader of the free world,” warning Israel not to attack a city in Israel?

    If Biden can’t distinguish Gaza’s Rafah from Israel’s Haifa, then certainly we can expect to see many more of these consequential gaffes if he gets into office another four years.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 19:20

  • Soros Nonprofit Gives 8-Figure Sum To Far-Left Super PAC
    Soros Nonprofit Gives 8-Figure Sum To Far-Left Super PAC

    Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

    One of the many nonprofits run by far-left billionaire George Soros donated tens of millions of dollars to a major super PAC that funds multiple left-wing groups.

    According to Fox News, Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records posted Monday reveal that the Fund for Policy Reform gave $60 million to the Democracy PAC in the first quarter of 2024; the Democracy PAC subsequently sent $21 million to Democratic committees in support of various congressional candidates in both the House and the Senate.

    The $21 million was dispersed among a dozen left-wing groups, with $8 million being split two ways between top outside groups in support of House and Senate Democrats.

    Additionally, $2.5 million was donated to Planned Parenthood, as well as another $2.5 million to BlackPAC, and $1.8 million to American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research firm.

    Other donations included $1 million to the ColorOfChange PAC and $500,000 to Americans for Contraception Victory.

    ColorOfChange is one of the most radical groups when it comes to the far-left “defund the police” agenda.

    “We know that policing doesn’t keep us safe, communities do,” the group said in a petition demanding that supporters harass politicians to get them to support the defunding movement.

    “Policing doesn’t lead to thriving communities, investment does.”

    The massive $60 million dump was the second-largest donation in the 2024 election cycle thus far, only surpassed by the $82.6 million that was donated by a state super PAC to Never Back Down, the super PAC that backed the doomed presidential campaign of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.).

    The 93-year-old George Soros recently handed full control of his political empire to his son, Alex, and Alex’s subsequent moves have been watched closely.

    The younger Soros shows no signs of slowing down his family’s influence over left-wing politics both in America and globally, continuing to pour millions into far-left causes that undermine the security of the United States of America, including pro-amnesty and pro-open borders groups, as well as backing progressive district attorneys who refuse to enforce basic laws.

    In response, Musk is gathering signatures…

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 19:00

  • Biden Pushing Pipe-Dream Of Israel-Saudi Mega Deal Based On Palestinian State Recognition
    Biden Pushing Pipe-Dream Of Israel-Saudi Mega Deal Based On Palestinian State Recognition

    The Biden administration is keeping its dream of seeing Saudi-Israeli diplomatic normalization achieved (or rather, what is in fact originally Trump’s dream set in motion via the Abraham Accords).

    But Biden is dangling something before Netanyahu that the Israeli leader is unlikely to be very attracted by. “The Biden administration is pushing for a long-shot diplomatic deal in coming months that presses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a new commitment to Palestinian statehood in exchange for diplomatic recognition by Riyadh, U.S. and Saudi officials said,” writes The Wall Street Journal Thursday.

    This is not the first time the plan has been floated or was leaked to the media. Last year, for example, Saudi Arabia asked the US for help with developing a “civilian nuclear program” and for fewer restrictions on arms purchases in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel, as the New York Times previously reported.

    The only thing that has changed is there are even bigger hurdles at this moment of a post-Oct.7 Middle East, including a still impending Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, and the specter of a major Iran-Israel war in the wake of the Saturday Iranian drone and ballistic missile attack on Israel.

    “As inducements to recognize Israel, the White House is offering Riyadh a more formal defense relationship with Washington, assistance in acquiring civil nuclear power and a renewed push for a Palestinian state—a package that U.S. officials say they are in the final stages of negotiating,” continues the WSJ.

    Admin officials speaking to the Journal also claimed that the major weekend attack out of Iran could hasten broader Arab Gulf and Israeli rapprochement:

    U.S. officials say the successful multicountry effort to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones on Saturday should make it clear to Israel that its security against threats from Tehran can be enhanced through closer integration with Saudi Arabia.

    However, as we underscored in featuring this Wednesday analysis: US Push For A ‘Middle East NATO’ Failed To Emerge During Iran Strikes, the reality is that in the end, the oil-rich Gulf states downplayed any involvement and left the heavy lifting of fighting off Iran’s attack to the US and its western allies and Jordan, the resource-poor Hashemite Kingdom dependent on US financial assistance.

    On Friday the UN Security Council is expected to vote on an Algerian-proposed draft resolution to recognize a Palestinian state, which would give the Palestinian representatives full membership status at the United Nations.

    The US position has long been that a Palestinian state must be born out direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not accomplished superficially within an external forum like the UN. The US has already said, via a State Department statement, that it will vote down the measure.

    Israel for its part has clearly rejected that it will allow for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas still exists, and PM Netanyahu has even linked the more secular-leaning Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to ‘terrorism’. He has also rejected a prior US call to allow the PA to take over and administer the Gaza Strip. The reality is that the current Gaza war makes the prospect of achieving a Palestinian state more distant than ever.

    And the prospect of Palestinian statehood resulting from some kind of Israel-Saudi normalization agreement – which US media reports previously dubbed the ‘deal of the century’ – also seems a pipe dream at this point.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 18:40

  • World Bank Report Highlights Advantage Of Central Bank Gold Revaluation Accounts
    World Bank Report Highlights Advantage Of Central Bank Gold Revaluation Accounts

    By Jan Nieuwenhuijs of Gainesville Coins

    Recently the World Bank released a handbook for asset managers on why to invest in gold. At Gainesville Coins I have written numerous articles on gold revaluation accounts and how these can be deployed by central banks to absorb losses in case of emergency. The World Bank has taken notice of my research as they allude to this practice in a chapter on reserve accounting and reference to my work.

    The World Bank publication underlines the fact that gold is the only financial asset without counterparty risk, and due to its scarcity relative to fiat currencies its price in the long run always increases. Central banks that own gold for an extended period can reap the benefits of their gold revaluation account without having to sell any gold.

    Introduction

    The Gold Investing Handbook for Asset Managers document published earlier this year by the World Bank Treasury is an interesting read for investors. It covers the gold market structure, optimal portfolio assessments, geopolitical aspects, a trading and liquidity guide, and a discussion on gold accounting, among other subjects.

    The World Bank Treasury is tasked to manage the World Bank’s finances and contribute to the Bank’s twin goals of “ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.” As such it acts as a trusted advisor to its member countries to support financial stability and provide “thought leadership in the broader treasury and financial management arena.” With this mission in mind the Bank’s Treasury writes that:

    Throughout history, gold has played a vital role as a financial asset in the global financial system. … In the modern era, gold continues to play a critical role in the global financial system, serving as a hedge against inflation, a safe haven asset, and a reserve asset for central banks. … The role of gold in the global financial system has evolved over time, with changes in monetary policy, economic conditions, and technological advancements influencing demand and supply dynamics. Despite these changes, gold remains a crucial component of the global financial system and is likely to continue to play an essential role in the future. … The market disruptions brought about by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the US and China trade war, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a prolonged period of negative real interest rates and geopolitical uncertainties caused by financial sanctions imposed on Russia to freeze its foreign reserves, reinforced the strategic importance of gold as a buffer against financial instability.

    Central Bank Gold Revaluation Accounts

    After the central banks of advanced economies such as the Netherlands and Germany stated their gold revaluation accounts (GRAs) guarantee their solvency in 2013, the World Bank now joins the discussion on GRAs. On page 57 of its report there is a summary of my article on how the central bank of Curaçao and Saint Martin utilized its GRA to cover losses in 2021.

    Courtesy of the World Bank. On page 67 of the document a reference is made to my research regarding the central bank of Curaçao and Saint Martin in 2021. The one thing blocking central banks from using their GRAs are their self-imposed rules.

    Simplified, a GRA is an accounting entry on the liability side of a central bank’s balance sheet that records unrealized gains in gold. Because central banks are the root of the modern money tree, they can use these entries to pay for expenses. A GRA, if sufficient, can prevent a central bank from going into negative capital in times of financial stress without having to sell gold (for more details read my article here).

    Stylized balance sheet of central bank X.

    All in all, the World Bank’s reporting of GRAs is bullish for gold as it once again confirms gold’s position front and center in the monetary system. Gold—as per International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank’s sister institute—is the only universally accepted financial asset that is not someone else’s liability. From the IMF (BPM6):

    Financial assets are economic assets that are financial instruments. Financial assets include financial claims and, by convention, monetary gold held in the form of gold bullion … A financial claim is a financial instrument that has a counterpart liability. Gold bullion is not a claim and does not have a corresponding liability. It is treated as a financial asset, however, because of its special role as a means of financial exchange in international payments by monetary authorities and as a reserve asset held by monetary authorities.

    Gold has no counterparty risk and can’t be arbitrarily devalued. Hence, the IMF lists gold at the very top of reserve assets, which makes gold the hardest asset for central banks to own and creates significant unrealized gains over time through the debasement of the currency they issue. And as I have explained previously these unrealized gains can be turned into realized gains to pay for expenses.

    Source: Balance of Payments Manual 6.

    Conclusion

    In the past years more and more central banks from both the global South and North—and international financial institutions like the World Bank—are pitching gold as an imperative asset with multiple functions. Gold is a safe haven asset, inflation hedge, backup currency, its revaluation accounts can be used, etcetera.

    If one looks at the order of the IMF’s list of reserve assets the similarities with Exter’s inverse pyramid is easily seen. Gold truly underpins the global financial system. In my view, though, the value of all financial assets resting on gold has grown too large in the past decades. For stabilizing the pyramid (financial system), the value of the gold needs to increase accordingly.

    But we will explore these imbalances more in depth in my next article.

    Further Reading

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 18:20

  • Russia, Russia, Russia!: Watch As Democrats Go Full Russia-Tard During Hearing Over China's "Political Warfare"
    Russia, Russia, Russia!: Watch As Democrats Go Full Russia-Tard During Hearing Over China’s “Political Warfare”

    While China has spent decades conducting deep espionage throughout US institutions – mostly in the form of plucky PhD candidates handling sensitive projects at American universities, and places like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Congressional Democrats simply can’t shake their fixation with Russia.

    Point in case, during a Wednesday House Oversight hearing on defending America from China’s political warfare, Democrats – who take tons of money from China (and bang their spies on occasion), couldn’t seem to remain on topic.

    Watch:

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    Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-MS) got into it at one point:

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    Quick, send money to Ukraine!

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 18:00

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Apr 18

Today’s News 18th April 2024

  • UN Security Council To Hold Contentious Vote On Palestinian Statehood
    UN Security Council To Hold Contentious Vote On Palestinian Statehood

    Friday will witness another Gaza-related showdown in a very divided United Nations Security Council, as council member Algeria has prepared a draft resolution for the body recognize a Palestinian state.

    It would require nine votes and no vetoes on the part of the US, Britain, France, Russia or China in order to pass – which means it won’t happen, given the US as a close ally of Israel is expected to surely block it. The plan ultimately seeks to bestow on Palestine full UN membership status.

    Getty Images

    Looking ahead to the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Wednesday: “We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find … a two-state solution moving forward.”

    The US position has long been that a Palestinian state must be born out direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not accomplished superficially within an external forum like the UN.

    Israel has clearly rejected that it will allow for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas still exists, and PM Netanyahu has even linked the more secular-leaning Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to ‘terrorism’. He has also rejected a prior US call to allow the PA to take over and administer the Gaza Strip. The reality is that the current Gaza war makes the prospect of achieving a Palestinian state more distant than ever.

    According to some background via Reuters:

    The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012. But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.

    The UN Security Council has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.

    The UK too has long said it will not recognize Palestine outside of a broader deal for a two-state solution that involves Israeli assent.

    Spain was the most recent country to unilaterally recognize Palestine as a state, which was announced earlier this month. Those EU states to have previously done so include Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Ireland and Malta have also recently said they are on board and plan to do so.

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    The current war in Gaza and soaring civilian death toll among Palestinians as Israel continues its operation seeking to eradicate Hamas and free the hostages has given extra impetus to those officials in Europe who have wanted to see Palestinian recognition. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 02:45

  • The Polish President Revealed That Foreign Companies Own Most Of Ukraine's Industrial Agriculture
    The Polish President Revealed That Foreign Companies Own Most Of Ukraine’s Industrial Agriculture

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    The Oakland Institute published a detailed report in February 2023 titled “War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land”, which exposed how foreign firms have clandestinely taken control of a significant share of Ukrainian farmland by exploiting a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs. Their findings made waves around the world at the time but eventually receded from the public’s attention over half a year later once Western outlets like the USA Today misleadingly “fact-checked” it.

    They took advantage of social media users conflating indirect ownership through stakes with direct control to discredit the institution’s report, after which it largely faded from the general discourse. Few could have expected that it would be none other than Polish President Andrzej Duda who just breathed new life into it during his interview with Lithuanian National Radio and Television. He was explaining Poland’s problem with Ukrainian agricultural imports when he dropped the following bombshell:

    “I would like to draw particular attention to industrial agriculture, which is not really run by Ukrainians, it is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA. If we look today at the owners of most of the land, they are not Ukrainian companies. This is a paradoxical situation, and no wonder that farmers are defending themselves, because they have invested in their farms in Poland […] and cheap agricultural produce coming from Ukraine is dramatically destructive to them.”

    Duda represents what’s widely considered to be one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian governments at any time in history so he can’t credibly be accused of “pushing Kremlin propaganda”.

    He therefore wouldn’t have confirmed the dramatic claim of majority-foreign ownership of Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, albeit indirectly through stakes in national companies that exploit a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs, if he didn’t have the facts provided to him by Polish experts to back it up.

    This development should prompt a resurgence of interest in prior reports on this subject such as USAID’s about how “Private Sector on the Frontlines of Land Reform to Unlock Ukraine’s Investment Potential”. Thomas Fazi’s detailed report for UnHeard back in July 2023 about how “The capitalists are circling over Ukraine: The war is creating massive profit opportunities” is also insightful. Most relevant, however, is what Zelensky told the World Economic Forum in Davos in May 2022. In his words:

    “We offer a special – historically significant – model of reconstruction. When each of the partner countries or partner cities or partner companies will have the opportunity – historical one – to take patronage over a particular region of Ukraine, city, community or industry. Britain, Denmark, the European Union and other leading international actors have already chosen a specific direction for patronage in reconstruction.”

    One year later, he hosted BlackRock’s management in Kiev, during which time they discussed the creation of an investment and reconstruction fund. According to Zelensky, “Today is a historic moment because, since the very first days of independence, we have not had such huge investment cases in Ukraine. We are proud that we can initiate such a process…We will be able to offer interesting projects to invest in energy, security, agriculture, logistics, infrastructure, medicine, IT, and many other areas.”

    Putting the pieces together, the Ukrainian leader made good on his May 2022 Davos proposal by offering companies “patronage” over Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, which was already in the process of unfolding prior to then but was greatly accelerated by last May’s meeting with BlackRock’s management. This took the tangible form of these indirectly foreign-controlled farms outcompeting Poland’s by far, thus leading to the Polish farmers’ protests across the country and the latest troubles in bilateral ties.

    The sequence of events detailed thus far places into context mid-February’s report about the G7’s alleged plans to appoint an envoy to Ukraine, who’d obviously be tasked with implementing the Davos agenda if this comes to pass, particularly entrenching foreign control over Ukrainian farmland. It also suggests that Ukraine’s informal focus on ramping up agricultural exports to the EU isn’t just opportunistic, but partially driven by these foreign firms’ preference for speedy and reliable profits.

    Ukraine had hitherto been an agricultural powerhouse in the Global South but ceded its market share to Russia on the false pretext that Moscow was blockading the Black Sea, which in turn prompted the EU to temporarily eliminate prior trade barriers for the official purpose of facilitating exports via its territory. In reality, Russia never blockaded the Black Sea, and almost all of the Ukrainian grain that entered the EU remained there instead of traveling through the bloc en route to Kiev’s traditional Global South markets.

    It’s much quicker for Ukraine to sell its agricultural products in the neighboring EU than to wait however long it takes to export them to Africa, not to mention more reliable as well since it’s unimaginable that these developed economies would ever have the same possible payment problems as developing ones. These self-evident calculations work against Poland’s interests, ergo how much of a struggle it’ll be for that country to defend its domestic market from this influx considering the powerful forces at play.

    It’s not just the Ukrainian agricultural lobby that wants tariff-free access for these products into the EU market, but also the lobbies of those foreign firms that indirectly control its industrial agriculture. The latter will likely fight tooth and nail to prevent any compromise being reached on Ukraine’s hoped-for EU membership whereby that former Soviet Republic’s agricultural sector would be excluded from any deal. Poland therefore has every reason to continue drawing global attention to these shadowy relationships.

    It’s only by raising maximum awareness of the fact that “most of the land” within Ukraine’s industrial agriculture sector “is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA” that Poland stands any chance of the aforesaid compromise entering into force. That’ll make the country some very powerful enemies who could then meddle in Polish domestic affairs out of vengeance, but Duda’s latest interview suggests that he’s prepared to face their wrath in order to protect Poland’s objective national interests.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 02:00

  • Food Is Now An Investment – Here's Why Inflation Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon
    Food Is Now An Investment – Here’s Why Inflation Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    One of the more difficult aspects of working in economic analysis is the problem of rampant disinformation that you have to dig through in order to get to the truth of any particular issue.  In this regard, economics is very similar to politics.  The propaganda is endless and debunking it sometimes feels like moving a mountain with a teaspoon.

    Establishment media sources lie incessantly about our financial conditions, and when they are finally cornered and forced to admit how bad things are, they then lie about the causes.  That said, I find that these lies are usually designed to do one of two things:  Over-complicate the problem so that people give up thinking about it, or, distract from the problem so that people blame a scapegoat.

    As for inflation, here is the bottom line:

    Central Banks And The Fiat Flood

    Rising prices are caused by two main drivers.  The first is money creation, or too many dollars chasing too few goods.  Central banks around the world have been FLOODING the system with fiat currency ever since the debt crisis of 2008 and the Federal Reserve within the US is the worst violator by far.  We are talking about tens of trillions (or more) in money creation, all supposedly as a means to stall or prevent a deflationary crash.

    By the time the pandemic lockdowns were initiated and the Fed dropped $8 trillion+ onto the economy through stimulus measures like covid checks and PPP loans, the total US money supply was already at destructive levels.  The covid stimulus was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.  So, if you want to know who is directly to blame for your daily expenses rising 30% or more in the span of three years, the first set of criminals are the central bankers.

    Governments and certain corporate partners are also to blame, but the central banks are the root mechanism for all inflationary movements.  It’s my belief (according to the evidence) that central banks have deliberately triggered a stagflationary crisis with the intent to forcefully replace cash based economies with a new digital and cashless global economy.  However, that’s a discussion for another article…

    Shortages And Core Resources

    The other primary cause of rising prices is shortages or disruptions in key resources including oil and energy.  Keep in mind that the war in Ukraine has led to the west being cut off from large portions of the resource rich Russian market.  And, the war in Gaza has led to groups in the Middle East like the Houthis denying a multitude of cargo ships and oil tankers from traversing the Red Sea.

    By themselves, each one of these events seems like a small threat to the global supply chain, but when they pile up together the effects become detrimental.  For now, the biggest factor is rising energy prices because this is the key resource that allows all agriculture and manufacturing to function.  Every time oil prices rise you’re going to see prices in everything else rise.

    This is the exact reason why the Biden Administration continued to dump the US Strategic Oil Reserves on the market for the past couple years.  This was their way of manipulating oil prices down in order to mitigate or hide the greater effects of inflation.  Now that they’re being pressured to refill those reserves and start buying (at a much higher price) global oil prices and US prices in particular are spiking again.

    Media Disinformation And Crushing Food Costs

    Food costs have risen by 30% or more depending on the product since the beginning of 2020, and even though CPI reports several months ago showed a “slowdown” in overall inflation, this does not mean prices are going to go down anytime soon.  In fact, they will only keep rising with each passing year.

    CPI is a tool for measuring the AVERAGE price increases of over 80,000 products and services across a wide spectrum.  Many of these items are not necessities and so they dilute the actual inflation we are seeing in everyday expenditures.  If we were to look at an average of daily necessities like housing, energy, food, etc. then CPI would read far higher.

    When the media touts a lower CPI print as a sign that the economy is improving, what they usually don’t mention is that the stat only represents how much higher prices are going to go.  A lower CPI does not mean costs on the shelf are going to go down.  Inflation is cumulative.

    Meaning, that 30%+ increase in food that Americans have been dealing with – That’s not going away, it’s just not climbing as fast as it was.  And, as we’ve seen in the past couple months, inflation has the ability to return just as quickly to add even more gasoline to the fire.

    Not long ago I was reading through an article from CBS that claimed they could explain why there’s been no respite in food prices lately.  In reality the entire piece was disinformation, blaming every possible scapegoat while ignoring the real causes.

    Their main explanation is “Greedflation,” or the claim that companies are overcharging on food items.  In other words, blame businesses, don’t blame the Federal Reserve and don’t blame the government.  They’re “innocent” in all of this.

    So far there’s no concrete evidence to support the Greedflation theory.  Every business has unique expenses, unique overhead, unique industrial costs, unique quality control and unique resource costs.  One cookie company’s bottom line will be different from another cookie company’s bottom line.  That said, there are universal costs that directly correlate to higher prices regardless of the company, and that includes energy, labor, and core commodities.

    For those that track the markets it’s obvious that commodities are climbing.  The Industrial Commodity Index is far higher today than it was in 2020, along with oil and gas prices.  Every base resource that companies use to make products is increasing in value and thus it costs them more to manufacture.  Agriculture in particular is heavily affected by oil prices as well as prices in fertilizer and farming equipment, not to mention higher costs in labor.

    From 2020 to 2023 the total costs paid by farmers to raise crops and care for livestock increased by more than $100 billion, or 28%, to an all-time high of $460 billion in 2023.  Funny how that number tracks very close to the 30% increase in overall food prices since 2020. 

    The establishment media wants you to believe that high food prices are going to go away soon, and in order to trick you they need to convince you that the cause is something that can be “controlled” or “regulated”.

    There is no indication that agricultural costs are going to stop increasing in the near future, so, that means each year food is going to cost you more than the year before. 

    It might even cost you MUCH more than the year before.

    In conclusion, this is why people need to start looking at food as an investment similar to the way they might look at their 401K or any retirement plan.  If you want to mitigate costs in the future in terms of food you will need to purchase foods with a long shelf life now.  If you think that inflation is a passing phase and that things will go back to the way they were before 2020 then you probably won’t take this concern seriously.  But, consider this:

    Well before 2020 I was warning regularly about an impending stagflation crisis.  The food storage I bought in 2020 now costs at least 30%-50% more to buy in 2024.  Meanwhile, some of the top mainstream economists in the country were denying such a thing would ever happen.  When it did happen, they claimed it was “transitory.”  This was also proven false.  Now they claim food will drop after companies are forced through regulation to cut prices.

    Whether government intervenes or the market continues to react to poor fiscal policies, it is quickly becoming a necessity to invest in food security as soon as possible.  Government enforced price controls have never actually proven effective in stopping inflation.  Once you remove all profit incentives many businesses will close up shop.  This causes the supply of goods to go down and prices then spike anyway due to shortages.

    Do you want to bet your future on establishment economists being right for once, or, do you want to just store some food today in the knowledge that prices are only going exponentially higher?

    *  *  *

    One survival food company, Prepper All-Naturals, has proactively dropped prices to allow Americans to stock up ahead of projected hikes in beef prices. Their 25-year shelf life steaks currently come at a 25% discount with promo code “invest25”.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/18/2024 – 00:00

  • The Top 10 Most Cost-Effective Countries To Get A High-Priced Higher Education
    The Top 10 Most Cost-Effective Countries To Get A High-Priced Higher Education

    A new study by Online Gaming Groups has evaluated over 30 countries to determine the most cost-effective higher education systems, focusing on the percentage of average annual income spent on educational expenses.

    This analysis included countries with the highest university fees, and additional costs such as living and rent were considered to accurately assess the full financial commitment needed for education.

    By examining the ratio of costs to salary, the study ranked these nations. Belgium emerged as the leader, offering the most cost-effective higher education. In contrast, Israel was noted for having the highest educational expenses on the list, despite having the fewest universities and the lowest quality of higher education.

    Belgium tops the list of countries offering the most cost-effective higher education, with annual expenses, including tuition fees, averaging $28,574. The average annual salary in Belgium is $53,890, with 53.02% of this salary spent on living and university expenses. This balance between earning and learning costs underscores the country’s commitment to making education accessible.

    Switzerland ranks second, with average annual expenses of $51,013 and an average salary of $95,490, dedicating 53.42% of salary to education and living costs. Despite having the highest living costs in the ranking, Switzerland’s substantial average salary helps mitigate these expenses, making its education system remarkably cost-effective.

    In third place, South Korea presents a contrast with more affordable living conditions and a lower average salary of $36,190. Here, 61.01% of the salary goes towards education and living expenses, with the country having the highest education costs among the top three.

    The Netherlands, fourth on the list, has annual expenses of $37,697 against an average salary of $60,230, spending 62.59% of it on education and living costs. The country ensures broad accessibility to higher education with relatively moderate educational costs.

    France is fifth, balancing university and living costs against an average yearly salary of $45,290. With 63.50% of the salary allocated to these costs, France maintains a balance between accessible education and high educational quality.

    Ireland follows as the sixth most cost-effective country for higher education, with average expenses of $55,129 and a salary of $79,730, dedicating 69.14% of it to education and living. Despite not having the highest costs, the cumulative annual expenses are considerable.

    Japan ranks seventh, where 70.14% of the average annual salary of $42,440 is spent on higher education, indicating a premium level of education, as evidenced by the high number of universities and education costs.

    Italy, eighth, spends 70.51% of an average salary of $38,200 on education, reflecting the country’s rich educational heritage and the high quality of its education system, ranked 14th worldwide.

    Australia is ninth, requiring families and students to invest significantly in education, with 72.97% of the $60,840 average salary going toward educational and living expenses, indicative of the country’s high standards of living and educational quality.

    Lastly, Israel, despite having the highest education costs on the list and ranking lowest in the number of universities and education quality, spends 78.97% of the average salary of $55,140 on education, rounding off the list of the top ten countries with cost-effective higher education.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 23:20

  • The Teachers' Unions Are More Political than Ever
    The Teachers’ Unions Are More Political than Ever

    Authored by Larry Sand via American Greatness,

    In the past, teachers’ unions concentrated on fighting to keep all teachers employed—competent or otherwise—laying off teachers by seniority when necessary and soaking taxpayers every chance they could. While those activities are still part of their mission, they have, over time, increasingly delved into the political/social realm, promoting Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, DEI, class warfare, gender-bending, etc. And their current level of engagement is staggering.

    Americans for Fair Treatment, a national nonprofit organization that educates public employees about their rights in a unionized workplace, recently released a report detailing the National Education Association’s (NEA) financial filings from Sept. 1, 2022, through Aug. 31, 2023.

    The NEA declared that its political spending totaled $50.1 million during the fiscal year, though the true number is much higher. During the most recent reporting period, the union disclosed that it spent “$126.3 million on ‘contributions, gifts, and grants,’ which is where most unions detail their charitable giving.”

    However, a closer look at the union’s “contributions, gifts, and grants” shows that the NEA is directing more money towards political causes than it reports. For example, the union contributed $4.1 million to the State Engagement Fund, a progressive advocacy group, and $3.5 million to For Our Future, a Democratic super PAC. Another $500,000 was donated to the Color of Change Education Fund, which has ties to progressive billionaire George Soros.

    The disclosure also reveals that the union spent $10 million more on politics and lobbying than it did representing its members. While NEA’s representational spending increased by about $2 million compared to the previous reporting period, spending on politics and lobbying increased by $8.5 million.

    It’s worth noting that as a 501(c)(5), the NEA and, in fact, all unions have a special tax-exempt status with the IRS, which is accorded to “Labor, Agricultural, and Horticultural Organizations.”

    Local teachers’ unions are also involved in political spending. In Chicago, where just 15% of Chicago’s 8th-grade students are proficient in math and 21% are proficient in reading, the Chicago Teachers Union is focused on other things. As the Illinois Policy Institute documents, the union spent nearly three times more on politics in 2023 than the year before, and just 17% of its spending was on representing teachers.

    A 142-page leaked document contains hundreds of Chicago Teachers Union contract demands, including 100% abortion coverage to pay for surrogates and housing students in old schools.

    The CTU is also demanding a 100% electric bus fleet and fuel-efficient drivers’ education vehicles, installation of solar panels and other facility upgrades, compensation, and medical benefits for absences related to “verbal assault,” etc.

    In preparing for CTU’s collective bargaining talks with the city, the union’s president, Stacy Davis Gates, asserted the new contract would cost taxpayers $50 billion.

    Importantly, the teachers’ unions’ political involvement does not stop with spending. They now routinely make policy statements and demands, most notably on the recent strife in the Middle East.

    In November, the United Educators of San Francisco contended that Israel’s military campaign violated the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights but made no mention of the brutal Oct. 7 attacks or the captivity of over 200 hostages.

    In December, a pro-Palestinian “teach-in” was organized by the Oakland Education Association, and members developed special lesson plans in defiance of the local school board. The same month, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, demanded a permanent truce in the Middle East on Twitter—a position that was later reaffirmed by the organization’s board of directors.

    In late January, the American Federation of Teachers officially called for a cessation of hostilities.

    Additionally, Heritage Foundation scholar Jay Greene reports that a measure adopted by the NEA-affiliated Massachusetts Teachers Association board in December declared, “The MTA president and vice president will urge the president of the NEA to pressure President Biden to stop funding and sending weapons in support of the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

    Greene also notes that the executive committee of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers passed a resolution condemning “the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid.” However, backlash from teachers and the community led the union to issue an apology.

    What can be done about the onslaught of union political activity?

    The big-picture solution is for teachers’ unions to be banned. Period.

    “All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.”

    Progressive icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued the above caveat about government unions. Additionally, George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO for 24 years, once stated, “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

    Both men understood that the very nature of government makes it wrong for its leaders to negotiate with any union. When government unions bargain, they often sit across the table from people they helped put in office with generous campaign contributions. And when these unions go on strike, they walk out on the taxpayer.

    However, getting rid of these established unions is highly unlikely, primarily because political spending by government unions inevitably favors union-friendly candidates.

    Prohibiting collective bargaining would reduce union power, but only five states currently prohibit that activity for public employees: Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

    Ultimately, teachers hold the key. If they stopped paying dues, the unions would cease to exist. Legally, they can now do so courtesy of the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, which asserted that no teacher or any public employee has to pay a penny to a union as a condition of employment.

    The good news is that since the SCOTUS ruling, 20% of workers in non-right-to-work states have dropped out of their unions, according to a report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The bad news is that 70% of teachers nationwide still willingly pay union dues.

    As a teacher, if your politics are on the right, centrist, or maybe you are apolitical, do you really want hundreds of your dues dollars going to the leftist causes that the state and national unions regularly support?

    It is with no sense of irony that NEA boss Becky Pringle asserts that politics’ “creeping influence” in classrooms threatens education. “All of the politicians and pundits who are trying to politicize our school demonize teachers, which is new, who are not focused on what our kids need or what our parents say they want for their kids.”

    Pringle has it backward. Clearly, the number one educational “influence creeps” are the teachers’ unions.

    *  *  *

    Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 23:00

  • Forget Cocoa, Coffee. There's A "Squeeze Risk" Building In The Tin Market
    Forget Cocoa, Coffee. There’s A “Squeeze Risk” Building In The Tin Market

    Tin prices on the London Metal Exchange have surged 27% this year, landing on the radars of some institutional desks. Other commodities closely monitored by hedge funds include cocoa, coffee, Brent crude, copper, and gold.

    Bloomberg notes that LME data for the tin market shows the aggregate net-long position held by financial investors surged to the highest level ever, with data going back to 2018. 

    These bullish bets have pushed tin prices well into the $32,000 handle in recent trading sessions. 

    Bloomberg notes that the “big bull” positioning by institutional investors comes as major supply disruptions hit top producers across Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also, the metal, a critical component of modern technology and used primarily as solder to connect electrical components and semiconductor chips, is the latest AI trade investors have been piling into. 

    “Every data byte and every electron travels through hundreds of solder joints that connect it all together,” Jeremy Pearce, head of market intelligence and communications at the International Tin Association, said in an email interview with the media outlet. He pointed out that tin’s trade thesis is that demand will rise in tandem with AI computing demand at data centers. Recall our note, “The Next AI Trade.” 

    Like Nickel and other commodities, tin is prone to mega short squeezes. Traders discovered this in 2022 after a once-in-a-generation squeeze broke the nickel trading on LME. 

    “Some market participants feel there could be a risk of a squeeze,” Ding Wenqiang, senior analyst at one of China’s largest metal researchers, Mysteel.com, told Bloomberg. He added, “They are paying close attention to the movements of the big bull in the May contract.”

    Tightening supplies come as tin inventories plunged 47% so far this year to 4,045 tons. The metal’s spot price trades at a premium versus the three-month futures contract, producing a structure known as backwardation. 

    Nickel prices are rising as commodity prices have likely based and entered a ‘weak bull’ market, according to new research from HSBC Bank.

    Rising commodity prices are more bad news for Fed chair Powell’s fight against the inflation monster.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 22:40

  • It's Not Rate Hikes That Are "Sparking An Economic Boom", It's The Fiscal Stimulus
    It’s Not Rate Hikes That Are “Sparking An Economic Boom”, It’s The Fiscal Stimulus

    By Michael Every of Rabobank

    The Polybius Crisis

    Take a step back (in time), and see that our neoliberal, debt-addled, was-lower-for-longer global system is not just in a Polycrisis but a Polybius Crisis – referring to the ancient Greek historian.

    Polybius

    Methodology: Polybius was first to argue ‘consider your source’: today, media and markets still spout and swallow propaganda. He argues we can’t look at history in just one area, as what happens everywhere effects what is going on everywhere else: but modern markets have monomanias for one asset class, geography, and ideology: markets-first neoliberalism.

    Yet while 2024 opened with talk of 7 Fed cuts, then 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2, it just saw calls that US rate cuts are needed to lower inflation (because of the slump in housing supply that recent US data won’t help); chatter of 2 rate hikes; and now Bloomberg asks, ‘What if the Fed’s Hikes Are Actually Sparking an Economic Boom?’ Is neoliberalism in crisis, or is this a new copium given Fed Chair Powell just said he’s prepared to keep rates steady “as long as needed”?

    Bloomberg notes that high rates = stimulus is an MMT heresy, but huge budget deficits mean high rates put more cash into people’s pockets (as they take it from others’). Yet it’s fiscal deficits, not rate hikes, that do that trick, another neoliberal shibboleth. (And an MMT one: Stephanie Kelton argues rate hikes contribute to the deficit, so cutting them would lower it… as if supply-side inflation and speculation with new liquidity aren’t connected to rates.)

    Meanwhile, trade and FX are next. Perhaps-future US Treasury Secretary Lighthizer mocks the argument the US saves too little because Americans are profligate; (correctly) says low savings / large US trade deficits are caused by foreign industrial policy; forcing the trade deficit to narrow means savings would rise; and wants low corporate taxes, low regulation, subsidies, tariffs, and a “sensible” trade policy to fight mercantilism. If you don’t understand that throws global markets into a tailspin, like the economists Lighthizer mocks, you don’t understand that system.

    On security: Polybius would not be surprised that today we have a failing global security architecture because US National Security Advisor Sullivan doesn’t say ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’, but ‘Quaeso, sume prandium meum argentum!’ (“Please, take my lunch money!”) That approach was always going to lead to a Ukraine-Russia war, or similar; an Israel-Iran clash; and, in parallel and conflating with both, Taiwan-China tensions.

    There is now frenetic activity to try to moderate any Israeli counterstrike on Iran to prevent a regional conflagration; Daniela Gabor tweets from the IMF/World Bank spring meeting, “geopolitical conflict is paralyzing everything… including on climate finance.”; and ECB President Lagarde says rate cuts are coming provided there are no inflation shocks(!) As I asked yesterday, ‘who leads and who is led?’ It’s no longer central banks.

    On politics: Polybius argues societies start as ochlocracy (mob rule); a strong leader starts monarchy (rule by one: the ‘spare’ gets a Netflix deal); power turns this to tyranny (‘democracy’, says the Ivy League); an elite revolution sets up aristocracy (rule by the best); they also lose virtue, and we get oligarchy (‘neoliberalism’ to everyone but economists); they get overthrown by the people for democracy (rule by the majority: ‘tyranny’ says the Ivy League); but people lack virtue, so this turns to ochlocracy; and the cycle restarts. Polybius argues it’s best to combine monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

    However, as we loom closer to the EU and US elections, and what populism may emerge, he’d probably repeat: “…enticing and corrupting the common people in every possible way… they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand. For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbours, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring… produces a reign of mere violence. Then come tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments, redivisions of land; until, after losing all trace of civilisation, it has once more found a master and a despot.” (Or ‘decolonisation’ as they call it at US Ivy League schools and on social media.)

    On Great Power struggles: Polybius notes in less than a lifetime Rome went from city-state to the master of the world by winning the Punic Wars vs. Carthage. History can sometimes move fast:

    • He speaks of the importance of fate – big things can ‘just happen’: today, we price out term premia from yield curves, and think they won’t.
    • Rome defeated Carthage after humiliating defeats to Hannibal due to its strategic depth and the superiority of the Roman constitution.
    • Its checks and balances prevented any one part of the state from dominating others; and “when we see good customs and good laws prevailing among certain people, we confidently assume that, in consequence of them, the men and their civil constitution will be good also, so when we see private life full of covetousness, and public policy of injustice, plainly we have reason for asserting their laws, particular customs, and general constitution to be bad.”
    • In Carthage, “nothing is disgraceful that makes for gain”; in Rome, “nothing is more disgraceful than to receive bribes and to make profit by improper means… The Carthaginians obtain office by open bribery, but among the Romans the penalty for it is death.”
    • “The most important difference for the better which the Roman commonwealth appears to me to display is in their religious beliefs.”
    • Carthage employed foreign mercenaries; the Romans didn’t (at first). “The result is that even if the Romans have suffered a defeat at first, they renew the war with undiminished forces, which the Carthaginians cannot do. For, as the Romans are fighting for country and children, it is impossible for them to relax the fury of their struggle; but they persist with obstinate resolution until they have overcome their enemies.”
    • Rome’s focus on “Carthago delenda est” (Carthage must be destroyed) proved the rallying point for their society in the end.
    • Polybius argues Carthage’s constitution couldn’t overcome that “There is in every body, or polity, or business a natural stage of growth, zenith, and decay… so far as the strength and prosperity of Carthage preceded that of Rome in point of time, by so much was Carthage then past its prime, while Rome was exactly at its zenith, as far as its political constitution was concerned. In Carthage therefore the influence of the people in the policy of the state had already risen to be supreme, while at Rome the Senate was at the height of its power: and so, as in the one measures were deliberated upon by the many, in the other by the best men, the policy of the Romans in all public undertakings proved the stronger; on which account, though they met with capital disasters, by force of prudent counsels they finally conquered the Carthaginians in the war.”

    A glance at Polybius underlines our Western neoliberal crisis. Consider his comments on good laws and customs in an election year where the leading US presidential candidate is in a New York courtroom charged with a crime some legal experts say is a misdemeanour, but with a stack of serious cases elsewhere, as allegations of double standards are thrown; and as Belgium tried to ban a political meeting involving former UK PM Truss and Nigel Farage for being dangerously ‘far right’: dangerously far out, maybe. Or look to Polybius’s views on corruption, as it spreads; religion, as religiosity falls; and on mercenaries, as the West’s willingness to fight for their own country evaporates, according to survey data, just as the need to fight grows more urgent.

    Yet while Rome and the US both rose to power within a lifetime, the former went on for a great many more, becoming an empire that took more than 650 years to fall in the West, and another millennium in the East. Time may be on the West’s side yet. Could Western checks and balances help it find a new rallying cry like “something construenda est”? And as importantly, what is ‘Team Carthage’ doing? There are two sides to every Great Power struggle.

    To summarize, however, reading biased reports not objective analysis; monomaniacal reports not broader thinking; ignoring the Classical world’s lessons on realpolitik; that how we run societies has been an issue for thousands of years, not since 2016; and that Great Power struggles are always with us, ensures you will swept away in a Polybius Crisis. Ancient wisdom isn’t perfect; but it’s arguably a lot better than relying on a contemporary world’s decided lack of wisdom.

    “NEOLIBERALISM DELENDA EST”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 22:20

  • Alleged Illegal Immigrant Who Couldn't Speak English Caught Trying To Rob Bank Using A Translator App
    Alleged Illegal Immigrant Who Couldn’t Speak English Caught Trying To Rob Bank Using A Translator App

    You’d figure if you’re in the country illegally, you’d at least have the courtesy to learn the language before trying to hold up a bank…

    But basic human decency is dead these days, as was exemplified by a Venezuelan-born man named Yeixon Brito-Gonzalez, who was caught trying to rob a bank in Sandusky, Ohio last week, according to PJ Media. 

    The police were able to apprehend him because he couldn’t speak English and resorted to using a translation app to communicate his demands to the bank tellers. When the tellers – probably wondering if they were being “Punk’d” – did not comply, Brito-Gonzalez, evidently embarrassed, simply left the scene, the report says.

    The perp failed to prepare even basic English phrases like “give me the money” or bring an accomplice who could speak the language, the report says.

    Upon locating Brito-Gonzalez, the police brought along a Spanish-speaking officer to interrogate him but he tried to play dumb. The report says it was later revealed that he told the teller he needed “money in a bag”.

    Don’t we all…

    Sandusky Police Chief Jared Oliver said: 

    “I have been in law enforcement for over 20 years and this is the first time I encountered something like this, someone using a translator app to try and rob a bank. First time our officers have dealt with it too.”

    It’s has not been confirmed whether Brito-Gonzalez is in the U.S. illegally, though his lack of ID at arrest implies this might be the case.

    Nevertheless, while federal authorities will likely question him, there are doubts about enforcement under the current administration, suggesting he may not face stringent consequences (as has been the running theme across the U.S. since Joe Biden has been in office). 

    Sandusky is a small city nestled along the shores of Lake Erie. Known primarily for its role as a major hub for rail and water transport, Sandusky has been a vital part of Ohio’s economy since its establishment in 1818. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 22:00

  • Bidenomics – Inflation Persists And Jobs Decay: Gingrich
    Bidenomics – Inflation Persists And Jobs Decay: Gingrich

    Authored by Newt Gingrich via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Last week brought bad news for the American people and President Joe Biden. Inflation persists and jobs are decaying.

    President Joe Biden speaks about Bidenomics at CS Wind, in Pueblo, Colo., on Nov. 29, 2023. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

    On inflation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported prices rose 3.5 percent between March 2023 and March 2024. This bad number is far higher than the U.S. Federal Reserve’s goal of 2 percent inflation—and it follows three years of price increases.

    Inflation continues to build even after the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates to their highest point in 23 years.

    Much to the Fed’s dismay, its restrictive private sector policies are being more than offset by the Biden administration’s massive deficits. While the Fed is trying to take liquidity out of the system and force a slowdown to lower inflation, the Biden administration keeps pumping borrowed money into the economy.

    The contradiction between the Fed and the Biden White House increases the scale of government and shrinks the private sector. Furthermore, since the federal government is the world’s largest debtor, high interest rates translate into an even bigger federal deficit.

    So, the long run consequences of Bidenomics on inflation is staggering. Measured from the time President Joe Biden took office, the prices Americans are paying have skyrocketed. In just three-and-a-half years, the price of eggs is up 49.3 percent, gasoline is up 47.5 percent, peanut butter is up 40 percent, butter and margarine are up 32 percent, electricity is up 28.3 percent, air fare is up 32.7 percent, used cars are up 20.9 percent—and the list continues.

    The American people feel these price increases, and they are unhappy. Most Americans rate the economy as poor, while only 38 percent consider the economy is in good shape. (Under President Donald Trump, 65 percent rated the economy as good.)

    As the Wall Street Journal editorialized:

    “[I]f voters are downbeat about the economy, persistent inflation is a good reason. Price increases across the Biden Presidency are unlike anything Americans have seen in recent decades. They have been a particular shock for low-income and younger workers who haven’t accumulated a wealth cushion in the stock market or housing values.

    “Mr. Biden is the main architect of his inflation problem—and ours.”

    Mark Halperin with his usual insight asserted: “The story of who will win this election might just be that voters demand a change from the mind-boggling high cost of almost everything. The prices are just too damn high.”

    As if inflation was not a big enough problem there is a an even bigger problem growing with the employment news.

    As Matt Weidinger outlined in AEI Ideas:

    “[I]n the past 12 months, employment among US natives is down by 651,000. Those declines were focused on men, a group President Biden already has increasing difficulties winning over.”

    “In contrast, employment among foreign-born individuals grew by 1,266,000 in the past year, driven by the rapidly growing population of foreign-born individuals ages 16 and over in the US, which rose by almost 2.6 million during the past year. “

    “The gap between US native and foreign-born employment is even starker since last summer. Since its peak in July 2023, employment of US natives has fallen by over 2.0 million, while employment of the foreign-born has risen by almost 1.4 million. “

    From President Biden’s standpoint, Weidinger highlights a deadly detail:

    “Friday’s jobs report reveals that unemployment among Black or African American individuals rose in March for the third consecutive month, to over 1.4 million, the highest level since January 2022. That group’s unemployment rate has risen from 5.1 percent to 6.4 percent in the past year.”

    The jobs numbers contain even more problems for President Biden because part-time jobs are increasing much faster than full-time jobs. More and more Americans are finding themselves working two or three jobs—often with little or no benefits—just to make ends meet in an economy of constantly rising prices.

    So, Bidenomics means rising prices, fewer jobs, more part-time employment, and a desperate sense that things are just not working.

    Still, the propaganda media is trying hard to paint a pretty picture. CNN, for example, called the latest monthly jobs report a “blowout.”

    But everyday Americans know when they go to the grocery store, pay monthly bills, or fill up their cars that life has gotten harder under President Biden.

    The trademark of Bidenomics may be the steady shrinking of products. Take a Trump era candy bar or box of cereal and place it next to the same product today. In most cases, the price increased, and the unit size has shrunk.

    Simply put: Bidenomics means you get less for more.

    If this economic failure persists for another seven months—and it almost certainly will—then Bidenomics may be Biden’s downfall.

    From Gingrich360.com

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 21:40

  • Why Does A Woke Maryland Private School Want To Know The Gender Identity Of Young Students, And If They Had "Oral Sex"?
    Why Does A Woke Maryland Private School Want To Know The Gender Identity Of Young Students, And If They Had “Oral Sex”?

    The parents of an elite Baltimore County, Maryland, private school, where tuition ranges from $32,000 for lower school to as high as $38,000 for upper school per year, are beyond frustrated. Many can’t voice their concerns about the woke mind virus infecting the school’s administration because contracts signed during the Covid era silence them from speaking out. 

    The St. Paul’s School in the Greenspring area, just above imploding Baltimore City, and nestled in steeplechase horse country, continues to have a weird fetish about asking young, vulnerable students about their “gender” and “sexuality.”

    In January, parents went bonkers when an “identity inventory” was handed out to young boys. The questionnaire asked them if they were “Cisgender” or “Transgender” or “Gender Non-Conforming” or “Agender.” 

    After the school hushed up several parents, making an example out of at least one, where the parent’s kids were suspended then reinstated after the parent spoke out on social media about wokenism being injected into the curriculum, the school could not help itself by going down the woke rabbit hole – once again. 

    Yet more parents have contacted us about another survey given to young girls at the school. This time, it’s called the “Independent School Health Check,” and it was administered by the Indiana University Center For Survey Research. 

    Parents are particularly livid with these two questions (and the answers): 

    1. “Do you currently identify your gender as being the same or different from your sex assigned at birth?”
    2. “How do you describe yourself?”

    One parent told us this is a “grooming mechanism …” 

    One very concerned parent asked why their kids are data mined by the school like Google does for internet search browsers.

    Another parent voiced concerns that other private schools in the area have “gone full woke,” while public schools in the state are imploding. 

    The lesson learned is parents need to heavily vet schools and or get involved to ensure their children are not being brainwashed by dangerous wokeism. 

    As for the concerned parents, now is the best time to homeschool – or how about – starting a non-woke school that actually focuses on learning instead of toxic gender nonsense.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 21:20

  • Tucker Carlson: Congress Is Lying To You About FISA
    Tucker Carlson: Congress Is Lying To You About FISA

    Authored by Tucker Carlson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    The U.S. House is expected to vote Friday on a two-year extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, commonly known as FISA. This transcript has been edited for length and reprinted with permission from Tucker Carlson.

    A few years ago, we learned conclusively that, in fact, the FBI and the federal intel agencies—the dozen or more federal intel agencies we have, for some reason—had been working secretly against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

    The Justice Department building on a foggy morning in Washington, on Dec. 9, 2019. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

    Trump had whispered about this, then shouted about it, was roundly denounced as a conspiracy nut, a lunatic. But in the end, he was vindicated. It was true.

    These agencies spied on Trump, and they leaked some of what they learned to the media, which used it against Trump. Then these agencies concocted false stories about Trump. They tried to crush Trump completely in 2016 and then for the entire course of his presidency. Then they did the same thing in 2020 during the presidential election.

    And they’re doing it still. They’re trying to put him in prison for the rest of his life. So if we take three steps back, what you have here is what we’re seeing now.

    For the third time in three consecutive cycles, secretive federal agencies are trying to rig our presidential election. This is what the Democrats refer to as democracy, and they’re trying to defend it. But of course, it’s the opposite of democracy. It’s, in fact, the end of democracy in any semblance of a constitutional republic we ever had.

    If you have a secret police force threatening people, spying on them, and working secretly the levers of political power, then you don’t have a democracy. You have no control over really anything as a voter.

    So if there’s one thing the Republican Party, the opposition party, should be doing in response to this, right now, it’s fighting back against this descent into totalitarianism. They should be working to return freedom and democracy to the country. They should defend the Constitution. They should rein in these agencies, Washington secret police.

    But you will not be surprised to learn they’ve been busy doing just the opposite. So if you’re wondering why no one is going to prison for any of this, now that we know what actually happened, well, the reason is in part a law called FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has been around a long time.

    Sen. Teddy Kennedy first proposed it, by the way, back in the mid-1970s. And that law allows the federal government to spy without a warrant on foreigners outside the borders of the country. The idea is bad people are doing bad things against us. We need to know what they are, and we can’t bother to go to a court to get a warrant every time we want to know, but it will never be used against American citizens. Well, of course, now we know it has been at scale.

    That law, FISA, has made it possible. So that law is now up for reauthorization in the House of Representatives. And amazingly, the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has spent the last couple of weeks doing all he can to get that law reauthorized.

    In other words, to allow the federal agencies to continue to spy upon and punish people who disagree with them. In other words, Mike Johnson’s own party. Republicans, Trump voters. Mike Johnson has been working to do that, and that effort failed [Wednesday] because members of Congress heard from their constituents or came to their senses, saw the truth in a dream.

    Whatever happened, they stopped Mike Johnson from doing that for the moment. So that’s a good thing. And you ought to be celebrating. And even if you didn’t know it was happening—and a lot of people didn’t because it got very little media coverage. But of course, this is a temporary victory. Like all bad things, like that Chlamydia you got in a hot tub in Cabo in college, it will come back.

    This attempt to spy on you, an American citizen, without a warrant because you’ve been politically disobedient. Why will it come back? Because it’s what they really care about. And so, before it does come back, it’s worth just a very quick autopsy.

    What just happened? What do we just see so we can learn a couple of important lessons?

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    The first lesson we’re going to learn is that a lot of powerful people in the Congress are liars. They lie without shame, in fact, with pride. And they do so at the behest of or because of blackmail instituted by the intel agencies. And at the head of that list would be the chairman of the House Intel Committee, Mike Turner of Ohio.

    We’re going to play a clip from Mike Turner of Ohio saying exactly the opposite of what is true here. Is Mike Turner reassuring you that face, it would never, under the face of law, the U.S. government would never be allowed to spy on you without a warrant, because that’s unconstitutional. It never happened. It never will happen. And if you think otherwise, you’re probably one of those UFO-believing nutjobs who want to stop doing ayahuasca.

    Here’s House Intel Committee, pawn of the intel agencies, Mike Turner of Ohio:

    “They are—we are not surveilling foreigners in the United States. We’re not surveilling Americans, United States. Those individuals who say that is a warrantless search of Americans’ data are just not telling the truth. These are foreigners abroad. They’re a select group of individuals who are a national security threat. If you’re an American and you’re corresponding with ISIS, yes. If we’re, if we’re spying on ISIS, your communications are going to be captured. And you would want us to do that. All Americans would want us to try to make certain that we keep ourselves safe from these terrorist, outside terrorist groups, organizations. We are not spying on Americans. This is not a warrantless surveillance program. This is foreigners who are abroad only.”

    Every word of that is a lie. And we don’t need to guess. And I hate to use that pronoun, but I specifically don’t need to guess, because that actually happened to me.

    The [National Security Agency] broke into my text messages, read them, passed them to news organizations in order to discredit me, and then admitted that they did that. They spied on me and they did it under FISA because I was daring to text with a foreigner outside our borders.

    So Mike Turner knows that, he’s the chairman of the intel committee. He knows he’s lying, but he’s doing it anyway because it’s that important to preserve that core power.

    If you have the power to spy on someone and then to leak the information that you gather or manipulated and then leak it in order to control that person, that’s a major power. In fact, that’s a bigger power than any voter in this country has. And so he’s acting on their behalf when he lies to you. And so it shouldn’t surprise you that they want to keep that power.

    They want to keep it so badly that over the last week, U.S. government officials did something that may not have precedent in Washington. They lobbied members of Congress directly. They, in the words they used in Washington, they whipped the bill.

    Officials from the Department of Justice called, among others, [Rep.] Chip Roy of Texas to demand that he vote for FISA reauthorization.

    Imagine that—DOJ, Department of Justice, the federal law enforcement agency, called Chip Roy and said, “You got to do this.” Think about that.

    Is there any group in this country more powerful than the Department of Justice? They can put you in jail, and they’ve shown a willingness to do that. They could put kiddy porn on your computer. They’ve probably done that too. And everybody who serves in Congress knows that, and everybody’s afraid of them—along with the CIA and NSA and a bunch of other, three other agencies.

    Members of Congress are afraid of them because they know the consequences of disobedience. And so for them to call directly a member of Congress would be like the FBI coming to your House on Election Day and demanding that you vote for their designated candidate. And then having access to the record of who you actually voted for, as they do in the Congress.

    Can you imagine? You’d be highly motivated to vote for their candidate, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would. So they’re willing to do anything to get this enshrined in law, because it gives them legal cover to subvert democracy, which is their program, of course.

    Read the full transcript at TuckerCarlson.com. Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

    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, 04/17/2024 – 21:00

  • Sanctuary Cities Set Migrant Sex Offenders Free Instead Of Handing Them Over To ICE
    Sanctuary Cities Set Migrant Sex Offenders Free Instead Of Handing Them Over To ICE

    Long painted as safe havens of humanitarianism by the establishment media, sanctuary cities are slowly being exposed for the underlying hypocrisy that motivates their policies.  Red states such as Texas and Florida have been very effective in pulling back the curtain, using the busing of illegals to sanctuary cities as a tool to force Democrats to stand by their own open borders principles (or abandon them out of convenience). 

    As we witnessed when Ron DeSantis flew a few dozen illegals to the elitist neighborhoods of Martha’s Vineyard, wealthy leftists were quick to buy cheap take-out food for the migrants and pose with them for the news cameras.  Then, when the media was done with their propaganda segments the residents kicked those same migrants out of town within 48 hours and shipped them to the nearest military base.  One of the richest enclaves in the entire US and they refused to stand by their supposed convictions for more than two days; not one migrant was allowed to stay or work in Martha’s Vineyard.

    Democrats were so embarrassed by the incident that they tried to have DeSantis sued and charged with “human trafficking.”  The Martha’s Vineyard incident marked the beginning of a surge in migrant buses to cities like New York and Washington DC.  All it took was ten thousand to fifteen thousand illegals to overwhelm city welfare programs and subsidies.  Mayors in both metro areas have called for a declaration of emergency and federal aid, including National Guard troops.  In the meantime, the media blames conservative states for the disaster even though it is the sanctuary status of these cities that makes the crisis possible.   

    The message being sent is that the political left needs media cover for their policies because their policies constantly fail (or succeed in being destructive, depending on how you look at it).  They simply never intended for the surge of illegals to land on their doorstep.  One area that is consistently damaging to the progressive image is the catch and release of numerous illegal migrant criminals who go on to harm innocent American citizens.  The growing list of incidents surrounding migrant crime is creating a PR nightmare for Democrats. 

    People are starting to ask – If Democrats knowingly release dangerous migrant offenders onto the streets, are Democrats then accountable for the people those migrants go on to harm?  For example, Haitian migrant Cory Alvarez, who was arrested for raping a 15 year old girl with disabilities in Massachusetts, entered the United States using the Biden administration’s CHNV parole program.

    This program allows Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to fly into the U.S. after they’ve supposedly been vetted and have a sponsor in the U.S.  Clearly the vetting process is non-existent and the flights are designed to allow illegals to bypass any existing border protections and claim “asylum”, thus making them semantically “legal.”  CHNV frequently transports migrants to sanctuary cities where they can avoid scrutiny by ICE.  But the problem goes further…

    A Colombian child sex offender in the US illegally was released onto the streets by California authorities rather than sent for deportation, due to sanctuary state laws.  The criminal, who’s identity has not been revealed publicly, was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2022, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Fifteen months later he was freed by San Bernardino County and a request from ICE to be notified of his release was not honored.

    The migrant traveled across the country to Boston, MA where he was finally apprehended by ICE agents.  Agents are frequently forced to work around sanctuary laws in Boston as well, recovering multiple migrant sex offenders daily and deporting them without the help of the city. 

    In the span of only two weeks in February 2024, ICE apprehended at least 275 illegals with sex offense convictions during a nationwide operation.  Imagine how many are still living within our borders because of sanctuary status.

    Sanctuary cities are run by local governments that have vowed to refuse to work with federal immigration authorities in any capacity, and some have even set out to obstruct or sabotage ICE agents in the apprehension of dangerous suspects.  But what can be learned from the trend of blue cities catching and then releasing the very worst kinds of criminals on the planet simply because they are migrants?

    It’s interesting that Democrats are usually so rabid about federal government control and intervention in most areas of American society, but when it comes to securing the border and vetting foreign immigrants, one of the few jobs that the feds should be doing today, leftists suddenly oppose federal presence.  The lesson here is that progressives are not willing to negotiate their open border agenda in the slightest, even to prevent child victimization.  This forces us to ask an important question:  If they aren’t willing to compromise to protect the most vulnerable of American citizens, why should conservatives compromise with them on overall immigration?       

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 20:40

  • Excused Juror Reveals Selection Process For Trump’s 'Hush-Money' Trial: 'All Have Prior Opinions'
    Excused Juror Reveals Selection Process For Trump’s ‘Hush-Money’ Trial: ‘All Have Prior Opinions’

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

    A juror who was excused from serving on the Manhattan trial of former President Donald Trump provided details about the questions potential jurors were asked.

    Kara McGee an excused juror, speaks to the media outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on April 16, 2024, during the second day of the trial against former President Donald Trump for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs. (Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

    Kara McGee told media outlets outside the courtroom on Tuesday that she was dismissed but said she believes she could be impartial, adding still that it would be “very difficult for anyone really in this country to not come to this without prior opinions.”

    “We all have prior opinions on the defendant, unless you’ve been living in a cardbox,” she said, adding that she was excused because of her job in the cybersecurity sector.

    Regarding her personal feelings on President Trump, the woman said, “I’m not a fan.” The main reason why, she said, is because of how she believed he handled the COVID-19 pandemic response.

    But Ms. McGee provided some insight on the questions that were asked of the jurors.

    “One of which is: Do you have opinions about the ability for a former sitting president to be tried in a court of law? Which I think the way people answered that showed how they felt about case,” she said. “The other one was: Do you have any opinions about legal limits for campaign finance donation amounts? Which I believe was another one that was kinda meant to gauge feelings about the particular case,” she added.

    As of Wednesday morning, seven jurors have been selected with five more slots remaining. The judge has indicated that he will choose about six extra jurors to serve as backups.

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    Responding to the jury-selection process, President Trump wrote on Wednesday: “I thought STRIKES were supposed to be ‘unlimited’ when we were picking our jury? I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the 2nd Worst Venue in the Country. Don’t worry, we have the First Worst also, as the Witch Hunt continues!”

    The former president is on trial for allegedly falsifying payments that were made during the 2016 campaign meant to bury potentially negative stories about him. Prosecutors say that he delivered $130,000 to former lawyer Michael Cohen to deal with a story about an alleged affair with adult actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, which the former president has denied.

    In court papers, President Trump’s lawyers have argued that the payments were legitimate expenses. He’s pleaded not guilty to the charges, which are felonies, and said it’s an attempt to denigrate his 2024 presidential chances.

    Before entering the court on Tuesday, President Trump described the judge, Juan Merchan, as a “Trump-hating” official who “shouldn’t be on this case.” Earlier, he said that the judge is “conflicted” because his daughter works as a consultant for the Democratic Party and has had high-profile clients including Vice President Kamala Harris.

    “It’s a trial that is being looked upon and looked at all over the world … they’re looking at, analyzing it. Every legal pundit, every legal scholar said this trial is a disgrace,” the former president added.

    The judge has refused to recuse himself in the case. On Monday, Judge Merchan again said he wouldn’t recuse himself and added that the matter will not be considered again until an appeals court renders a decision.

    Also Monday, Judge Merchan told President Trump that he has to show up in court every day it’s in session, adding that “there will be an arrest” if he doesn’t. It means that the former president will not be able to hold many campaign events, including in many key battleground states, for the next several weeks.

    Former president Donald Trump visits a bodega store in upper Manhattan where a worker was assaulted by a man in 2022 and ended up killing him in an ensuing fight in New York on April 16, 2024. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    The former president visited a New York City bodega where a man was stabbed to death, with the aides saying he chose the store because it has been the site of a violent attack on an employee, a case that resulted in public criticism for the Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg, now prosecuting him.

    The visit was President Trump’s first campaign appearance since his criminal hush money trial began, making the presumptive GOP nominee the first former president in U.S. history to stand criminal trial.

    “They want law and order … every week they’re being robbed,” the former president said of businesses in New York, as he tried to compare his prosecution with what happens on New York streets. “You know where the crime is? It’s in the bodegas.”

    “Papito Trump is coming. Yeah!” said one passerby ahead of the former president’s arrival. Another woman who spoke to The Associated Press said that the former president “speaks the truth,” making reference to illegal immigration. “I think that he will make a difference,” she added.

    “I love this city,” the former president told reporters after emerging from the store. “We’re going to straighten New York out.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 20:20

  • Iran Navy Escorting Iranian Commercial Ships To Red Sea To Prevent Reprisal
    Iran Navy Escorting Iranian Commercial Ships To Red Sea To Prevent Reprisal

    Iran has newly declared that its military will begin a mission to escort Iranian commercial ships to the Red Sea, protecting them from any potential hostile attacks or intercepts from the West or Israel, which comes as Washington and the European Union are readying expanded sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

    “The Navy is carrying out a mission to escort Iranian commercial ships to the Red Sea and our Jamaran frigate is present in the Gulf of Aden in this view,” announced Naval Commander Shahram Irani, as cited in state media.

    Getty Images

    Ironically Iran’s allies the Houthis are currently blocking global commercial shipping in the Red Sea, having up to this point launched dozens or possibly hundreds of attacks on Western and international vessels. The Houthis have said they will allow safe passage for Chinese and Russian vessels, and of course it goes without saying that Iranian ships will be protected.

    This fresh Iranian navy announcement also comes in the context of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) having seized the Portuguese-flagged container ship MSC Aries on April 13 near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians say it is an Israeli-linked ship. 

    Iran now appears to be preparing to protect against retaliation for this ship seizure, such as the possibility of the US Navy intercepting Iranian oil tankers, also against tense backdrop of Israel mulling a direct attack on Iran following the Saturday overnight Iranian drone and missile attack on the Jewish state.

    CNBC says that all of this is likely only the beginning: 

    Before this weekend’s tanker seizure, the last vessel Iran hijacked was the St. Nikolas on January 1. According to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, that brought the total number of vessels being held to five, and over 90 crew members hostage. Previous to that, the Iranian-backed Houthis hijacked The Galaxy Leader on November 19.

    The latest development has shipping and energy experts bracing for a long-term timeline of uncertainty.

    “Iran is in this for the long haul,” said Samir Madani, co-founder of Tankertrackers.com, an independent online service that tracks and reports crude oil shipments in several geographical and geopolitical points of interest.

    Tehran has also recently reiterated long-running threats that it could close the vital Strait of Hormuz which its forces regularly patrol and is just off the Islamic Republic’s coast. 

    Iran’s military has also of late been threatening to attack US military bases across the Middle East, especially in Western Iraq and Eastern Syria. Western diplomats are currently seeking to push Prime Minister Netanyahu to stand down and not escalate further, but it seems Tel Aviv is indeed planning something imminent.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 20:00

  • 2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face
    2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face

    Authored by Paul Rosenberg via FreemansPerspective.com,

    (Originally published September 28, 2020.)

    As we grew up, nearly all of us were inundated with stories of our glorious national fathers, our beautiful democracies, and so on.

    And being young, we for the most part believed them. The system gave us our prosperity, our comfort, our medicine, our sense of importance.

    Soon enough we learned that the system was also stupid and perverse, but we found a way around that contradiction by blaming one segment of the system or another: The Blues or the Greens or the Reds were the problem; it could not, must not, be that the system itself is the problem.

    Then came 2020, and the system revealed its true face.

    I suppose I should be fair and add that the system wasn’t always as rotten as it is now, but regardless, it wasn’t able to prevent the rot that overtook it.

    2020, In A Nasty Little Nutshell

    The system would like everything except the daily outrages (one for the Blues, one for the Reds) to go down the Memory Hole. So I think it’s important to recap the revelations of 2020:

    The system decreed who could work and who couldn’t. This was not done democratically; it was done by edict. “Democracy” did nothing to stop it.

    People were arrested for going to church or synagogue. This was the real disgrace of the police forces. Are there any orders from their paymasters they won’t enforce upon us?

    Political gangs roam the streets, beating, threatening and burning. Make no mistake, these are covertly authorized political gangs, serving political ends. This vile tactic goes back to ancient Rome at least, where gangs of thugs beat opponents in the streets.

    “Science” said one thing then the opposite, supporting whatever power wanted. Not every scientist, but more or less the entire grant-seeking, position-seeking complex showed themselves to be without integrity; they said and did whatever power wanted them to do.

    Mass media was as a fear delivery system. They were devoted to capturing eyeballs with fear and monetizing outrage. Journalistic integrity was a joke at best.

    Social media silenced thousands of dissenters, purely at the behest of political power. This was no less that the mass suppression of speech. (If you want to profit from becoming the public square, you have to act like a public square.) Free services have always been parasites, but these have shown themselves to be sycophantic to the point of fascism.

    The mandatory school system, around which millions of families had arranged their lives, was ripped away in an instant.

    Hate was legitimated. Political loud-mouths and televised faces have treated hate as the voice of justice, instead of the disease it is. Millions have joined in the barbarity, pretending that hate is actually duty, honor, and truth.

    More could be added, but this is quite enough to make my point: The system is not what we were taught it was, and 2020 has revealed that quite well.

    The System Doesn’t Deserve Us

    By referring to “the system” and “us,” I’m dividing the world into two parts, and so I should be clear on what those parts are:

    Us refers to producers: the people who grow food, transport it, process it, build machines, provide medical care, and so on. Everyone from the construction worker to the small business owner to the cleaning lady is a producer, and deserve great respect for what they do. We owe all the comforts of our lives, and frequently our lives altogether, to these people.

    The system refers to the entire governmental complex that takes our money and couldn’t survive without it. It also includes everything that couldn’t be what they are without them: Central banks, government school systems, businesses that live on government connections, television networks, social media behemoths, and more or less everything high and mighty.

    What I’d like is for the producers of the world to become clear on the fact that we don’t need them. Everything they “do for us” is done with our money, which they take from us by force and fraud.

    So let’s be honest about this: The system is a violent, corrupt and control-obsessed entity. Millions of us would choose other arrangements if we could, but the system forbids them. Forcibly.

    We should also understand that this has happened before. Here, to illustrate, is a passage from historian C. Delisle Burns on the real reason Rome collapsed:

    Great numbers of men and women were unwilling to make make the effort required for the maintenance of the old order, not because they were not good enough to fulfill their civic duties, but because they were too good to be satisfied with a system from which so few derived benefit.

    The system is not worthy of our labor and treasure. Whether or not it once was (and if so, when) no longer matters.

    2020 has made this much clear. It’s time to drop our child-training and look at the world like the adults we’ve become.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 19:40

  • "Central Bank Observers Take Note": HSBC Warns "Weak Bull" Commodity Run Has Begun
    “Central Bank Observers Take Note”: HSBC Warns “Weak Bull” Commodity Run Has Begun

    Commodity prices provide a real-time snapshot of the global economy through spot prices, which are essentially high-frequency data about the current supply and demand environment. These prices are key components in measuring inflation, which has shown signs of easing over the past year. However, a recent surge in the Bloomberg Commodity Index and signs of a reacceleration in US inflation data are troubling for Fed chair Powell. 

    HSBC’s Paul Bloxham and Jamie Culling asked clients in a note: “Have commodity prices past the trough?” 

    Their answer, very simply, “It seems likely.”

    “Global commodity prices have picked up in recent weeks and could be past the trough,” the analysts said, noting an emerging “weak” upward global industrial cycle has materialized. They continued: 

    On the demand side, ‘green shoots’ in the global industrial cycle are becoming more apparent. On the supply-side, geopolitical factors are playing an increasingly disruptive role in the ongoing ‘super-squeeze.’ 

    At a deeper level, real commodity prices have already fallen back to their long-run average – that is, the relative prices of commodities to other goods and services are now not unusually high. 

    So, even if commodity prices only rise in line with other prices from here, they would be passed their trough. 

    The analysts warned their new machine learning commodity cycle tool is forecasting a “Weak Bull” run, indicating, “If the trough has passed, the recent disinflationary force from falling commodity prices may be done. Central bank observers should take note.” 

    The timing of HSBC’s “Weak Bull” commodity run comes as inflation is reaccelerating in the US. Last week’s March CPI data dump showed a stronger-than-expected 3.5% YoY print, an uptick from the 3.2% YoY rise in February. 

    Summing up the latest inflation report… 

    The hot inflation print has pushed rate traders to price in the first 25bps of cuts between September and November. Initially, rate traders were pricing in March cuts.  

    Hotter-than-expected inflation puts upward pressure on rates and borrowing costs with higher risks of derailing Biden’s reelection odds as Bidenomics fails. 

    The reacceleration of inflation has Larry MacDonald of The Bear Traps Report warning, “We’re only one event away from a 1970-style stagflation explosion.” 

    Could the return of the mid-70s inflation storm result from an escalation of the Israel-Iran war where Brent crude soars past $100bbl? 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 19:20

  • Los Angeles Mayor Urges 'More Fortunate' Residents To Help Fund Housing For Homeless
    Los Angeles Mayor Urges ‘More Fortunate’ Residents To Help Fund Housing For Homeless

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

    Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has suggested that “more fortunate” residents help fund housing for the homeless as part of a new campaign to tackle the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis.

    Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks during a press conference to announce new efforts to curb recent retail thefts at City Hall in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2023. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    Ms. Bass, a Democrat, announced the “LA4LA campaign,” which she said would speed up the creation of affordable housing for homeless individuals, during her State of the City address on April 15.

    The mayor called on “fortunate Angelenos”—including business leaders, philanthropic organizations, and others—to help the city “acquire more properties, lower the cost of capital, and speed up housing” for the homeless population under the new program.

    However, Ms. Bass didn’t provide further details regarding the specifics of the campaign, such as how much money business leaders and organizations should donate or how exactly the campaign will work.

    “We have brought the public sector together and now we must prevail on the humanity and generosity of the private sector,” the mayor said. “LA4LA can be a Sea Change for Los Angeles–an unprecedented partnership to confront this emergency … an example of disrupting the status quo to build a new system to save lives.

    “We will not hide people. Instead, we will house people,” she continued. “This means committing to the goal of preventing and ending homelessness—not hiding—not managing—but ending homelessness—with a new strategy and a new system that urgently lifts people from the street, and that surrounds them with the support and housing they need to never go back.”

    Bass Touts ‘Inside Safe’ Program

    During her address, the mayor touted her efforts to move homeless Angelenos out of short-term housing, including hotels and motel rooms, and into apartments under her “Inside Safe” program.

    That program, which initially launched in December 2022 when Ms. Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness, has seen roughly 2,500 homeless individuals taken off the street and placed into interim housing, according to the mayor’s office.

    A total of 440 people have also been placed into permanent housing under the program, as per her office.

    However, roughly 613 of those who took part in the program have returned to homelessness, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Another 42 have been incarcerated, and 38 have died, as per the agency.

    Ms. Bass said Inside Safe is “our proactive rejection of a status quo that left unhoused Angelenos to wait–and die–outside, in encampments until permanent housing was built.”

    Budget Deficit Woes

    Still, the mayor acknowledged that more than 46,000 people in Los Angeles currently have no home and stressed that motel rooms rented out on a nightly basis are increasingly adding up at a time when the city is already struggling under a burgeoning budget deficit.

    Los Angeles is currently facing a projected $467 million shortfall, driven by increased spending and lower-than-expected revenues.

    Ms. Bass noted that the homelessness crisis—along with the continued opioid crisis that is fueling fentanyl overdose deaths—has affected residents of Los Angeles both mentally and financially, forcing them to “pay the cost of the thousands and thousands of fire, paramedic and police calls.”

    The ongoing issues plaguing the city are also driving away business and tourism, she noted, highlighting the fact that many companies are fleeing the city out of safety concerns.

    “I just will not accept this–and our city cannot afford to accept this. That is why we are disrupting, challenging, and rebuilding the system. Inside Safe and our overall approach is evolving and will continue to evolve,” the mayor said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 19:00

  • Doug Casey On The New American Dream: "You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy"
    Doug Casey On The New American Dream: “You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy”

    Via InternationalMan.com,

    International Man: According to a recent study by Investopedia, the classic middle-class American Dream now costs over $3.4 million.

    That’s the estimated lifetime cost of marriage, two children, cars, homes, healthcare, education, and retirement. It’s now entirely out of reach for many Americans.

    What do you make of this? How did this happen?

    Doug Casey: The fact is, despite the fact that his standard of living has been slipping over the past 50 years, the average American today lives much better and longer than a king during pre-industrial times. There were never any guarantees that Americans would live in the lap of luxury for their entire lives.

    We got to this high standard of living for two reasons. One, people tended to produce more than they consumed and saved the difference. And two, technology has been improving at almost the rate of Moore’s law for the last 200 years.

    However, there’s no guarantee that either of these fonts of progress will continue, especially since savings are being wiped out by the destruction of the dollar. A lack of savings means there won’t be a capital pool to finance further advances in technology.

    But there are other serious things at work, termites eating away at the foundations of civilization. It’s become customary for Americans to think that it’s okay for some people to live their entire lives without producing at all and to live at the expense of others. A lot of the country is on welfare. And many more are buried in consumer debt, which means they’re either living off the capital others have saved in the past, or they’re mortgaging their own futures.

    On top of that, since about 1980, the main export of the US hasn’t been Boeings or soybeans; it’s been dollars. Foreigners have accepted those paper dollars in exchange for real wealth. They’re really just another form of debt. At some point—soon—they’ll repatriate them in exchange for titles to land and companies.

    Capital is also being destroyed by the constant wars that the US fights against trivial countries on the other side of the world.

    The fact is that our institutions, from corporations to academia to government, have become corrupt, ineffectual, and bloated. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that, in the physical world, things inevitably degenerate over time. That’s also true in the world of human action. In general, as any institution gets old, it winds down. That’s true of the US, and it’s apparent to everyone—at least anyone outside of the Washington Beltway.

    International Man: As the American middle class continues to shrink, it seems the “New American Dream” is to merely get by and make ends meet.

    People will have to rent instead of own. They may not be able to afford kids, pets, ribeye steaks, or retirement. They’ll have to take on a lot more debt.

    The “New American Dream” looks more like the WEF’s “you’ll own nothing and be happy.”

    What’s your take?

    Doug Casey: It’s rather shocking that in a traditionally middle-class society like the US, that the “one percenters”—typically those wired to the State and major corporations—now own about one-third of the total wealth.

    What’s even more shocking is that the bottom half of society only owns 2% of the country’s wealth. That kind of an imbalance makes for instability. No wonder it’s said that the average guy can’t lay his hands on even $500 cash if there’s an emergency. No wonder a criminal like Klaus Schwab can promote his “You’ll own nothing and be happy” meme and not be hung from a lamp pole— a lot of people now feel they’d be better off in that kind of world.

    Increasingly, the wealth of the country is owned by corporations and their top management. It used to be said that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” I used to believe that because General Motors actually created cars, and that was good. But we’ve devolved. GM and other major corporations have become defacto arms of the State. Taxes, staggering regulations, subsidies, and bailouts have destroyed free-market capitalism.

    The capitalist system in the US is long gone. We’ve devolved into classical Mussolini-style fascism, which is to say, State corporatism, where corporations and the State work hand-in-glove.

    It’s euphemistically called a public-private “partnership.” The people in government and the people in top corporate levels scratch each other’s backs and reinforce each other’s positions. They feed each other power and money. This makes for a highly politicized society, where connections, not production, are what count.

    For instance, in the last election, $14 billion was spent on campaign spending to get the hoi polloi to vote for one party or another. But only a fifth of that money came from small donors—the rest from the wealthy and corporations. Of course, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer as our highly politicized society degenerates.

    International Man: Many people look back on how they viewed the future and how it was portrayed in movies. Many thought we would have flying cars by now, among other futuristic luxuries.

    Instead, we have a declining standard of living, and people look back on the good old days.

    Where do you think this trend is headed?

    Doug Casey: We’re heading in the wrong direction at an accelerating rate because there’s been a breakdown of moral fiber in society. People, in general, no longer understand what’s right and what’s wrong—or what’s good and what’s evil. They’re taking less responsibility for their individual lives and what happens around them.

    We’ve gone from a high-trust society, where you didn’t need to lock your car or your front door, to a low-trust society, where everybody is constantly observed, and security is of critical importance.

    At the same time, the country has generally gone from having low time preferences and being future-oriented to high time preferences; “I want it all, and I want it now.” They’re not as future-oriented as they once were.

    Going back to the question of moral fiber breakdown, the economic observer Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” People wanted to show off expensive cars and clothes to advertise to other people that they were more successful. But now, because of all the debt in society, anyone can have a nice car. And nobody even cares about nice clothes anymore; everybody wears the equivalent of T-shirts and jeans.

    The trend setters have moved from owning and displaying frivolous goods to displaying frivolous ideas—like Wokeism. Everybody is adopting those ideas, to show that they’re hip, in-the-know, and part of the cognoscenti. In the past, adopting the conspicuous consumption lifestyles of their betters would only make them poor. Adopting these degenerate ideas makes them stupid and immoral—which is much worse.

    International Man: What advice do you have for struggling middle-class people who are about to be kicked down to the lower class?

    Doug Casey: First and most important, don’t go to college unless you need a STEM degree—Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math.

    Going to college today does nothing but misallocate four critically important years of your life, permanently indebt you, and corrupt your mind with the idiotic ideas that Marxist professors and administrations cram down students’ throats. Educate yourself. Read constantly.

    Next, work to become self-employed, not to “get a job.” You don’t want to rely on a job that somebody else gives you. And save your money—but don’t save in fiat dollars. Save in gold. When you have sufficient savings, learn to speculate and invest.

    International Man: As you’ve noted, The Greater Depression is a period in which there will be a significant decline in the general standard of living.

    Is there any way to make lemonade out of these lemons?

    Doug Casey: We’re well into what I’ve long called The Greater Depression. But I’d point out that most of the real wealth in the world will still exist – it’s just going to be owned by different people.

    The opportunity will exist for nimble entrepreneurs and speculators to do well, even as most people’s standard of living drops. But the big question is: For how long will the societal trend that we’re now on continue going down?

    When Rome collapsed over a period of several hundred years, living well and peaceably got harder and harder as Europe entered the Dark Ages. Even if you had a lot of money, it really didn’t do you that much good. That’s why it’s important to preserve what’s left of the idea of America.

    *  *  *

    Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of this trend in motion. The best you can do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation. Most people have no idea what really happens when a currency collapses, let alone how to prepare… How will you protect your savings in the event of a currency crisis? This just-released video will show you exactly how. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 18:20

  • The Purpose Of War According To George Orwell (1984)
    The Purpose Of War According To George Orwell (1984)

    Some food for thought from George Orwell’s ‘1984’…

    Does anything really ever change? (emphasis ours)

    The primary aim of modern warfare is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

    Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process — by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute — the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

    But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction — indeed, in some sense was the destruction — of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.

    But in practice such a society could not long remain stable.

    For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.

    In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

    To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.

    Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940.

    The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this, too, entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable.

    The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.

    The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour.

    War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

    Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

    In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage.

    It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.

    By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter—set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call ’the proles’. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty.

    And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival…

    …

    …war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

    The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist.

    …

    War is Peace.

    In short – the purpose of war is to keep the ruling class in power while the lower classes remain powerless.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 18:00

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Apr 17

Today’s News 17th April 2024

  • US Push For A 'Middle East NATO' Failed To Emerge During Iran Strikes
    US Push For A ‘Middle East NATO’ Failed To Emerge During Iran Strikes

    Via Middle East Eye

    The Islamic Republic’s Saturday attack on Israel was a made-for social media moment. It was also the ultimate test of US efforts to cobble together a coalition of Arab states and Israel in a so-called Middle East NATO, to jointly defend an attack from Tehran.

    Israel, the US, France, the UK, and Jordan managed to intercept around 99 percent of the drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles fired at Israel by Iran in retaliation for an attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria. Radar and early warning systems that the US maintains at its military bases across the Gulf were instrumental in tracking the slow-moving armada of missiles and drones, current and former US, Israeli and Arab officials told MEE, adding that the US was able to scramble jet fighters from Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the last minute to particpate in the operation. 

    But in the end, the oil-rich Gulf states downplayed any involvement and left the heavy lifting of fighting off Iran’s attack to the US, its western allies and Jordan, the resource-poor Hashemite Kingdom dependent on US financial assistance.

    For its part, Jordan cast its role actively downing Iranian drones as self-defense and not related to protecting Israel.  “There was unprecedented cooperation between Israel, the US and the Jordanians,” Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, told Middle East Eye. “But calling this a coalition is an illusion.”

    Middle East Eye reported on Friday that the Gulf monarchies were shutting down US options to launch strikes against Iran in the event Washington felt the need to retaliate against Tehran’s attack on Israel. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Kuwait all scrutinized their basing agreements with Washington to do the bare minimum that was required and avoid being involved in direct strikes on Iranian targets. 

    Bilal Saab, a former US Department of Defence official, now at Chatham House, told MEE that the Gulf states’ calibrated actions underscored the limits of the Biden administration’s push for a Middle East Nato. “When we start seeing authorizations to use Gulf airspace to launch strikes on Iranian targets, then we can start talking about a Middle East Nato. Right now, it’s the exact opposite,” he said.

    “I think what we saw from Saturday’s attack pumps the breaks on any idea of an Arab and Israeli Nato.”

    Propaganda war

    As the dust from Saturday’s attack settles, the way regional states responded in the lead-up to the assault is becoming a new battleground between Tehran on one hand, and the US and Israel on the other – that has little to do with the Palestinians but rather the bigger question of who calls the shots in the Middle East.

    The Biden administration and Israel are keen to cast Israel’s successful defense as the byproduct of a united front of allies, including Arab states. Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gatz praised the “regional cooperation” that allowed Israel to defend itself.

    Successful coordination with Arab states would allow Israel to present Saturday as a strategic win, which could help reduce tensions by lessening the need for a more forceful Israeli response, according to analysts. “What this weekend demonstrated is that Israel did not have to and does not have to defend itself alone when it is the victim of an aggression, the victim of an attack,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.

    For its part, the Islamic Republic’s goal is to isolate Israel, preventing any cooperation between them and Gulf states. “It’s a total propaganda war right now,” Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst and expert on ties between Israel and Gulf states told MEE.

    Tehran and Washington are already sparring over whether advance notice of the attack on Israel was given.

    Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said that Tehran gave the US about 72 hours prior notice of the attack through “our friends and neighbours”. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal appeared to confirm that claim, reporting that Iran briefed officials from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states on its attack. Turkish officials also told MEE that Turkey, a member of Nato, was briefed on the attack days in advance. The US, however, denied it was given a days-long heads up before the assault. 

    Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told MEE that an Iranian leak to Gulf states would logically be passed on to the US because Arab rulers are afraid a deadly Iranian strike on Israel could spark a wider war, which Iran hoped to avoid. 

    “Jordan and the Arab Gulf states are first and foremost concerned about preventing regional escalation,” he told MEE. “I don’t see this as Gulf states doubling down on a strategic alignment with Israel. They are going to keep talking with Iran to prevent an unravelling that they fear will suck them all in.”

    ‘Provoking Iran’

    To be sure, the Arab Gulf states are linked more closely with Israel today than any time in history, and Israel’s war on Gaza has not led the UAE or Bahrain to rip up the 2020 Abraham Accords which saw them normalise ties with Tel Aviv.

    As part of that agreement, Israel was also absorbed into Centcom, the US’s overall central command in the Middle East. Israeli military officials were even dispatched to Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, MEE previously reported, but it’s not clear if those officials are still in the country.

    But Saturday’s attack on Israel underscored the US’s limited success in fostering closer security cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states, Milshtein, the former Israeli military intelligence officer, told MEE. Gulf states have no love lost for Iran, but are wary of what they believe to be the US’s waning influence in the region and limited appetite to come to their defense, as Washington did for Israel. The US did not retaliate to the 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facilities that was blamed to have been backed by Iran.

    The Gulf states’ frustration with the US only grew when the Biden administration took office. Biden and members of his party criticised Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over human rights issues. Saudi Arabia and the UAE also viewed the administration’s response to Houthi missile and drone attacks as tepid.

    In response, they moved to patch up ties with Tehran. In April 2023, the UAE appointed its first new ambassador to the Islamic Republic after seven years. Saudi Arabia and Tehran normalised ties in a deal brokered by China.

    “Most of the Arab states promoted reconciliation with Iran because they couldn’t rely on Biden’s administration,” Milshtein said. “They preferred to deal with Iran and not the Americans”

    Saab, at Chatham House, said to achieve true regional coordination between Israel and the Gulf states, Washington would need to provide concrete security guarantees. Saudi Arabia has requested such support, along with new weapons systems, as part of a deal to normalise ties with Israel, but those talks are stalled as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip. “The last thing the Gulf is going to do is provoke Iran and not have the backing of the Americans,” Saab said.

    Alghashian said Saturday’s attack on Israel likely reaffirmed Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s decision to restore ties with Tehran. He said Riyadh’s goal is to “stay out of the way” of tensions between Israel and Iran as it pursues its economic development. “The strategic value of restoring ties with Tehran is paying dividends,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/17/2024 – 02:00

  • 'They Must Be Destroyed': How Cuban Americans Face Assassination Threats, Terror List
    ‘They Must Be Destroyed’: How Cuban Americans Face Assassination Threats, Terror List

    Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Several of Cuba’s latest “terrorists” live in Miami.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images)

    Luis Zuniga, a former diplomat and political prisoner of the Castro regime, is one of 61 people listed as a “terrorist” by Cuba and accused of promoting, planning, organizing, financing, or supporting actions against the Cuban communist party.

    Exiles who oppose the Cuban communist party have suffered vicious attacks and assassination attempts over the years. However, a new wave of targeting was ignited after the regime, under its leader, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, published a list of alleged “terrorists” in December 2023.

    The list was given to Interpol and government officials from different nations, including the United States in December 2023.

    “I think the overt and covert campaign of threats and intimidation by the Cuban dictatorship against U.S. citizens of Cuban descent is very important,” Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat told The Epoch Times. He is an author, cofounder, and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

    Mr. Boronot’s outspoken resistance to Cuba’s communist regime landed him a spot on the so-called “terrorist” list. He has been accused of trying to destabilize the Cuban government, along with threats of violence on more than one occasion.

    “I think being included in that list … is definitely a threat.”

    Some believe Cuba’s “terrorist” list and the newest round of menace toward exiles was launched because the Cuban government is on increasingly shaky ground at home.

    The regime has witnessed 1,033 protests across the island in February and March this year, according to the Cuban Conflict Observatory. In recent weeks, demonstrations of all sizes have erupted across the island due to ongoing electricity and food shortages.

    It’s reminiscent of the protests in July 2021, which was the largest series of anti-government demonstrations on the island since former leader Fidel Castro’s 1950s revolution. More than 700 people connected with the landmark event are still in prison, according to Human Rights Watch.

    Now, Cuban Americans in Miami are fearful as Castro devotees launch a new wave of threats and their homes are targeted.

    Ramon Saul Sanchez is number 29 on the list. He said he’s been struggling for the freedom of Cuba for more than 40 years and asserts the terrorist labeling is just another communist party tactic to manipulate the narrative.

    “They like to use those labels. In Cuba, if you’re not pro-Castro, you’re a worm. You’re a counter-revolutionary,” he told The Epoch Times. ”I’ve never been convicted of terrorism or even charged.”

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images)

    Activist and journalist Ninoska Perez wasn’t at all surprised to find her name on the list.

    “I’ve always had the threats. They don’t like everyone to announce what they do wrong and their crimes,” Ms. Perez told The Epoch Times.

    When she worked with the Cuban American National Foundation, Ms. Perez said she was targeted as an enemy of Fidel Castro’s regime early on. She called the organization Castro’s “biggest nightmare” at the time since it showcased what life on the island was actually like under communism.

    Guerrero Cubano

    Today, Ms. Perez works for a Miami radio station and has recently had a member of her family in the city surveilled at home by suspected members of the Cuban regime.

    “It’s not only that they put you on a terrorist list, but they make public your home address.”

    In March, the YouTube channel “Guerrero Cubano,” which translates to Cuban Warrior, posted a video that contained photos and addresses of the homes of exiles whose names appear on the “terrorist” list. Ms. Perez’s cousin lives in one of the homes.

    She said it’s one thing to come after her since, as she put it, “I understand that what I do upsets a powerful dictatorship. I’m not complaining about that.”

    Coming after her family, however, is much worse.

    “It’s even worse because they’re subjecting her to this,” Ms. Perez said, adding that her cousin mentioned a couple of times that she’s seen strange cars parked near her house that don’t belong to any of the neighbors.

    Compounding this, she feels there’s little that can be done to stop the threats. “What’s the police going to do? Patrol your house 24 hours? They simply can’t do that.”

    In the Guerrero Cubano video, the narrator claims the Miami police have to be guarding homes now because people are scared. The same male narrator further states he will continue sharing information on the homes of Cuban exiles being targeted by the communist regime. He also claimed to know where the list members eat and what medications they take. The narrator even went as far as threatening to visit targeted exiles in the hospital.

    The Miami Police Department didn’t respond to an Epoch Times request for comment on the recent threats against Cuban exiles.

    “It’s scary for anybody,” Ms. Perez said.

    It’s a vicious cycle that Cuban Americans know all too well. Threats and attacks from communist agents have come in waves over the decades.

    She recalled a time in the 1990s when the Castro regime sent an assassin to Miami to kill a member of the Cuban American National Foundation. The target was afforded several days of police protection and the assassin failed. But, Ms. Perez said, the police can’t be everywhere all the time. If they intercept or deter one communist assassin or agitator, the Cuban regime can just send another.

    Cuban leader Fidel Castro inaugurates several newly built areas added to an old Havana hospital on 5 June 1989. Castro resigned on Feb. 19, 2008, as president and commander in chief of Cuba. (Rafael Perez/AFP/GettyImages)

    In the past several decades. Ms. Perez said the most notable lull in harassment or threats of attack from Cuba’s communist party was during the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993.

    The U.S. State Department said it’s “aware of the list released by the Cuban government.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 23:40

  • These Are The Most-Polluted Countries In The World
    These Are The Most-Polluted Countries In The World

    Almost the entire global population breathes air that exceeds the air quality limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

    In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu maps the world’s most polluted countries according to IQAir, ranked by their annual average PM2.5 concentration (μg/m³) in 2023. The unit μg/m³ refers to micrograms per cubic meter.

    What is PM2.5?

    PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter, with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, that can travel deep into your lungs and cause health problems.

    In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated its air quality guidelines for PM2.5. The recommended maximum annual average level for PM2.5 is now 5 μg/m³, down from the previous target of 10 μg/m³.

    Common sources of PM2.5 pollution include engine exhaust, power plant combustion, smoke from fires, dust, and dirt.

    How Does PM2.5 Pollution Affect Humans?

    Research published in 2022 from the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) found that 97.3% of the world’s population is exposed to levels of PM2.5 that exceed the WHO guidelines.

    This takes 2.2 years off the global average life expectancy, relative to a world that met the WHO guideline.

    In South Asia specifically, the AQLI believes residents could be losing up to 5 years off their lives. The region has been a global hotspot of air pollution for years, home to 37 of the 40 most polluted cities in the world.

    Interestingly, fine particulate matter can travel hundreds of kilometers, often crossing national boundaries.

    For instance, approximately 30% of air pollution in the Indian state of Punjab originates from neighboring Pakistan. Similarly, an estimated 30% of pollution in Bangladesh’s largest cities is traced back to India.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 23:20

  • Biden's New Student Debt Relief Will Add Up To $750 Billion To The Budget Deficit
    Biden’s New Student Debt Relief Will Add Up To $750 Billion To The Budget Deficit

    By The Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget

    The Biden Administration recently announced a new plan to cancel student debt for up to 30 million borrowers and released a preliminary rule this morning detailing parts of this plan. The proposal, which is being introduced through the rule making process, would replace the Administration’s initial proposal to cancel between $10,000 and $20,000 per person of debt, which was struck down by the Supreme Court.

    Elements of the plan in today’s proposed rule would cost nearly $150 billion, according to the Department of Education. However, this excludes a proposal to allow the Secretary of Education to cancel debt for those facing hardship or likely to default. Including this provision, we estimate the plan could cost $250 billion to $750 billion, depending on how the additional cancellation is designed.

    The plan itself has five major components. It would:

    • Cancel accumulated interest for borrowers with balances higher than what they initially borrowed, capped at $20,000 for those in standard repayment and uncapped but restricted to individuals making less than $120,000 annually or couples making under $240,000 enrolled in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan.

    • Automatically cancel loans for borrowers in standard repayment who would be eligible for cancellation had they applied for programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or the new IDR program, Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE).

    • Automatically cancel loans for borrowers who have been repaying undergraduate loans for over 20 years or graduate loans for over 25 years.

    • Cancel debt of those who attended low-financial-value programs, including those that failed accountability measures or were deemed ineligible for federal student aid programs.

    • Forgive debt of borrowers who are “facing hardships” or are likely to default on their loan payments.

    The Department of Education has estimated the first four components of the plan would cost $147 billion over a decade, with half the cost stemming from the cancellation of accumulated interest. This is in line with estimates we are currently producing, though well above estimates of $77 billion from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM). A huge source of uncertainty is how these provisions would interact with existing IDR programs and how much of the debt would otherwise be cancelled under current policy. 

    Importantly, today’s rule does not include the Administration’s hardship cancellation plan, which would “authorize the automatic forgiveness of loans for borrowers at a high risk of future default as well as those who show hardship due to other indicators.” 

    This is by far the most unclear and potentially the most costly part of their proposal, since cancellation could be both wide-ranging and ongoing. We estimate this proposal could cost between $100 billion and $600 billion over a decade. However, there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty, with design choices possibly resulting in much lower costs than our range – for example, PWBM estimates this provision would only cost $7 billion. 

    It is unclear how the Administration will define hardship, but they discuss 16 possible criteria such as other consumer debt, age, and health care or housing expenses and also declare hardship could be defined based on “any other indicators of hardship identified by the Secretary.” In assessing default risk, the rule allows cancellation for cancellation for those with an 80 percent likelihood of default, as determined by the Secretary. Importantly, over $150 billion of debt is currently in default (and loans in default generally have around a 70 percent recovery rate). We also estimate that a further 6 million borrowers are over 90 days delinquent on their loans, which is another predictor of a high likelihood of default and would further push up the number. The historically high rates of delinquency appear to be related to challenges around restarting student loan repayments last year.

    While the default provision would be limited to the next two years under the most recent draft of the proposal, the hardship component has no time limit and thus opens a new venue for a future administration to cancel large amounts of student loan debt. An analysis by FREOPP argues that it could cover over 70 percent of college students. 

    In total, our $250 billion to $750 billion estimate for the total cost of the plan would be in line with the cost of the Administration’s $400 billion blanket debt cancellation, which was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. It would be on top of more than $600 billion of debt cancellation already enacted through unilateral executive action. As we have shown before, these policies would put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates by supporting stronger demand, and much of the benefits would accrue to high-income and highly-educated Americans. In the coming weeks, we will produce further analysis of the Administration’s latest proposal and continue to refine our cost estimates as more data is made available. These analyses will be available at our student debt cancellation resources page.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 23:00

  • These Are The Top 10 States By Real GDP Growth
    These Are The Top 10 States By Real GDP Growth

    Fueled by strong consumer spending and a resilient job market, the U.S. economy expanded faster than expected in 2023, with a real GDP growth rate of 2.5%.

    Oil-rich states were among the strongest performers in the country as production boomed. Much of this was due to the war in Ukraine driving up the price of oil, spurring companies to boost output. Other sectors, such as retail trade, also played a key role in driving growth amid robust consumer demand.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, shows the fastest growing states by real GDP, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

    Strongest State Economies in 2023

    As the world’s largest oil producer, the U.S. hit a historic 12.9 million barrels per day in crude oil production in 2023—more than any other country ever.

    Given these tailwinds, the top five fastest-growing states by real GDP in 2023 were all powered by the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector. Below, we show the strongest state economies by real GDP growth last year:

    North Dakota witnessed the highest growth, with real GDP rising by 5.9%.

    As the third largest oil-producing state, it also has one of the strongest job markets in the country. In February 2024, the state’s unemployment rate was 2.0%, significantly lower than the national average of 3.9%.

    Falling in second is Texas, whose economy surged to $2 trillion in inflation-adjusted terms. In 2023, the oil and gas industry generated about $72 million per day in local and state taxes in addition to state royalties. Roughly half of U.S. crude oil exports are shipped from Corpus Christi Bay, a port along the Texas coastline.

    As the seventh-fastest growing state, Florida’s economy was largely supported by retail trade, its biggest driver. Moreover, Florida boasted the highest growth rates nationwide in both personal and property income, rising at 7.0% and 8.8%, respectively, over the year.

    By contrast, some of the slowest growing states were Delaware, Mississippi, and New York, each with a real GDP growth rate falling below 1%.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 22:40

  • Red States Fight Growing Efforts To Give "Basic Income" Cash To Residents
    Red States Fight Growing Efforts To Give “Basic Income” Cash To Residents

    By Kevin Hardy of Stateline

    South Dakota state Sen. John Wiik likes to think of himself as a lookout of sorts — keeping an eye on new laws, programs and ideas brewing across the states.

    “I don’t bring a ton of legislation,” said Wiik, a Republican. “The main thing I like to do is try and stay ahead of trends and try and prevent bad things from coming into our state.”

    This session, that meant sponsoring successful legislation banning cities or counties from creating basic income programs, which provide direct, regular cash payments to low-income residents to help alleviate poverty.

    While Wiik isn’t aware of any local governments publicly floating the idea in South Dakota, he describes such programs as “bureaucrats trying to hand out checks to make sure that your party registration matches whoever signed the checks for the rest of your life.”

    The economic gut punch of the pandemic and related assistance efforts such as the expanded child tax credit popularized the idea of directly handing cash to people in need. Advocates say the programs can be administered more efficiently than traditional government assistance programs, and research suggests they increase not only financial stability but also mental and physical health.

    Still, Wiik and other Republicans argue handing out no-strings-attached cash disincentivizes work — and having fewer workers available is especially worrisome in a state with the nation’s second-lowest unemployment rate.

    South Dakota is among at least six states where GOP officials have looked to ban basic income programs.

    The basic income concept has been around for decades, but a 2019 experiment in Stockton, California, set off a major expansion. There, 125 individuals received $500 per month with no strings attached for two years. Independent researchers found the program improved financial stability and health, but concluded that the pandemic dampened those effects.

    GOP lawmakers like Wiik fear that even experimental programs could set a dangerous precedent.

    “What did Ronald Reagan say, ‘The closest thing to eternal life on this planet is a government program’?” Wiik said. “So, if you get people addicted to just getting a check from the government, it’s going to be really hard to take that away.”

    The debate over basic income programs is likely to intensify as blue state lawmakers seek to expand pilot programs. Minnesota, for example, could become the nation’s first to fund a statewide program. But elected officials in red states are working to thwart such efforts — not only by fighting statewide efforts but also by preventing local communities from starting their own basic income programs.

    Democratic governors in Arizona and Wisconsin recently vetoed Republican legislation banning basic income programs.

    Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County to block a pilot program that would provide $500 per month to 1,900 low-income people in the state’s largest county, home to Houston.

    Paxton, a Republican, argued the program is illegal because it violates a state constitutional provision that says local governments cannot grant public money to individuals.

    Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat, called Paxton’s move “nothing more than an attack on local government and an attempt to make headlines.”

    Meanwhile, several blue states are pushing to expand these programs.

    Washington state lawmakers debated a statewide basic income bill during this year’s short session. And Minnesota lawmakers are debating whether to spend $100 million to roll out one of the nation’s first statewide pilot programs.

    “We’re definitely seeing that shift from pilot to policy,” said Sukhi Samra, the director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which formed after the Stockton experiment.

    So far, that organization has helped launch about 60 pilot programs across the country that will provide $250 million in unconditional aid, she said.

    Despite pushback in some states, Samra said recent polling commissioned by the group shows broad support of basic income programs. And the programs have shown success in supplementing — not replacing — social safety net programs, she said.

    The extra cash gives recipients freedom of choice. People can fix a flat tire, cover school supplies or celebrate a child’s birthday for the first time.

    “There’s no social safety net program that allows you to do that.” she said. “ … This is an effective policy that helps our families, and this can radically change the way that we address poverty in this country.”

    Basic Income Experiments

    The proliferation of basic income projects has been closely studied by researchers.

    Though many feared that free cash would dissuade people from working, that hasn’t been the case, said Sara Kimberlin, the executive director and senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.

    Stanford’s Basic Income Lab has tracked more than 150 basic income pilots across the country. Generally, those offer $500 or $1,000 per month over a short period.

    “There isn’t anywhere in the United States where you can live off of $500 a month,” she said. “At the same time, $500 a month really makes a tremendous difference for someone who is living really close to the edge.”

    Kimberlin said the research on basic income programs has so far been promising, though it’s unclear how long the benefits may persist once programs conclude. Still, she said, plenty of research shows how critical economic stability in childhood is to stability in adulthood — something both the basic income programs and the pandemic-era child tax credit can address.

    Over the past five years, basic income experiments have varied across the country.

    Last year, California launched the nation’s first state-funded pilot programs targeting former foster youth.

    In Colorado, the Denver Basic Income Project aimed to help homeless individuals. After early successes, the Denver City Council awarded funding late last year to extend that program, which provides up to $1,000 per month to hundreds of participants.

    A 2021 pilot launched in Cambridge, Massachusetts, provided $500 a month over 18 months to 130 single caregivers. Research from the University of Pennsylvania found the Cambridge program increased employment, the ability to cover a $400 emergency expense, and food and housing security among participants.

    Children in participating families were more likely to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, earned higher grades and had reduced absenteeism.

    “It was really reaffirming to hear that when families are not stressed out, they are able to actually do much better,” said Geeta Pradhan, president of the Cambridge Community Foundation, which worked on the project.

    Pradhan said basic income programs are part of a national trend in “trust-based philanthropy,” which empowers individuals rather than imposing top-down solutions to fight poverty.

    “There is something that I think it does to people’s sense of empowerment, a sense of agency, the freedom that you feel,” she said. “I think that there’s some very important aspects of humanity that are built into these programs.”

    While the pilot concluded, the Cambridge City Council committed $22 million in federal pandemic aid toward a second round of funding. Now, nearly 2,000 families earning at or below 250% of the federal poverty level are receiving $500 monthly payments, said Sumbul Siddiqui, a city council member.

    Siddiqui, a Democrat, pushed for the original pilot when she was mayor during the pandemic. While she said the program has proven successful, it’s unclear whether the city can find a sustainable source of funding to keep it going long term.

    States look to expand pilots

    Tomas Vargas Jr. was among the 125 people who benefited from the Stockton, California, basic income program that launched in 2019.

    At the time, he heard plenty of criticism from people who said beneficiaries would blow their funds on drugs and alcohol or quit their jobs.

    “Off of $500 a month, which amazed me,” said Vargas, who worked part time at UPS.

    But he said the cash gave him breathing room. He had felt stuck at his job, but the extra money gave him the freedom to take time off to interview for better jobs.

    Unlike other social service programs like food stamps, he didn’t have to worry about losing out if his income went up incrementally. The cash allowed him to be a better father, he said, as well as improved his confidence and mental health.

    The experience prompted him to get into the nonprofit sector. Financially stable, he now works at Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

    “The person I was five years ago is not the person that I am now,” he said.

    Washington state Sen. Claire Wilson, a Democrat, said basic income is a proactive way to disrupt the status quo maintained by other anti-poverty efforts.

    “I have a belief that our systems in our country have never been put in place to get people out of them,” she said. “They kept people right where they are.”

    Wilson chairs the Human Services Committee, which considered a basic income bill this session that would have created a pilot program to offer 7,500 people a monthly amount equivalent to the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in their area.

    The basic income bill didn’t progress during Washington’s short legislative session this year, but Wilson said lawmakers would reconsider the idea next year. While she champions the concept, she said there’s a lot of work to be done convincing skeptics.

    In Minnesota, where lawmakers are considering a $100 million statewide basic income pilot program, some Republicans balked at the concept of free cash and its cost to taxpayers.

    “Just the cost alone should be a concern,” Republican state Rep. Jon Koznick said during a committee meeting this month.

    State Rep. Athena Hollins, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, acknowledged the hefty request, but said backers would support a scaled-down version and “thought it was really important to get this conversation started.”

    Much of the conversation in committee centered on local programs in cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, a Democrat, told lawmakers the city’s 2020 pilot saw “groundbreaking” results.

    After scraping by for years, some families were able to put money into savings for the first time, he said. Families experienced less anxiety and depression. And the pilot disproved the “disparaging tropes” from critics about people living in poverty, the mayor said.

    Carter told lawmakers that the complex issue of economic insecurity demands statewide solutions.

    “I am well aware that the policy we’re proposing today is a departure from what we’re all used to,” he said. “In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about it.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 22:20

  • Where Highly Educated Migrants Come From
    Where Highly Educated Migrants Come From

    Voters in India are getting set to head to the polls this weekend, in what has been dubbed the world’s biggest election.

    Nearly 1 billion people are eligible to determine whether Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will rule the country for a third consecutive term.

    Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that,according to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey, one of the major challenges facing the country right now  is that of unemployment.

    This will be a major sticking point for younger voters.

    With often better opportunities abroad, the country is losing valuable talent. And it’s not alone, as OECD data reveals. In fact, in 2015/2016 – the latest year on record – 40 million highly educated migrants were living in OECD member countries. While skilled migrants are certainly welcomed by labor markets in most developed nations especially in times of falling birth rates, the migration of the educated can also have a detrimental effect on their home countries – often described as brain drain.

    Infographic: Where Highly Educated Migrants Come From | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As seen in the numbers, China and India had sent the most highly skilled migrants abroad as of the latest available date.

    Yet, compared to the size of their populations, the numbers are comparably low. Other major brain drain locations have lost many more talented workers in relative terms, for example the Philippines, Poland, Mexico and Russia.

    The Philippines have been known for supplying the world with health care professionals, especially nurses. Many of these highly skilled professionals emigrate to the U.S., forming the third-most important skilled labor emigration corridor of the OECD behind Mexican and Indian migration to the United States.

    As a result, 14.3 percent of highly skilled Filipinos had emigrated to the OECD as of 2015/16. This rate is even higher in small or isolated developing economies.

    In Caribbean state Guyana, almost 71 percent of the highly educated had left for the OECD, compared with 66 percent in Trinidad and Tobago and 63 percent in Mauritius.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 22:00

  • A Generation Lost To Climate Anxiety
    A Generation Lost To Climate Anxiety

    Authored by David Zaruk via RealClear Politics,

    In a far-reaching new essay in The New Atlantis, the environmental researcher Ted Nordhaus makes a damning and authoritative case that while the basic science of CO2 and climate is solid, it has been abused by the activist class in service of a wildly irresponsible and unscientific climate catastrophism.

    This reckless alarmism, saturated across the mainstream media and endlessly amplified by it, has had profound societal consequences. It has both distorted public understanding of the massive benefits the carbon economy makes possible and grossly exaggerated the risks of extreme events it allegedly makes more likely. 

    As a result it has rendered reasonable debate on climate policy impossible, even as it has given cynical politicians an easy scapegoat for every social ill, drawing attention away from regulatory and institutional failures and laying blame instead at the feet of fossil fuel companies and other evil “emitters.” 

    Perhaps most perniciously, as Nordhaus details, the doomsday prophesying of climate extremists has created hardened skeptics on one side who are increasingly suspicious of all public “expertise”, while at the same time infecting true believers on the other side with a crippling, pathological fatalism that has come to be referred to as “climate anxiety.”

    Climate Anxiety

    If there’s any flaw in Nordhaus’ damning and comprehensive analysis it’s that he undersells just how much damage the advent of “climate anxiety” has done already—and how much more it’s likely to do in years to come.

    Yes, there’s the obvious cases of obnoxious and lawbreaking behavior, from climate iconoclasts defacing priceless works of art, to interrupting Broadway shows and sporting events, to gluing themselves to buses and holding up traffic on major thoroughfares.

    But it runs much deeper than that.

    Consider recent headlines: From Vox: “What to do when you’re completely overwhelmed by climate anxiety.” From The Guardian: “Climate anxiety adds to teenagers’ fears.” And the New York Times: “How Climate Change is Changing Therapy.” And perhaps most depressing of all, from the BBC: “Climate anxiety: ‘I don’t want to burden the world with my child.” The trend is so wide now that they have given it a name: birth strike.

    And the data backs up the headlines—like the recent Finnish study of 6,000 subjects that showed people with “woke” beliefs have higher rates of depression. 

    Developed countries are already facing real increases in mental health issues, many of them human-made and bound up in everything from the opioid crisis to the COVID pandemic. The manufacture of climate anxiety as an issue allegedly on par with those others is a dangerous distraction that draws resources away from solving these other mental health challenges.  

    Innovative Solutions or More Activism?

    Most of the real action on forestalling or mitigating the negative externalities created by the carbon economy is happening within industry itself. But instead of fueling a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to help produce these better, cleaner technologies, climate catastrophism has Gen Z curled up in a collective ball, while the likes of NPR tells its privileged listeners to “Let yourself feel the feelings — all of them” about our coming climate doom.  

    Influencers like Greta Thunberg are motivating the young to pursue careers in political activism instead of research and innovation. It is easier to make the world angry through protest than to make it better by finding solutions.

    Climate fear-mongering has created a dread so powerful it’s putatively putting people off of having children altogether, at a time when advanced countries are already facing precipitously declining fertility rates.

    This bleak picture raises the question of exactly what’s in it for the eco-extremist purveyors of gloom. For Nordhaus, it’s akin to a religious mission. “Apocalyptic claims about an unfolding emergency, rather, serve a millenarian agenda”, he writes, “that variously demands that we abolish capitalism, bring about an end to economic growth, power the global economy entirely with wind and solar energy, feed the global population only with small-scale organic agriculture, and cut global emissions in half over the next decade or two.”

    He doesn’t need to add that actually enacting that list of prescriptions would be both extremely unwise and largely impossible (and catastrophic). 

    Political Opportunism

    Nordhaus doesn’t go far enough. Because it doesn’t really matter whether drastic policy proposals would actually work if the real goal is just acquiring enough political power to dictate them. 

    Left-wing political leaders have been using the specter of a “climate emergency” to justify the expansion of their powers for years—limiting consumer choice with product bans, picking winners and losers with boondoggle subsidies, and using lawfare to try and put energy companies out of business by abusing “public nuisance” laws, just to name a few. 

    Even the political right is getting in on the action. Just recently a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced the PROVE IT Act, a bill that pairs the Democrats’ long love of climate panic with Republicans’ newfound love of protectionism and industrial policy.

    Anyone who is paying close enough attention knows that these kinds of power plays are cynical, shortsighted, and counterproductive, but what we are collectively starting to realize is how much they’ve been enabled by the literal derangement of generations of well-intentioned folks by climate catastrophism.

    The bitter irony is that there is good evidence the climate “experts” know better—like a recent study of 2,066 people that found that higher levels of scientific knowledge about the environment and climate change was associated with less climate anxiety.

    When the famous teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg snarled and sobbed at a UN climate conference that those in power had “stolen her childhood” she was absolutely right – just not in the way she thought…

    All is not Lost

    As the media reported children weeping in the streets during highly managed Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil campaigns, shouldn’t there be some other direction for us to take? How can we motivate the next generation to be a force for innovation and positive change rather than feed them a steady diet of nihilism, hate, and anxiety? There are certain things that can be done to frame the future of humanity in a more positive light. 

    Here are some ideas on how to stop malignant activism from eroding the hopes of humanity:

    • Young people need positive mentors who are standing up to the pessimism with positive solutions. Scientists, professors, influencers need to focus on developing answers rather than acrimony.

    • Positive stories need to be told. While the media focused on Greta as she sucked the hope out of the youth, other young people, like Boyan Slat, whose Ocean Cleanup achievements were legitimately inspirational, were largely ignored. Too bad the media is now funded largely by climate catastrophe foundations that promulgate pessimism. A new approach to media reporting, more transparent, more balanced, is overdue.

    • Tech, business, and medical research sectors have venture capitalists who provide competitions and seed capital for young innovators to develop their ideas. Many recipients leave university to develop their ideas into successful companies. Very little like this exists for environmental health researchers. Rather there are a large number of bitter, under-funded postdocs who amplify the negativism.

    • Tort reform in the US is necessary. Nordhaus highlighted how law firms were benefiting from the amplified public hatred of fossil fuel companies. Their lucrative anonymous payments to scientists, NGOs, foundations, filmmakers and the media via dark, donor-advised funds is poisoning an already toxic political arena.

    • There needs to be better communication on the achievements and success stories of capitalism. The idea that the only solution to these climate challenges is to dismantle industry, restrict global trade, and block free markets is simply ludicrous.

    These are a few of the necessary steps to help the public find a balance between humanity and environmental concerns. On climate issues, there needs to be more hope than horror, more imagination than resignation, and more inspiration than anxiety. With better stories and more responsible storytellers, the climate narrative can be reshaped from one of bitter acrimony to a challenge for innovators to once again push humanity forward.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 21:40

  • When Is The Social Security Trust Fund Running Out?
    When Is The Social Security Trust Fund Running Out?

    A social safety net is synonymous with a failsafe for many, but in the case of the U.S. Social Security system, additional action is needed to ensure it stays that way.

    The annual OASDI trustees report by the Social Security Administration, covering old-age, survivors and disability insurance, shows that under the present circumstances, the asset reserve dedicated to the benefit program could be depleted sooner rather than later.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, under the report’s intermediate scenario, asset funds would run out sometime in 2034, while this could happen as soon as 2031 if the administration was to shoulder a high volume of costs in the upcoming years.

    Under the low-cost scenario, the fund could remain solvent until 2066. The intermediate date was moved forward in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, which seriously diminished Social Security’s income in payroll taxes.

    Infographic: When Is the Social Security Trust Fund Running Out? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The system’s expenditures have been above its income for some time – with the difference being taken out of the asset fund and the interest it creates – but the gap has been widening over the years.

    As Baby Boomers retire and Americans are having fewer children, the balance between those who are working and funding social security and those who are receiving old age, survivor or disability benefits continues to tip.

     2021 marked the first year when interest earned on the fund could no longer bridge social security’s spending gap, sending the asset reserve into a downward spiral.

    Because Social Security services are funded by the payroll tax on a pay-as-you-go basis, the income-cost gap equals the amount the administration would no longer be able to pay out if the fund would in fact be depleted. In order to stop funds from running low, Congress would have to act to provide additional revenue to Social Security, for example by raising the dedicated payroll tax, to lower its cost by cutting benefits or attempt a combination of both.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 21:20

  • Idaho Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Student IDs For Voting
    Idaho Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Student IDs For Voting

    Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Supreme Court of Idaho on Thursday, April 11, upheld recent legislative amendments to the state’s voter identification requirements, affirming a lower court’s ruling in favor of the Idaho Secretary of State, Phil McGrane, which eliminated the use of student IDs for voter registration and in-person voting.

    The unanimous ruling came in light of the suit filed by two voter advocacy groups last year, claiming two pieces of legislation disproportionately affected young and out-of-state college voters, infringing upon their right to vote and violating equal protection under the Idaho Constitution.

    The opinion of the court said, in part, “we conclude House Bills 124 and 340 are reasonable exercises of the legislature’s authority to enact conditions on the right of suffrage under Article VI, section 4 of the Idaho Constitution.”

    The Idaho State Capitol building in Boise, Idaho, in a file photo. (Carlos A Torres/Shutterstock)

    The Bills and Legal Arguments

    House Bill 124 removed student IDs as acceptable proof of identity at polling places, while House Bill 340 revised the identification needed for voter registration, eliminating the option to use the last four digits of a social security number.

    Instead, voters must now present a current Idaho driver’s license, a U.S. passport, a tribal identification card, or a concealed weapon license.

    In their lawsuit, BABE VOTE and the League of Women Voters, the two voter advocacy groups, claimed these changes would unduly burden young voters and out-of-state students in Idaho, constituting an unequal and heightened burden on their fundamental right to vote.

    Justice Robyn Brody, writing for the court, detailed that while voting is a fundamental right protected by the Idaho Constitution, the legislature is granted authority to prescribe reasonable qualifications and conditions on voter registration and voting.

    The court held that the changes enacted by House Bills 124 and 340 did not infringe upon the constitutional rights to vote and were appropriately within the legislature’s scope to ensure the integrity and efficiency of elections.

    In part, the court also found the groups’ arguments for lack of standing as un-persuasive when reviewing it with a strict lens, but said with a lenient view the groups did have standing.

    “While it may be an inconvenience for Plaintiffs, having to ’re-educate‘ voters and volunteers about changes in the law is not the ’concrete and demonstrable’ injury,” Justice Brody wrote. “Indeed, the mission of these organizations is voter education. We agree with the Secretary that educating voters about the need to produce identification at the polls is not a new harm; it is part of the organizations’ mission; thus, it is not a sufficient basis to invoke organizational standing.”

    The court, when applying a rational basis review, the most lenient standard of judicial scrutiny, concluded that the legislative amendments were “rationally related to legitimate government interests” such as maintaining election integrity and updating voter identification processes to reflect current standards.

    Reaction to the Decision

    The decision has been met with mixed reactions. Supporters of the bills argue that the updated laws strengthen the security and reliability of Idaho’s electoral process. Critics, however, maintain that the laws could suppress voter turnout among young and transient populations, particularly affecting students.

    “We are pleased to see that the Idaho Supreme Court recognizes the importance of voting and that access to voting and the security of our elections are not competing objectives,” Mr. McGrane said in a post on X. “Voters can have confidence in Idaho’s elections.”

    The plaintiffs argued that they did not get their day in court and that “justice has been denied” following the court’s ruling.

    “Citizens’ right to vote is fundamental to our democratic republic,” the groups said in a statement posted to X. “This legislature has tried virtually everything in its power to prevent young, disabled, homebound, and working class Idahoans from exercising that right. Since these laws were enacted, BABE VOTE and the League of Women Voters of Idaho have been unable to help approximately 20% of legally eligible Idahoans from completing their voter registrations. Today’s ruling validates this voter suppression and undermines democracy in Idaho.”

    The groups went on to say that they would do “everything in [their] power” to register as many voters as possible under “difficult” and “impossible” conditions of Idaho’s voter laws.

    “While the state may have won in court today, they have not won this battle,” the groups added in their statement. “Today, we are mobilizing students on high school and college campuses across Idaho and the country to register, educate, and turn out young people in record numbers, starting with the primaries this May.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 21:00

  • Shadowy Mayorkas-Linked NGO In Mexico Tells Border Invaders To "Vote Biden"
    Shadowy Mayorkas-Linked NGO In Mexico Tells Border Invaders To “Vote Biden”

    The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project posted an image on X of what they say is a flyer from a non-governmental organization operating in Mexico encouraging migrants to vote for President Biden once they arrive in the United States.

    “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open,” part of the flyer read. 

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    The Oversight Project said the flyer was initially discovered by a Muckraker journalist while touring the site of Resource Center Matamoras in Mexico. 

    “They [flyers] also appear to be handed out when illegal aliens use the RCM for assistance in coming to the USA,” the group said. 

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

    RCM founder Gaby Zavala told one of Muckraker’s journalists that she is trying to flood the US with as many illegal aliens as possible before former President Trump is reelected. 

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

    “RCM bills itself as an operation which houses functions for Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which helps illegal aliens enter the United States,” Oversight Project said, adding that disgraced Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “is a former board member of HIAS, which received numerous grants from Soros’ Open Society Foundation over the years.” 

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

    RCM has connections with Soros-funded non-profits operating across the US.

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

    Meanwhile, new documents from Judicial Watch show Mayorkas has met with NGOs facilitating the border invasion. 

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

    We can’t imagine anything more ridiculously corrupt… 

    Oversight Project concludes:

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    Since the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants invaded the nation. A complex web of NGOs is facilitating the border invasion while the administration looks the other way. 

    We have reported:

    Meanwhile, in Mexico… 

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    “A lot of Americans don’t understand just how much Mayorkas is in bed with open borders lobby,” Nate Hochman, senior advisor of America 2100, wrote on X. 

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    One X user asked: “Is this not racketeering in addition to election interference?” 

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 20:44

  • Red Colorado Counties Sue To Help ICE Arrest, Deport Illegal Immigrants
    Red Colorado Counties Sue To Help ICE Arrest, Deport Illegal Immigrants

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Two conservative Colorado counties—Douglas and El Paso—have sued the state of Colorado and its Democrat governor over laws that prevent local law enforcement from working with federal agents to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.

    Illegal immigrants rest at a makeshift shelter, in Denver on Jan. 6, 2023. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced a major shift on April 10, 2024, in the city’s response to the migrant crisis, extending support to six months but with only 1,000 spaces. (Thomas Peipert/AP Photo)

    “The nation is facing an immigration crisis,” commissioners and sheriffs from Douglas and El Paso wrote in their complaint, which was filed on April 15 at the Denver County District Court.

    The lawsuit targets two sanctuary state laws—House Bills 19-1124 and 23-1100—which prohibit local governments from joining with the federal government on immigration matters.

    Specifically, the bills prohibit local law enforcement from arresting and detaining illegal immigrants. They also bar state judicial officials from sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prohibit local governments from entering into agreements with the federal government on matters of immigration enforcement.

    “It is our intent to bring suit specifically to address the illegal immigration crisis now present in this country,” George Teal, chair of the Douglas County Board of Commissioners, said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit.

    “Federal policies along the southern border … [have] resulted in an unlimited string of illegal immigrants into our communities,” Mr. Teal continued. “And we see it as the duty of the county to push back against the state laws that prohibit us from working with federal authorities to keep Douglas County and our communities safe.”

    The conservative counties allege in their complaint that the two laws that they’re challenging, which were signed into law by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis over the past several years, are illegal and unconstitutional. They allege that the laws violate various provisions of the Colorado State Constitution, including on intergovernmental relationships and distribution of powers.

    “We do believe we will have victory,” Mr. Teal added.

    ‘Stark’ Numbers

    Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon said during the press conference that he understands the hardship that illegal immigrants face but the lawsuit is about protecting local communities and prioritizing people who immigrate by legal means.

    “This is about putting America first and putting Coloradans first,” Mr. Laydon said, adding that he’s the first Latino elected commissioner in Douglas County and he recognizes the plight of those who are legitimately seeking refuge and asylum in the United States.

    Mr. Laydon described as “stark” the number of illegal immigrants that have been bussed into Denver—around 40,000 people from Venezuela. In order to provide assistance to this group, the mayor of Democrat-controlled Denver has asked the City Council to cut $45.9 million from its annual budget to pay for his $90 million illegal immigrant response program called the Denver Asylum Seekers Program.

    Among the cuts will be layoffs or furloughs of city employees, reduced hiring for difficult-to-hire positions, fewer supplies purchases, and deferral of some technology and capital projects, the Denver Mayor’s office said.

    Unlike Denver, Mr. Laydon’s county won’t be cutting services to residents in order to serve those that are coming here through improper channels.

    “Douglas County is a great place to be. But Douglas County is a place where quality of life comes first. And we want to prioritize the rights of those who are legally here first,” he said.

    The Colorado governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

    A number of states have laws that either limit or expand the ability of local law enforcement to cooperate with immigration enforcement, with “sanctuary cities” like Denver facing increased scrutiny and criticism amid the record influx of illegal immigrants into the United States.

    Denver Cuts Taxpayer Services

    Denver Mayor Mike Johnston recently announced a 2.5 percent budget cut to all city agencies—including the police, sheriff, and fire departments—in order to find around $45.9 million to help pay for the city’s new program to assist illegal immigrants.

    The program, called the Denver Asylum Seekers Program, comes at a total price tag of nearly $90 million, with the other roughly half of the cost coming from a previously identified $44 million.

    Earlier this year, Mr. Johnston asked all city departments to find creative ways to cut costs by up to 15 percent to pay for “newcomer operations,” though he said at a recent press conference and press release that the updated plan managed to avoid “the worst-case budget cut scenarios.”

    The mayor’s office will take the brunt of the cuts, slashing 9.6 percent of its 2024 budget, followed by the Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency Department, which will cut 6.1 percent, according to a breakdown reported by KDVR-TV.

    The Sheriff’s Department will face a 2.2 percent cut, the Police Department will see a 1.9 percent reduction, while the fire department budget will be reduced by 0.8 percent.

    “After more than a year of facing this crisis together, Denver finally has a sustainable plan for treating our newcomers with dignity while avoiding the worst cuts to city services,” Mr. Johnston said in a statement. “So many times, we were told that we couldn’t be compassionate while still being fiscally responsible. Today is proof that our hardest challenges are still solvable and that together, we are the ones who will solve them.”

    Denver and other Democratic-led cities had asked the Biden administration for aid to assist with the influx of migrants into their communities.

    President Joe Biden asked Congress for $1.4 billion in funding for the effort as part of his budget. Congress refused and instead cut the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program from $800 million to $650 million.

    “Whether we’d like the federal government to do it or not, that was no longer a choice for us,” Mr. Johnston said.

    Jana Pruet contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 20:20

  • Less Than One Third Of US Men Enjoy Reading
    Less Than One Third Of US Men Enjoy Reading

    It’s National Libraries Week in the United States and to mark it we’re looking at readership patterns around the world.

    As Anna Fleck shows, based on data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey shows, women were more likely to say that reading is one of their personal hobbies than men in all of the selected countries.

    Infographic: Where Reading is More (& Less) Popular | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The gender gap was widest in Germany, with a 20 percentage point difference, followed by Spain and Italy (with 19 p.p. difference each).

    Spain (58 percent) had the highest share of female readers who considered it one of their personal hobbies of the surveyed countries included in this chart, while Mexico had the highest share of men who said the same (41 percent).

    In the United States, 44 percent of women said reading was one of their main pastimes versus 30 percent of men. When looking at the U.S. adult surveyed population with both genders combined, the share of people selecting reading in response to this question increased with age (30 percent of 18-19 year olds, 32 percent 20-29 year olds, 36 percent 30-39 year olds, 38 percent for 40-49 year olds, 41 percent 50-59 year olds, 44 percent 60-64 year olds).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 20:00

  • China's Crude Oil Imports Hit A Record High In 2023
    China’s Crude Oil Imports Hit A Record High In 2023

    By Tom Kool of OilPrice.com

    China’s crude oil imports hit a record high in 2023, rising by 10% year-over-year and breaking the previous record from 2020 when the world’s top crude oil importer took advantage of the price crash to gorge on cheap crude.

    Last year, China’s crude oil imports averaged 11.3 million barrels per day (bpd), up by 10% compared to 2022, according to Chinese customs data compiled by Bloomberg and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

    After China lifted the Covid-related restrictions in early 2023, Chinese refiners boosted imports to record-high levels last year, to support transportation fuel demand and produce feedstocks for China’s growing petrochemical industry, the EIA noted in an analysis published on Tuesday.

    Russia, thanks to cheaper crude supply, was China’s top source of crude imports last year, the data showed. Russia was also the supplier whose crude sales in China jumped the most.   

    In 2023, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq were China’s main sources of crude oil imports. Compared with 2022, China’s 2023 crude oil imports increased the most from Russia, Iran, Brazil, and the United States.

    Between 2019 and 2021, Saudi Arabia was China’s top crude oil supplier, with Russia second with 15% of Chinese imports.

    In 2023, Russia was China’s top source of crude oil imports, supplying 19% of China’s crude oil imports, which averaged 2.1 million bpd, the EIA said.

    The surge in Chinese crude oil imports from Russia was the result of discounted Russian prices due to the Western sanctions and price caps on Russia’s crude.

    While China bought large additional volumes of crude from Russia, it reduced imports from Western Europe, notably from Norway and the UK, due to the higher prices of Western European crudes compared to the discounts on Russian oil, the data showed.  

    This year, China has continued to import large volumes of crude from Russia, despite only a 0.7% increase in overall Chinese crude imports in January to March 2024. Much of the increase in Chinese crude oil imports in recent weeks has been due to cheap abundant flows of Russian crude, which – hampered en route to India by the U.S. sanctions – has found a home in the world’s top crude oil importer, analysts say. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 19:40

  • The Evolution Of Intelligence
    The Evolution Of Intelligence

    The expert consensus is that human-like machine intelligence is still a distant prospect, with only a 50-50 chance that it could emerge by 2059.

    But what if there was a way to do it in less than half the time?

    Visual Capitalist partnered with VERSES for the final entry in our AI Revolution Series to explore a potential roadmap to a shared or super intelligence that reduces the time required to as little as 16 years.

    Active Inference and the Future of AI

    The secret sauce behind this acceleration is something called active inference, a highly efficient model for cognition where beliefs are continuously updated to reduce uncertainty and increase the accuracy of predictions about how the world works.

     An AI built with this as its foundation would have beliefs about the world and would want to learn more about it; in other words, it would be curious. This is a quantum leap ahead of current state-of-the-art AI, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which once they’ve completed their training, are in essence frozen in time; they cannot learn. 

    At the same time, because active inference models cognitive processes, we would be able to “see” the thought processes and rationale for any given AI decision or belief. This is in stark contrast to existing AI, where the journey from prompt to response is a black box, with all the ethical and legal ramifications that that entails. As a result, an AI built on active inference would engender accountability and trust.

    The 4 Stages of Artificial Intelligence

    Here are the steps through which an active-inference-based intelligence could develop:

    1. Systemic AI responds to prompts based on probabilities established during training: i.e. current state-of-the-art AI.

    2. Sentient AI is quintessentially curious and uses experience to refine beliefs about the world. 

    3. Sophisticated AI makes plans and experiments to increase its knowledge of the world. 

    4. Sympathetic AI recognizes states of mind in others and ultimately itself. It is self-aware.  

    5. Shared or Super AI is a collective intelligence emerging from the interactions of AI and their human partners.

    Stage four represents a hypothetical planetary super-intelligence that could emerge from the Spatial Web, the next evolution of the internet that unites people, places, and things. 

    A Thoughtful AI for the Future?

    With AI already upending the way we live and work, and former tech evangelists raising red flags, it may be worth asking what kind of AI future we want? One where AI decisions are a black box, or one where AI is accountable and transparent, by design.

    VERSES is developing an explainable AI based on active inference that can not only think, but also introspect and explain its “thought processes.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 19:20

  • Coalition Of Attorneys General File Amicus Brief Defending Ken Paxton And His Top Deputy
    Coalition Of Attorneys General File Amicus Brief Defending Ken Paxton And His Top Deputy

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

    A national coalition of 18 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief to defend Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster in a lawsuit initiated by the State Bar of Texas.

    “The State Bar of Texas’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline attempted to censure Attorney General Paxton and First Assistant Attorney General Webster for taking action over genuine concerns of unconstitutional conduct by states during the 2020 election,” Mr. Paxton’s office wrote in a press release on Monday.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (C) talks to reporters with Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (2nd L) and Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone (R) in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on April 26, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    The brief was filed on Friday in response to complaints against the state’s top attorney and his top deputy for their decision to file the “landmark” case known as Texas v. Pennsylvania. Mr. Webster authored the petition contesting the 2020 presidential election results to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    “Neither the State Bar nor this Court is an appropriate forum for what is ultimately a political fight,” the group of attorneys general wrote in the brief. “And while it is, of course, true that the Attorney General is subject to general rules of professional conduct, those rules cannot be used to limit discretionary authority conferred by a State Constitution. Nor can they be weaponized to undermine the will of the voters who elected the Attorney General in the first place.”

    Montana AG Austin Knudsen, who led the coalition, said the commission’s complaint threatens the constitutional authority of elected officials.

    “The weaponization of the bar complaint process undermines the constitutional authority of elected officials and the will of the voters,” Mr. Knudsen told the Daily Caller. “I’m glad I could support Attorney General Ken Paxton in this instance as a number of attorneys general, including me, are facing similar attacks from their political adversaries. just for doing their jobs.”

    The coalition argues that the issue is not about the alleged misconduct but whether the court will allow state bars to take action against those with whom they disagree politically.

    “The real question in this case is not whether the alleged misrepresentations amount to violation of the rules of professional conduct,” the court document reads. “Instead, it is whether courts will permit the politicization of the State Bars and weaponization of disciplinary rules against elected executive officers discharging their constitutional duties.

    “The Supreme Court of Texas will likely be the first to consider that question. It should be a resounding ‘No.’”  

    The attorneys general argue that allowing the case to move forward will encourage further bar complaints made for the purpose of “obstructing the ability of attorneys general and their staff to carry out their constitutional responsibilities.”

    They are asking the Texas Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the appeals court.

    “The Court should grant the petition, reverse the court of appeals’ decision, and render judgment on behalf of the First Assistant,” the document states.

    Here is a list of the other 17 attorneys general who signed on to the amicus brief:

    • Alabama AG Steve Marshall
    • Alaska AG Treg Taylor
    • Florida AG Ashley Moody
    • Idaho AG Raúl Labrador
    • Indiana AG Theodore Rokita
    • Iowa AG Brenna Bird
    • Kansas AG Kris Kobach
    • Louisiana AG Liz Murrill
    • Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch
    • Missouri AG Andrew Bailey
    • Nebraska AG Michael Hilgers
    • North Dakota AG Drew Wrigley
    • Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond
    • South Carolina AG Alan Wilson
    • South Dakota AG Marty Jackley
    • Utah AG Sean Reyes
    • West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey

    Mr. Paxton said the state bar’s attempts to punish him and Mr. Webster will not stop them from defending the Constitution.

    “Thank you to my fellow attorneys general for siding with law and order,” Mr. Paxton said in a statement.

    “The State Bar is using a disgraceful tactic: weaponizing politically motivated lawfare to intimidate elected leaders and their staff from upholding the Constitution when it inconveniences their political agenda. This attempt to punish First Attorney General Webster and me for standing up for our country, our State, and our citizens will not succeed.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 19:00

  • Biden Refuses To Testify In GOP Impeachment Inquiry
    Biden Refuses To Testify In GOP Impeachment Inquiry

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

    President Joe Biden will not be testifying to U.S. House of Representatives members who are engaged in an impeachment inquiry against him, the White House said on April 15.

    President Joe Biden speaks during a joint press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the Rose Garden of the White House, on April 10, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) that the president would not testify in the “partisan charade.”

    “Your committee’s purported ‘impeachment inquiry’ has succeeded only in turning up abundant evidence that, in fact, the president has done nothing wrong,” Mr. Sauber said in a letter to Mr. Comer.

    “Your insistence on peddling these false and unsupported allegations despite ample evidence to the contrary makes one thing about your investigation abundantly clear: The facts do not matter to you,” he added.

    Republicans in their investigation have found that millions of dollars flowed from businesses and individuals, including foreigners, to members of the Biden family while President Biden was vice president.

    They’ve also identified payments from Hunter Biden’s business to the president, and from the president’s brother to him, as well as emails between President Biden and an associate of Hunter Biden. Several witnesses, meanwhile, testified that President Biden would get on the phone with Hunter Biden’s associates and that he attended multiple meals with them.

    President Biden and the White House have maintained that he was not involved with the business undertaken by his son and brother.

    Mr. Comer wrote to the president in March, saying the evidence “wholly contradicts your position.”

    “In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” Mr. Comer wrote at the time.

    “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Biden family. Like his son, Hunter Biden, President Biden is refusing to testify in public about the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling,” Mr. Comer said Monday.

    “This comes as no surprise since President Biden continues to lie about his relationships with his son’s business partners, even denying they exist when his son said under oath during a deposition that they did,” he said. “It is unfortunate President Biden is unwilling to answer questions before the American people and refuses to answer the very simple, straightforward questions we included in the invitation. Why is it so difficult for the White House to answer those questions? The American people deserve transparency from President Biden, not more lies.”

    It’s not clear whether lawmakers are considering subpoenaing the president, and the White House did not respond when asked whether the president would comply with a subpoena.

    Mr. Comer and other members have said they want answers to questions, including those about the source of the money for the payment from his brother.

    They’re also wondering whether President Biden ever interacted with Hunter Biden’s associates, such as Chinese businessmen Jonathan Li, Ye Jianming, and Henry Zhao.

    Lawmakers also want more details about the work done by Eric Schwerin, one of the associates, for President Biden. Mr. Schwerin told lawmakers that he often met with President Biden and provided him with free services, including tax preparation.

    Lawmakers have yet to outline the next steps in the inquiry. The November election is looming and, if President Biden loses his re-election bid, he would exit the presidency regardless in January 2025.

    Mr. Sauber, the special adviser to the president, is leaving the White House early next month. He was brought on in 2022 to oversee the White House’s response to congressional investigations as Democrats braced to lose their majorities on Capitol Hill that year.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 18:20

  • RFK Jr Won't Pursue Libertarian Nomination, Says Team Trump Asked Him To Be VP
    RFK Jr Won’t Pursue Libertarian Nomination, Says Team Trump Asked Him To Be VP

    After seriously considering the possibility, 2024 presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has declared he will not seek the Libertarian Party nomination, saying he’s confident he’ll achieve ballot access across the country on his own. Meanwhile, in a social media skirmish with Team Trump, Kennedy said Trump associates asked him to consider becoming the former president’s running mate. 

    In a political system with formidable ballot-access barriers that protect the Democrat-Republican duopoly, outsider presidential candidates are frequently attracted to the idea of running as a Libertarian — if only to access the party’s hard-earned, 50-state ballot qualification. 

    Thanks in part to his staunchly pro-Israel positions, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr faced an uphill climb to win the Libertarian Party’s nomination (Anna Moneymaker/Getty via Town & Country)

    “We’re not gonna have any problems getting on the ballot ourselves so we won’t be running Libertarian,” Kennedy tells ABC News. That declaration came as his team was celebrating their exploitation of a quirk in Iowa ballot-access law: Rather than gathering 3,500 signatures, the Kennedy team held a convention in West Des Moines. Consistent with state requirements, it included at least 500 voters who represented at least 25 of the Hawkeye State’s 99 counties.   

    Kennedy assured ABC that he’s “100% confident” he’ll manage the arduous process — which includes fending off Democrats’ lawfare — in all 50 states, saying “we’re going to add probably two to three states a week.”

    While Kennedy framed his decision solely in ballot-access terms, it was far from certain that he could have actually won the Libertarian nod. The nominee isn’t selected by party leadership, but by delegates at the group’s convention — all of whom show up fully free to vote for the candidate of their choice. Things can get wild and spontaneous, and not just in a political sense: 

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    Kennedy has plenty of overlaps with libertarians, some of his stances could be seen as disqualifying:

    • His staunchly pro-Israel statements before and during the Gaza war devastated his standing with non-interventionist libertarians (and progressive leftists to boot). The damage hasn’t caused him to temper his remarks: On Saturday, he oddly referred to Israel as “our oldest ally” and said “the U.S. ought to be bending over backwards to protect Israel.” 
    • While he’s expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of gun control, he said he would sign an “assault weapon ban” if Congress sent him one.
    • He’s also called for a $15 national minimum wage, more free childcare, and abolishing interest on all federal student loans. 

    Meanwhile, responding to a series of Truth Social posts by Trump, in which the former president called Kennedy “the most radical liberal” in the race, Kennedy said Trump’s “emissaries” asked him to become his running mate.  

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    Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita quickly fired back, denying Kennedy’s claim and calling him a “leftie loonie” to boot…

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    Politico reports that Trump had casually floated the idea in conversations, adding that “Trump is known to workshop ideas to a variety of aides and allies, even if they never come to fruition. As he does with many political rivals, Trump has directed a mixture of flattery and abuse at Kennedy — as he did last week:  

    “He’s got some nice things about him. I happen to like him. Unfortunately he is about the ‘Green New Scam’ because he believes in that and a lot of people don’t.

    I guess that would mean that RFK Jr.’s going to be taking away votes from Crooked Joe Biden, and he should because he’s actually better than Biden. He’s much better than Biden. If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden.”

    Kennedy’s polling at 9.3% in the RealClearPolitics average. If nothing else, RFK Jr is a wild card who’s causing more worries among Democrats than Republicans.

    When Kennedy and third-party options are included in polls, they generally show their presence in the race is a net positive for Trump. In a head-to-head scenario, the RCP average has Trump up 0.2%. In a five-person race (which includes Kennedy, Jill Stein and Cornell West), Trump is ahead by 1.8%. Recognizing that, Dems have mobilized forces to file legal challenges to his ballot qualifications — you know, in the name of Protecting Our Democracy. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 18:00

  • The US-Mexico Dispute Over GM Corn Safety Could Transform American Agriculture
    The US-Mexico Dispute Over GM Corn Safety Could Transform American Agriculture

    Authored by Amy Denney via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Mexico’s effort to keep genetically modified corn out of the country is triggering a trade dispute with the United States and Canada that could affect the future of agriculture.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock, Freepik)

    The trade dispute hinges on a key question: whether genetically modified (GM) corn poses a threat to human health.

    U.S. trade representatives argue it does not and wants to force GM corn into Mexico. Given that GM seed is used in 90 percent of U.S. crops, the dispute could have far-reaching effects should Mexico win. Beyond the U.S. agricultural sector, it could damage the German and Chinese companies that make and sell those seeds.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Bayer, the company that bought seed giant Monsanto, and Chinese state-owned Syngenta, but has yet to get a response.

    A Battle Over Biotechnology

    Corn has fed previous trade battles between Mexico and the United States, with Mexican producers previously protesting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for allowing American corn in without restriction. In the latest chapter, Mexico issued a presidential decree in February 2023 that bans GM corn in tortillas and dough and signaled the country’s intention to gradually replace GM corn in all animal and human foods.

    Mexicans march in Mexico City on Jan. 31, 2008,  in a march of hundreds of corn producers protesting against the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which liberates maize imports from the United States since Jan. 1. Corn has been a point of contention between Mexico and the United States. (LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images)

    Canada, which is deeply integrated into U.S. and Mexican agricultural trade, and the United States both opposed the ban.

    Mexico has kept genetically modified corn from being grown within its borders for 25 years in an effort to protect both citizen health and ancient strains of maize. Corn is a staple crop eaten in 89 percent of Mexican meals.

    The United States has largely disregarded health concerns arising from GM crops and has spent the past year working to prove Mexico’s 2023 decree violates the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

    The restrictions, originally slated to go into effect this year, set off a disagreement now in the hands of a USMCA trade panel after Mexico and the United States failed to resolve it through negotiations.

    The United States contends that there’s no scientific evidence that GM corn is unsafe to eat, a claim Mexico refutes. Mexico says the United States hasn’t presented any evidence of GM corn’s long-term safety, particularly when eaten at high levels.

    Corn consumption is ten times higher in Mexico, raising concerns among its medical and governmental leaders about research linking GM crops to health issues.

    Clashing Visions and the Future of Agriculture

    The trade disagreement highlights clashing ideological values and interests. Mexico has concerns for public health and Indigenous maize. The United States aims to protect American farmers, food security, and the future of agricultural biotechnology.

    Ultimately, the three-member USMCA panel has to sort through the arguments, science, and finer points of Indigenous legal rights to make a decision. Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, said the ruling could generate cultural and environmental shockwaves.

    “If the panel pays attention to the science, they should come to the same conclusion as the Mexican government. If they’re swayed by politics and the power behind the technology, it’s going to be difficult for them to see the reality of the science,” she told The Epoch Times. “This is a hugely significant decision the panel has before them.”

    The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, a group that raises education about the genetic engineering of food, was originally invited to share its opinion with the trade tribunal, but the offer was rescinded at the request of the U.S. and Canadian governments.

    Mexico’s Case

    Mexico filed a 200-page response to the U.S. trade violation complaint, which many observers say fulfilled the onus of its argument. It offered 66 articles in peer-reviewed journals pointing to GM corn’s associated health risks including increased damage to organs, cancer, antibiotic resistance, and reduced nutritional content.

    Mexico’s decree also included a ban on glyphosate originally intended to go into effect on April 1, but the government pushed back that date while researching alternatives available in suitable quantities.

    GM corn is tightly wed to glyphosate, the key ingredient in RoundUp and other herbicides. That’s because one of the most prominent traits in GM corn is resistance to glyphosate, the main ingredient in RoundUp. Monsanto, the German firm making most of the GM corn grown in the United States, calls the corn “Roundup Ready.” A rise in the use of glyphosate closely paralleled the rise in use of GM corn seed.

    Additionally, Mexico’s report included 74 studies and papers on the risks of glyphosate, pointing to research documenting residues found on GM corn and concerns that the volume of corn Mexicans eat creates the need for a different safety standard. Mexico’s decree isn’t an outright trade ban but it does create the need for suitable replacements for both GM corn and glyphosate.

    Though the language is vague, the decree calls for agricultural groups to offer input to Mexican agencies on how to design, promote, and implement alternatives to glyphosate.

    The Glyphosate Issue

    Glyphosate has become an important topic of research, and studies now suggest it has several potential consequences on human physiology.

    A 2014 study published in the Journal of Organic Systems looked at two decades of information on the rising rates of chronic diseases and their association with glyphosate use. Correlation doesn’t prove causation, but graph after graph of epidemiological data of 22 diseases reveal sharp increases that coincide with the accelerating use of glyphosate.

    The study found highly significant correlations between glyphosate applications and hypertension, stroke, diabetes prevalence and incidence, obesity, Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, several types of cancer, intestinal infections, and more. Researchers used the Pearson correlation coefficient, the most common way to measure correlation.

    Additionally, Roundup Ready corn and soy in the U.S. were also found to have highly significant correlations with many of the same diseases. The authors concluded that the results warrant additional research on these relationships.

    Research done in Mexico has found glyphosate in the urine of children and adults, as well as evidence of it in industrial and native foods.

    Unsatisfied With the Science

    Mexico has objected to some of the research the United States was citing during negotiations, including sources that were not peer-reviewed, over a decade old, or funded by biotech companies. Mexico also raised concerns about the lack of long-term studies on humans eating GM corn, according to Timothy A. Wise, senior advisor for the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 17:40

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Apr 16

Today’s News 16th April 2024

  • Security Ramped-Up In Germany After Jihadists Threaten Drone Strikes At Euro 2024
    Security Ramped-Up In Germany After Jihadists Threaten Drone Strikes At Euro 2024

    Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

    An offshoot terror cell affiliated with Islamic State has published propaganda encouraging jihadists to target German football stadiums during this summer’s European Championships.

    In the latest issue of the “Voice of Khorasan” magazine, a publication run by ISKP, or Islamic State — Khorasan Province, the terror organization called for jihad at Europe’s flagship football tournament, which runs for a month in Germany from June 14 until July 14.

    Against a backdrop of an explosive drone flying across a football stadium, the publication used the headline, “If they restrict and oppress you on the ground, then attack them from the sky.”

    “Run over the infidels with your car, hit them with a knife, with poison, or blow out their brains with bullets and set fire to their houses,” it further wrote.

    German security services are understood to be treating the message as a credible threat. They are ramping up surveillance and implementing measures to combat any attempts to use drone strikes against stadiums hosting the event, which is expected to be attended by hundreds of thousands of football fans from across Europe.

    The threat is the latest in a long line of menacing imagery published by terror cells to inflict fear across the continent.

    Earlier this month, images circulated online of jihadists vowing to target the UEFA Champions League quarter-final games, prompting the authorities to bolster defenses at stadiums across Western Europe.

    “The main question is whether these are free riders or a serious threat,” a high-ranking state security officer told Focus.

    Authorities, however, are unwilling to take a risk on security and will treat the threat as credible.

    “It is to be feared that other terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda will also use their PR channels to agitate for an attack offensive in Europe and Germany,” the source added.

    The Afghan splinter group of Islamic State has grown in stature in recent months to become the primary organization of concern for security officials across Europe.

    A major counter-terror operation took place in the German city of Cologne before Christmas after security services in Austria, Germany, and Spain received intelligence of jihadists affiliated with the group planning to carry out several attacks at Christian landmarks including Cologne Cathedral.

    Last month, two Afghan nationals with ties to the U.N.-proscribed terror cell were arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a terror attack near the Swedish parliament to avenge the permittance of Koran-burning demonstrations in the country.

    Several individuals are understood to have exploited the migratory route from Ukraine to enter the European Union to plan attacks, with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan nationals arrested in Germany in July last year having entered Western Europe from the war-torn country.

    Authorities in neighboring France are also concerned about the threat of terror attacks during Paris’ hosting of the summer Olympic Games this year, and its organizers have devised a “Plan B” in case terror threats jeopardize the event’s opening ceremony.

    “There is no terrorist threat to the Olympics and Paralympics today, but we will continue to monitor the situation,” Oudéa-Castéra told France 2 earlier this month.

    “Just because we don’t talk about it, just because we don’t mention Plan B, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”

    The terror alert level in France remains at the highest possible due to concerns over Islamic radicals and fears of retaliation against the West because of the war in Israel.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/16/2024 – 02:00

  • The WHO's Road To Totalitarianism
    The WHO’s Road To Totalitarianism

    Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

    Several articles on the proposed amendments to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) international health regulations have appeared here on Brownstone, such as this excellent introduction. Consequently, there is no need to repeat this information in a similar format. What I would like to do instead is to pursue the question, what the implications would be for people worldwide if this organisation were to be successful in getting the representatives of member countries to accept the proposed amendments. More specifically, what are the likely consequences in terms of the concept and practice of totalitarianism?

    To understand this, one has to get to grips with the mode of rule called totalitarian government, of course, but I doubt whether most people have an adequate grasp of full-fledged totalitarian rule, despite recently experiencing it to a certain degree under “pandemic” conditions. Should the amendments proposed by the WHO be accepted in May, the citizens of the world would be subjected to unadulterated totalitarianism, however, so it is worthwhile exploring the full implications of this “anonymous” mode of governance here.

    This is done in the hope that, if representatives of the people—which is what they are supposed to be—in legislative bodies around the world were to read this article, as well as others related to the same topic, they would think twice before supporting a motion or bill which would, in effect, grant the WHO the right to usurp the sovereignty of member nations. The recent developments in the state of Louisiana in the United States, which amount to the rejection of the WHO’s authority, should be an inspiration to other states and countries to follow its example. This is the way to beat the WHO’s mendacious “pandemic treaty.”

    On her website, called Freedom Research, Dr. Meryl Nass has described the WHO’s notion of “pandemic preparedness” as a “scam/boondoggle/Trojan horse,” which aims (among other things) to transfer billions of taxpayer dollars to the WHO as well as other industries, in order to vindicate censorship in the name of “public health,” and perhaps most importantly, to transfer sovereignty regarding decision-making for “public health” globally to the Director-General of the WHO (which means that legally, member countries would lose their sovereignty).

    In addition, she highlights the fact that the WHO intends to use the idea of “One Health” to subsume all living beings, ecosystems, as well as climate change under its own “authority”; further, to acquire more pathogens for wide distribution, in this way exacerbating the possibility of pandemics while obscuring their origin, and in the event of such pandemics occurring, justifying the development of more (mandatory) “vaccines” and the mandating of vaccine passports (and of lockdowns) globally, thus increasing control (the key term here) over populations. Should its attempt at a global power grab succeed, the WHO would have the authority to impose any “medical” programme it deems necessary for “world health,” regardless of their efficacy and side-effects (including death).

    In the preceding paragraph I italicised the word “control” as a key term. What should be added to it is the term “total”—that is, “total control.” This is the gist of totalitarian rule, and it should therefore be easy to see that what the WHO (together with the WEF and the U.N.) strives for is total or complete control of all people’s lives.

    No one has analysed and elaborated on totalitarianism from this perspective more thoroughly than the German-born, American philosopher, Hannah Arendt, and her monumental study of this phenomenon—“The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951 and in enlarged format, 1958) still stands as the authoritative source for the understanding of its historical manifestations. The latter, focused on by Arendt, are 20th-century Nazism and Stalinism, but it is not difficult to perceive its lineaments in what we have been living through since 2020—although a strong case could be made that 2001 marked its identifiable beginning, when (in the wake of 9/11) the Patriot Act was passed, arguably laying the authoritarian groundwork for totalitarian rule as clearly perceived by Henry Giroux.

    Arendt (p. 274 of the Harvest, Harcourt edition of “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” 1976) singles out “total terror” as the essence of totalitarian government, and elaborates as follows:

    “By pressing men against each other, total terror destroys the space between them; compared to the condition within its iron band, even the desert of tyranny [which she distinguishes from totalitarianism; B.O.], insofar as it is still some kind of space, appears like a guarantee of freedom. Totalitarian government does not just curtail liberties or abolish essential freedoms; nor does it, at least to our limited knowledge, succeed in eradicating the love for freedom from the hearts of man. It destroys the one essential prerequisite of all freedom which is simply the capacity of motion which cannot exist without space.”

    Reading this evocative characterisation of totalitarianism in terms of “total terror” makes one realise anew, with a start, how fiendishly clever the perpetrators of the so-called “pandemic” emergency were—which was no real pandemic, of course, as the German government recently admitted. It was the thin edge of the wedge, as it were, to insinuate “total terror” into our lives by means of curtailing our access to free movement in space. “Lockdowns” are the signature tool for implementing restrictions of free movements in space.

    It may not, on the face of it, appear to be the same as, or similar to, the incarceration of prisoners in the concentration camps under Nazi rule, but arguably the psychological effects of lockdowns approximate those experienced by inmates of these notorious camps in the 1940s. After all, if you are not allowed to leave your house, except to go to the shop to buy food and other essentials before you hurry back home—where you dutifully sanitise all the items you bought (a concrete reminder that venturing out in space is “potentially lethal”)—the imperative is the same: “You are not allowed out of this enclosure, except under specified conditions.” It is understandable that the imposition of such strict spatial boundaries engenders a pervasive sense of fear, which eventually morphs into terror.

    Small wonder the pseudo-authorities promoted—if not “commanded”—“working (and studying) from home,” leaving millions of people cloistered in their houses in front of their computer screens (Plato’s cave wall). And banning meetings in public, except for a few concessions as far as the numbers of attendees at certain gatherings were concerned, was just as effective regarding the intensification of terror. Most people would not dare transgress these spatial restrictions, given the effectiveness of the campaign, to instil a dread of the supposedly lethal “novel coronavirus” in populations, exacerbating “total terror” in the process. The images of patients in hospitals, attached to ventilators, and sometimes looking appealingly, desperately at the camera, only served to exacerbate this feeling of dread.

    With the advent of the much-hyped COVID pseudo-“vaccines,” another aspect of generating terror among the populace manifested itself in the guise of relentless censorship of all dissenting views and opinions on the “efficacy and safety” of these, as well as on the comparable effectiveness of early treatment of COVID by means of proven remedies such as Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. The clear aim of this was to discredit contrarians who raised doubts over the official valorisation of these supposedly miraculous cures for the disease, and to isolate them from the mainstream as “conspiracy theorists.”

    Arendt’s insight into the indispensable function of space for human movement also casts the WEF’s plans to create “15-minute cities” worldwide in a disturbing new light. These have been described as “open-air concentration camps,” which would eventually become a reality by prohibiting movement outside of these demarcated areas, after an initial period of selling the idea as a way of combating climate change by walking and cycling instead of using carbon-emitting motor cars. The WEF and WHO’s “concern” with climate change as a putative threat to global health offers further justification for these planned variations on prisons for the thinly disguised incarceration of millions of people.

    The pertinence of Arendt’s thinking on totalitarianism for the present does not end here, though. Just as relevant as the manner in which it cultivates terror is her identification of loneliness and isolation as prerequisites for total domination. She describes isolation—in the political sphere—as “pre-totalitarian.” It is typical of the tyrannical governments of dictators (which are pre-totalitarian), where it functions to prevent citizens from wielding some power by acting together.

    Loneliness is the counterpart of isolation in the social sphere; the two are not identical, and the one can be the case without the other. One can be isolated or kept apart from others without being lonely; the latter only sets in when one feels abandoned by all other human beings. Terror, Arendt sagely observes, can “rule absolutely” only over people who have been “isolated against each other” (Arendt 1975, pp. 289–290). It therefore stands to reason that, to achieve the triumph of totalitarian rule, those promoting its inception would create the circumstances where individuals feel increasingly isolated as well as lonely.

    It is superfluous to remind anyone of the systematic inculcation of both of these conditions in the course of the “pandemic” through what has been discussed above, particularly lockdowns, the restriction of social contact at all levels, and through censorship, which—as remarked above—was clearly intended to isolate dissenting individuals. And those who were isolated in this way, were often—if not usually—abandoned by their family and friends, with the consequence that loneliness could, and sometimes did, follow. In other words, the tyrannical imposition of COVID regulations served the (probably intended) purpose of preparing the ground for totalitarian rule by creating the conditions for isolation and loneliness to become pervasive.

    How does totalitarian government differ from tyranny and authoritarianism, where one may still discern the figures of the despot, and the sway of some abstract ideal, respectively? Arendt writes that (p. 271–272):

    “If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lawlessness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence of totalitarian domination.

    “Terror is the realization of the law of movement; its chief aim is to make it possible for the force of nature or of history to race freely through mankind, unhindered by any spontaneous human action. As such, terror seeks to ‘stabilize’ men in order to liberate the forces of nature or history. It is this movement which singles out the foes of mankind against whom terror is let loose, and no free action of either opposition or sympathy can be permitted to interfere with the elimination of the ‘objective enemy’ of History or Nature, of the class or the race. Guilt and innocence become senseless notions; ‘guilty’ is he who stands in the way of the natural or historical process which has passed judgement over ‘inferior races,’ over individuals ‘unfit to live,’ over ‘dying classes and decadent peoples.’ Terror executes these judgements, and before its court, all concerned are subjectively innocent: the murdered because they did nothing against the system, and the murderers because they do not really murder but execute a death sentence pronounced by some higher tribunal. The rulers themselves do not claim to be just or wise, but only to execute historical or natural laws; they do not apply [positive] laws, but execute a movement in accordance with its inherent law. Terror is lawfulness, if law is the law of the movement of some suprahuman force, Nature or History.”

    The reference to nature and history as suprahuman forces pertains to what Arendt (p. 269) claims to have been the undergirding beliefs of National Socialism and Communism, respectively, in the laws of nature and of history as being independent, virtually primordial powers in themselves. Hence the justification of terror being inflicted on those who seem to stand in the way of the unfolding of these impersonal forces. When read carefully, the excerpt, above, paints a picture of totalitarian rule as something predicated on the neutralisation of people, as human beings, in society as potential agents or participants in its organisation or the direction in which it develops. The “rulers” are not rulers in the traditional sense; they are merely there to ensure that the suprahuman force in question is left unhindered to unfold as it “should.”

    It takes no genius to perceive in Arendt’s perspicacious characterisation of totalitarian domination—which she relates to Nazism and Stalinism as its historical embodiments—a kind of template which applies to the emerging totalitarian character of what first manifested itself in 2020 as iatrocracy, under the subterfuge of a global health emergency—something well known to all of us today. Since then other features of this totalitarian movement have emerged, all of which cohere into what may be described, in ideological terms, as “transhumanism.”

    This, too, fits into Arendt’s account of totalitarianism—not the transhumanist character, as such, of this latest incarnation of the attempt to harness humanity as a whole to a suprahuman power, but its ideological status. Just as the Nazi regime justified its operations by appealing to nature (in the guise of the vaunted superiority of the “Aryan race,” for example), so the group of technocratic globalists driving the (not so) “Great Reset” appeals to the idea of going “beyond humanity” to a supposed superior (non-natural) “species” instantiating a fusion between humans and machines—also anticipated, it seems, by the “singularity” artist called Stelarc. I emphasised “idea” because, as Arendt observes (p. 279–280),

    “An ideology is quite literally what its name indicates: it is the logic of an idea. Its subject matter is history, to which the ‘idea’ is applied; the result of this application is not a body of statements about something that is, but the unfolding of a process which is in constant change. The ideology treats the course of events as though it followed the same ‘law’ as the logical exposition of its ‘idea.’”

    Given the nature of an ideology, explicated above, it should be evident how this applies to the transhumanist ideology of the neo-fascist cabal: the idea underpinning the historical process has supposedly always been a kind of transhumanist teleology—allegedly the (previously hidden) telos or goal of all of history has constantly been the attainment of a state of surpassing mere Homo and Gyna sapiens sapiens (the doubly wise human man and woman) and actualising the “transhuman.” Is it at all surprising that they have claimed to have acquired god-like powers?

    This further explains the unscrupulousness with which the transhumanist globalists can countenance the functioning and debilitating effects of “total terror” as identified by Arendt. “Total terror” here means the pervasive or totalising effects of, for example, installing encompassing systems of impersonal, largely AI-controlled surveillance, and communicating to people—at least initially—that it is for their own safety and security. The psychological consequences, however, amount to a subliminal awareness of the closure of “free space,” which is replaced by a sense of spatial confinement, and of there being “no way out.”

    Against this backdrop, reflecting on the looming possibility that the WHO may succeed in getting compliant nations to accept the proposed amendments to their health regulations, yields greater insight into the concrete effects this would have. And these aren’t pretty, to say the least. In a nutshell, it means that this unelected organisation would have the authority to proclaim lockdowns and “medical (or health) emergencies,” as well as mandatory “vaccinations” at the whim of the WHO’s Director-General, reducing the freedom to traverse space freely to ironclad spatial confinement in one fell swoop. This is what “total terror” would mean. It is my fervent hope that something can still be done to avert this imminent nightmare.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 23:40

  • Population Projections: These Will Be The World's 6 Largest Countries In 2075
    Population Projections: These Will Be The World’s 6 Largest Countries In 2075

    The end of the 21st century will see the first plateauing (and eventually shrinking) of world population since the Industrial Revolution.

    As birth rates fall across the globe, what does this mean for the world’s most populous countries?

    To find out, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized forecasts for the world’s six largest countries using data from the latest revised version of the UN World Population Prospects 2022.

    Projections are based on a “medium fertility scenario”, which assumes countries will converge at a birth rate of 1.85 children per woman, by 2045-2050.

    China’s Projected Population Decline

    China’s population boom has officially come to an end, with the country reporting two consecutive years of decreases (down 850,000 in 2022, and 2.1 million in 2023).

    Note: Figures are rounded.

    The country’s population in 2050 is forecasted to be 1.32 billion, which is roughly the same as it was in 2007. The UN believes this demographic downtrend will accelerate as we enter the second half of the century.

    What does this mean for the Chinese economy? Many worry that a smaller workforce, coupled with an aging population, will increase healthcare expenditures and hamper economic growth.

    India’s Population Boom Continues

    Meanwhile, the UN believes that India’s population will peak somewhere in the mid 2060s, just shy of the 1.7 billion mark.

    India’s population will not age as quickly as its neighbor. Those over the age of 65 will represent less than one-fifth of the population until 2060, and their share of India’s total number of people and will not approach 30% until 2100.

    Note: Figures are rounded.

    Finally, whether these predictions come true or not will depend on how quickly birth rates fall as the country develops. For example, India’s fertility rate fell from 6.2 in 1950, to 2.0 in 2021 (births per woman).

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 23:20

  • Water In Texas: A Window Into Problems Across The US
    Water In Texas: A Window Into Problems Across The US

    Authored by Suzanne Gasparatto via The Epoch Times,

    Humans cannot live without water, yet many of us take for granted that water is readily available. As more people move to cities, adding to already crowded populations, the availability of potable water isn’t a given any longer.

    While this planet has plenty of water, its distribution does not always coincide with areas where lots of people choose to live.

    For decades, Texans, like citizens of other states, have been struggling with regional water issues. Heavily populated but still growing Central Texas has long been known as an area of perpetual drought occasionally interrupted by flash floods. The booming metropolis of Austin, Texas, literally sits on top of water problems. Underneath Austin is the Edwards Aquifer, which experiences rapid changes in water levels due to high demand. Other Texas cities have similar problems.

    Cities as small as San Angelo and as large as San Antonio have purchased water rights in rural areas, diverting the supply of water used by farmers and ranchers over long distances for urban use. Rural Texas, which already had serious water deficits, is in trouble. Farmers and ranchers must have reliable supplies of water to produce the food that we eat.

    The Highland Lakes northwest of Austin were originally built to control downstream flooding and deliver water to farmers and ranchers. The population shift from rural to urban has placed huge demands on this water supply. Lack of rain plus additional urban population has caused water levels in lakes to be so low that boat docks are far from the shoreline.

    The recent large influx of people to Texas has spurred groups of investors to buy rural land and develop it into subdivisions. These investors are often from other states and are unaware of our water woes. They don’t realize that most rural Texas properties, including my location north of fast-growing Austin, depend upon individual water wells drilled by each property owner. Municipal water systems are nonexistent. Drilling deeper wells is not an option. Good-quality water isn’t available below relatively shallow levels.

    Existing wells are drying up as demand for more wells arises with the building of new subdivisions. Many people, including those in existing subdivisions, are having to purchase water in bulk and have it delivered to meet their basic needs.

    County officials in Texas do not have sufficient authority to manage growth while protecting our water resources. This authority needs to come from the Texas Legislature soon. Requiring larger acreage to qualify to drill a well is critical. Today, permission to drill a well can be obtained if you own as little as two acres.

    Adjacent to my ranch, developers are selling four-acre to six-acre tracts that will result in 205 additional water wells. Folks who spend $250,000 to $350,000 for these tracts will expect that there is plentiful water to fill their swimming pools and water their landscaped lawns. This isn’t accurate.

    These new wells will decimate our agricultural wells that are already low from years of drought. My County Commissioners Court doesn’t have authority to control this growth in a reasonable and fair manner for all residents.

    A short-term solution involves increasing the acreage required to drill a well from two acres to at least ten acres and requiring rainwater collection systems in conjunction with all new wells. When I bought this land, a professional engineer designed a rainwater collection system off the metal roof of my barns, from which I water all my livestock. That allowed me to reserve well water for personal use only, and I monitor usage daily.

    Requiring new wells to have pumps that limit pumping gallonage is necessary.

    The regional underground water conservation district recently added some new regulations, which, for new wells on small acreage, will limit pumping output.

    This is only a start in trying to manage over-consumption of available groundwater.

    A medium-term solution is to build desalination plants to clean up the brackish water that exists below current potable water well levels.

    A longer-term solution is building desalination plants along the Gulf Coast and creating a network of water pipelines throughout Texas to transport desalinated water to areas needing it. Existing easements for oil and gas pipelines can be made accessible for these water pipelines.

    U.S. taxpayers contributed vastly to the development of desalination plants around the world. It is time to take care of our own citizens’ water needs.

    In many populated areas, we have a shortage of adequate distribution of water. Vast parts of the western United States, on the other hand, have little water at all, and what they have is often being bought by cities and piped away from the source. Solutions are available. We only have to have the will to implement them.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 23:00

  • Yuan Weakens After 'Unbalanced' Chinese Economy Sees GDP Beat In Q1 But Domestic Consumption, Production Disappoint
    Yuan Weakens After ‘Unbalanced’ Chinese Economy Sees GDP Beat In Q1 But Domestic Consumption, Production Disappoint

    China’s economic growth beat expectations in Q1, rising +5.3% YoY – considerably stronger than the +4.8% consensus, and inching ahead of Q4’s +5.2% YoY growth.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Notably, that this is the first time the market compares two periods of economic growth without China’z Zero-COVID policy’s impact, and overall, as we detail below, economic activity data in March overall missed expectations.

    • Industrial production rose 4.5% in March from a year earlier (below economists’ forecast of 6%).

    • Industrial output rose 6.1% for the first quarter (below the 7.0% in February).

    • Retail sales climbed 3.1%, also disappointing (versus an expected 4.8% gain) – domestic consumption is still weak amid deflation pressure and after imports shrank during the month.

    • Investment flows were mixed with Property investment continuing to slide (down 9.5%, worst since December, and considerably worse than the 9.2% expected)…

    • …but broad-based fixed-asset investment expanded 4.5% in the first three months (better than the 4% increase projected by economists).

    • Finally, the surveyed jobless rate in March declined to 5.2% from 5.3% in February.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Simply put, China’s economic recovery has been unbalanced. 

    As Bloomberg reports, manufacturing is holding up, thanks to resilient overseas demand and Beijing’s efforts to cushion the blow from US trade restrictions by developing advanced technologies at home.

    But Chinese consumers have been slow to recover their appetite for spending, amid a prolonged real estate downturn that’s weighing on household and business confidence.

    Factory prices have been in deflation for more than a year, reflecting anemic domestic demand.

    The central bank on Monday kept the rate of its one-year medium-term lending facility unchanged, and drained cash on net from the banking system via the tool for a second straight month. The PBOC cut its reserve requirement ratio for banks by 50 basis points in February – a move that allows extra lending – and said there’s room for more cuts.

    But China has reasons to be cautious in any monetary easing, since widening the yield gap with the US risks adding to downward pressure on the yuan, which is weakening after the data…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Notably, China unexpectedly weakened its yuan defense as pressure from a resurgent dollar and poor sentiment pressured it toward a policy red line. Specifically, the PBOC set a weaker daily reference rate for the managed currency, implying some flexibility for it to depreciate alongside regional peers amid broad strength in the dollar.

    “The PBOC is bowing to reality, with dollar broadly higher and onshore dollar demand surging,” said Richard Franulovich, head of foreign-exchange strategy at Westpac Banking Corp.

    “They obviously want to control and contain the move though, so they are guiding yuan lower in a moderate and steady fashion.”

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, investors are closely watching one major government effort to boost domestic demand this year: a trade-in program that will encourage businesses to upgrade their machinery and households to buy new cars, refrigerators or washing machines. Shares of Chinese home-appliance makers jumped last week after officials vowed “strong” fiscal support for the plan.

    The degree of government support for households and businesses to spend at home will likely depend on how Chinese firms fare on international markets, Goldman Sachs economists led by Hui Shan wrote in a note last week.

    “If external demand is strong, then less domestic stimulus is needed,” they wrote.

    “If the property market continues to deteriorate, then more easing measures will be introduced.”

    The Goldman team raised their growth forecast, predicting the 5% target will be met, and said the government doesn’t seem keen to significantly exceed it.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 22:40

  • A Heretic's View: Blaming Food For Obesity Is Like Blaming Water For Drowning
    A Heretic’s View: Blaming Food For Obesity Is Like Blaming Water For Drowning

    Authored by Edward Archer via RealClearScience,

    There is a politically expedient but problematic fiction that ‘consensus’ matters in science. Since a million matching opinions do not constitute a fact, a consensus — either real or apparent — is not a statement about evidence but an exercise in groupthink in which the status quo is made explicit.

    Thus, scientific progress requires conservative and heretical thinkers — conservatives protect the authority and continuity of science, whereas heretics put forth creative dissent in an attempt to push the limits of what we know. Nevertheless, few people are willing and able to challenge the status quo — and those who have were often reviled, incarcerated, or executed (e.g., Galileo, Semmelweis, and Vavilov). 

    Consequently, when facts conflict with theory, academic researchers often ignore the facts rather than confront the consensus. As a result, the ‘marketplace of ideas’ — and research funding — are predestined to conformity, sycophancy, and stasis. In other words, the more pervasive the consensus, the more servile the research, the less probable the progress.  

    Although this unfortunate reality is evident across many fields, it has been extremely detrimental to nutrition science. For more than 50 years, ‘Diet-centrism’ — the theory that foods and beverages cause ill-health, obesity, and cardiometabolic diseases — has been accepted by physicians, researchers, and the public almost without question. Yet despite the unity and ubiquity of the consensus, there are centuries of evidence refuting diet-centric beliefs. Thus, because a million matching but ill-informed opinions do not constitute a fact, the consensus linking calories, ‘carbs’, meat, milk, sugar, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processing’ to death and disease is not a statement about scientific evidence but the obsequious — and sterile — status-quo made explicit.

    Accordingly, herein I present the heretical idea that the naïve determinism of ‘Diet-centrism’ — ‘you are what you eat’ and ‘what you eat is killing you’ — is not only simplistic and unscientific but specious because it ignores the fact that individual differences in metabolism (how the body ‘handles’ foods and beverages) is what matters most in diet-related health and disease. 

    Historical Evidence: It’s not the Food

    Before the 20th century, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases such as type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were uncommon. Yet over the past 50 years, the prevalence of these maladies in horses, humans, dogs, cats, lab, and zoo animals increased to epidemic proportions. Given that these herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores have always consumed different diets, the claim that foods and beverages have suddenly caused parallel epidemics in different species is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Yet there is no valid evidence supporting this belief.

    To begin, humans have consumed highly palatable, ‘ultra-processed’ foods and beverages for thousands of years. Refined sugar, salt, butter, and cheeses date from 4000-8000 BC, and pasta, pizza, and pretzels were consumed in the 1st century AD. Although the consumption of ‘french-fries’ (‘chips’ in the UK) only began in the 17th century, potatoes fried in salt and animal fat quickly became the main source of nutrition in Ireland. By the 19th century, the Irish consumed ~4-5 lbs. of potatoes per person per day, with men consuming ~8-12 lbs./day. This is the equivalent of ~40 supersized servings of ‘french-fries’ every day for a lifetime. Yet despite consuming massive amounts of ‘carbs’, saturated fats, and salt, the Irish had little obesity or cardiometabolic diseases. 

    Similarly, the Amish — an ethno-religious group in the US — consume a high-calorie, highly-palatable diet that includes meat, potatoes, gravy, eggs, breads, pies, and cakes, and “is quite high in fat and refined sugar”. Yet the Amish have a greater life expectancy and substantially lower obesity, T2DM, heart disease, and cancer than other Americans. 

    Importantly, all humans start life consuming ~40% of their daily calories as dietary sugars and 25% as saturated fat — either in breast milk or infant formula (an ‘ultra-processed’, sugar-sweetened beverage with ‘added’ sugars, salts, and fats). Thus, recommendations to restrict ‘added’ sugars and ‘processed’ foods would prevent the feeding of most infants in industrialized nations. And contrary to current rhetoric, nations with the highest rates of sugar-sweetened beverage (formula) consumption by infants have the lowest rates of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases (Japan and Norway). Moreover, sugars added to foods and beverages enter the same metabolic pathways as intrinsic sugars. Thus, the glucose molecules in breast milk and the fructose molecules in fruit are exactly the same glucose and fructose molecules as in soda, sports drinks, and your favorite candy. This basic fact of biochemistry shows that the term ‘added sugar’ has no place in scientific discourse. 

    Furthermore, the medicinal use of sucrose (table sugar) for malnutrition and diarrheal diseases saves the lives of over 600,000 children each year. Thus, so-called ‘added’ sugars save more lives than any pharmaceutical agent. So if ‘food is medicine’, then table sugar is the greatest medicine of all. [Note: the phrase “let thy food be thy medicine” was fabricated by a journalist and attributed to Hippocrates to sell a diet book in the 1920s.] 

    Additionally, the most comprehensive report on dietary sugars —  published before the current anti-sugar hysteria — concluded that “feeding normal human volunteers at levels of fructose approximating the 90th percentile intake levels of the U.S. population failed to demonstrate adverse effects on insulin sensitivity or glucose tolerance [cardiometabolic health].” And contrary to current rhetoric, over the last two decades the use of sugars & sweeteners in the US declined ~16% as obesity and T2DM increased almost 40% and severe obesity increased 96%. Thus, less sugar is linked to more obesity and diabetes — and this so-called ‘sugar paradox’ is ubiquitous (see Australia and the UK).

    In sum, by ignoring contrary evidence, academic researchers and their ‘diet-centric’ consensus created a “fictional discourse on diet-disease relations”.

    The Logic of Causality 

    The search for universal criteria by which to infer causality has eluded philosophers of science for centuries. Yet, at its simplest, the search for causes is the search for ‘differences that make a difference’ — mere associations are meaningless. For example, water (and other liquids) are associated with 100% of drowning deaths. Therefore, in the absence of water no one drowns. Yet despite the perfect correlation and counterfactual evidence, no educated person argues that water causes drowning because not everyone who drinks, bathes, or swims, drowns. In other words, water is not causal because it is not the ‘difference that makes a difference’. 

    To be precise, water is a sine qua non for drowning (an indispensable part or essential element) — not a cause. Thus, given the same environment (the presence of water), individual differences such as the inability to swim, intoxication, or insentience cause a person to drown. 

    The Illogicity of Blaming Food 

    Foods and beverages are a sine qua non for life — everyone must eat and drink. Yet just as water does not cause drowning because not everyone who drinks, bathes, or swims, drowns — diet does not cause poor metabolic health because not everyone who eats and drinks becomes obese or diabetic. Yet in contrast to the perfect correlation between water and drowning, there is no clear correlation between diet and obesity. 

    For example, muscular, male athletes consume more calories, ‘carbs’, sugars, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods than obese, sedentary women, yet have lower levels of adiposity and T2DM. Thus, more foods, beverages, and physical activity are linked with better health and less disease. Clearly, athletes’ bodies ‘handle’ their diets differently than those of sedentary people. Therefore, metabolism — not diet — is the ‘difference that makes a difference’ in health.

    Similarly, in a 2013 study, my colleagues and I found that the people performing the least amount of physical activity gained the most fat mass — despite consuming less calories, less fat, and less sugar than those who ate more, performed more activity, and maintained their weight. Conversely, reducing physical activity causes an immediate decline in insulin sensitivity and metabolic health. Therefore, physical activity-induced differences in metabolism — not diet — cause differences in caloric intake, fat mass, and health. 

    Moreover, metabolism is the ‘difference that makes a difference’ in the ‘Oral Glucose Tolerance Test’ (OGTT) — a widely used test for diabetes and insulin resistance. In the OGTT, blood sugar is measured after patients consume a standard dose of dietary sugar. Over time, patients with weaker metabolisms have higher blood sugar than those with stronger metabolisms. Thus, given identical amounts of dietary sugar, differences in metabolism cause differences in blood sugar. It is nonsensical to argue that the dietary sugar caused the differences in blood sugar when each patient consumed the same amount. 

    What confuses most people — and [too] many researchers — is that different foods and beverages cause different metabolic responses. For example, consuming sugar or starch causes greater increases in blood sugar than consuming fat or protein. However, as the OGTT shows, it is not the increase in blood sugar after a meal that matters to cardiometabolic health but the decrease over time. 

    Stated simply, consuming dietary sugar increases everyone’s blood sugar — but not everyone’s blood sugar returns to ‘normal’ after a meal (e.g., diabetics). Thus, the diet-induced increase in blood sugar is irrelevant to cardiometabolic health because it is not the ‘difference that makes a difference’. What matters are the metabolic differences that cause blood sugar to decrease — or not — after a meal.

    Yet most importantly, as a recent “intensive food-as-medicine program” showed, altering your diet has little effect on cardiometabolic health over time, whereas adequate physical activity “obliterates the deleterious effects of a high-caloric intake”. This explains why muscular athletes can consume massive amounts of calories, ‘carbs’, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods yet remain lean and healthy.  

    In sum, differences in metabolism — not diet — cause differences in cardiometabolic health.

    ‘Differences that Make a Difference’ in Obesity and Metabolic Strength

    If people perform hard physical labor, they will consume more food, water, and oxygen than if they sat quietly in an office. Therefore, increased physical activity causes increases in metabolism that — in turn — cause increases in consumption (eating, drinking, and breathing). Therefore, if you ‘burn’ more calories through physical activity, you increase your metabolic strength, consume more calories, and maintain your weight. This fact explains why exercise rarely leads to weight-loss but is essential in health and preventing weight gain. 

    Conversely, when people reduce their physical activity ‘too much’ (below their ‘metabolic tipping point’), they weaken their metabolism. This causes them to consume more calories than they burn. In time, this leads to ‘acquired’ obesity and cardiometabolic diseases — independent of diet. In other words, a minimum amount of physical activity is needed for health, and individuals with extremely low levels will, over time, become obese, diabetic, or both — regardless of the foods and beverages they consume.  

    Importantly, if a woman’s physical activity is too low, her metabolism will be too weak to ‘handle’ pregnancy and she will consume too many calories. As a result, her children will be born fatter and with weaker metabolisms. In other words, they ‘inherit’ a life-long predisposition to obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. [Note: the non-genetic process of inheritance by which a mother’s prenatal metabolism irreversibly alters her descendants’ metabolism is known as a ‘maternal-effect’]. 

    Consequently, the fact that women ’move less’ than they did five decades ago explains the recent rise in ‘inherited’ (childhood) obesity and adolescent T2DM. For example, from 1965 to 2010, the time women spent doing housework decreased by ~2 hours per day while sedentary time increased by 1 hour/day. This reduced the number of calories burned by ~250/day and doubled the amount of time spent sitting. By 2020, women spent more time sitting in front of the TV and using social media than cooking, cleaning, childcare, exercise, and laundry combined. As a result, their metabolisms became weaker — and because metabolic strength is essential for a healthy pregnancy, the decline produced successive generations of obese children with weak metabolisms.  

    Moreover, because all mammals share the metabolic pathways of pregnancy, my work suggests that ‘maternal-effects’ caused the parallel epidemics of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in horses, humans, dogs, cats, lab, and zoo animals.   

    Conclusion

    Consensus in academic research is rarely a statement about evidence. More often, it is an exercise in groupthink in which the status quo — right or wrong — is made explicit. Thus, progress needs heretics who are willing and able to challenge the consensus. Accordingly, I presented the heretical idea that humans have always consumed highly palatable, processed foods and beverages without increases in obesity or cardiometabolic diseases. Moreover, ‘acquired’ and ‘inherited’ differences in metabolism — not diet — cause obesity and poor metabolic health. Thus, the ‘diet-centric’ consensus linking calories, ‘carbs’, meat, milk, sugar, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processing’ to death and disease is not only simplistic, but sterile and unscientific.

    Nevertheless, given that science progresses ‘funeral by funeral’ and that food-based fears generate profitable marketing campaigns (e.g., low-fat and no ‘added’ sugars) and billions of dollars to fund academic research, ‘Diet-centrism’ will be the dominant paradigm in nutrition ‘science’ for the foreseeable future. Bon appétit.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 22:20

  • Conservatives Seek To Ban Private Funding Of Elections Ahead Of 2024 Races
    Conservatives Seek To Ban Private Funding Of Elections Ahead Of 2024 Races

    Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    During the pandemic-plagued 2020 election season, hundreds of millions of dollars from private sources were granted to big cities, an action that many Republicans believe unfairly tipped the scales in favor of Democrats.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    Distributed for the stated purpose of protecting public health and assisting people to vote safely, the private funds helped popularize mail-in voting, ballot drop boxes, and ballot harvesting at a scale never seen before.

    In the years since 2020, either by legislation or referendum, Republicans have outlawed such private funding in 28 states.

    Twenty-two states still allow the practice, raising concerns among Republicans about the integrity of future elections.

    “The people of the remaining states should be angry at their legislatures for not banning private money to fund their elections. No government officials should be accepting private payments to do their jobs,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former member of the Federal Election Commission, told The Epoch Times.

    “When you allow private entities to give large donations for local election administration, the money can be used to manipulate the practices of local election officials for political advantage.”

    Mr. von Spakovsky said many nonprofits are, in reality, political advocacy groups that have no limit on what they can donate and little reporting accountability.

    “They receive unlimited sums of charitable, tax-deductible contributions and then grant them to localities. which has turned out to be a way to move the get-out-the-vote campaign of political parties or candidates into government offices. It’s wrong to use government officials to do that,” he said.

    Former Michigan state senator and election integrity activist Patrick Colbeck, a Republican, told The Epoch Times that he believes a larger scheme to privatize the execution of America’s election system is well underway and pointed out another of its perils.

    “Nongovernmental organizations are not subject to Freedom of Information requests. They are thus able to operate behind an effective veil of secrecy on what should be the most transparent process in government of them all—our elections,” he said.

    Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher with think tank Capital Research Center, said allowing half the country to use private funding in elections is “a national security risk.”

    “A 501(c)(3) organization can accept money from anywhere, including foreign sources like Russian oligarchs. Imagine such money being funneled to targeted jurisdictions in Alaska that are about to decide an oil-related referendum,” he told The Epoch Times.

    “Since 2020, the hide-the-ball approach of a few big nonprofits regarding where their money comes from has inspired many copycats. It’s only a matter of time before the next copycat does not have America’s best interest at heart. That’s something that all Americans should be worried about.”

    A voter casts his ballot at a drop box outside Philadelphia City Hall on Oct. 24, 2022. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

    Mr. Thayer said the injection of nonprofits into the 2020 system exposed a flaw in the system, reduced trust, and made the running of elections much more partisan.

    In Wisconsin, 90 percent of 2020 nonprofit grant funding was given to the state’s largest cities; areas that turned out heavily for Joe Biden. Per capita, $3.75 went to big city dwellers and 55 cents to out-state residents, according to Capital Research.

    After 2020, Wisconsin legislators twice passed bills to prohibit private money in elections. Twice, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed the bills.

    On April 2, primary election voters in the state approved two veto-proof constitutional amendments that stops private money in elections and prohibits privately funded staff from helping run state elections. The amendments passed with 54 percent and 58 percent approval, respectively.

    “Wisconsin has spoken, and the message is clear … Wisconsinites have turned the page on Zuckerbucks and secured our elections from dark money donors,” state GOP chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement following the referendum.

    Opponents of the amendments stated that the vaguely-worded ban on private funding of elections would create confusion, deprive clerks of badly needed dollars required to conduct elections, and will result in a scaling back of voter outreach programs designed to boost participation.

    Before the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, local officials never received federal funding to pay for federal elections.

    “They got along just fine for all those years. What has happened in our states and localities?” Mr. von Spakovsky said.

    “Local election officials should talk to their legislators rather than going to private donors for money to run their elections.”

    Highlighting the partisan divide on the issue, Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler said in a statement before the referendum, “Rather than work to make sure our clerks have the resources they need to run elections, Republicans are pushing a nonsense amendment to satisfy Donald Trump.”

    The former president made a campaign stop in Green Bay on the day of the primary. He was a strong proponent of the two amendments and urged his supporters to get out and vote.

    Public ire against the use of private funding in Wisconsin was first stirred in the summer of 2021 when former Brown County Clerk Sandy Juno, a Republican, came forward with allegations that out-of-state political operatives funded by donations from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) took control of much of the administration of the November 2020 presidential election in Green Bay and other large cities in Wisconsin.

    Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies at a hearing at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 31, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

    CTCL and another nonprofit organization called the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) were gifted a total of $420 million by billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

    The money, which has since been labeled “Zuckerbucks” by critics, was ostensibly granted to local election offices throughout the United States to purchase personal protection equipment and pay for other means to help local jurisdictions conduct safe and healthy elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In a post-election accounting, Green Bay reported spending only 0.8 percent of its $1 million “Zuckerbucks” grant on personal protection equipment.

    More Abuses Come to Light

    Ms. Juno’s allegations were corroborated by special counsel Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, who was commissioned by the state legislature in 2021 to investigate possible violations of the law and other irregularities in the conduct of the November 2020 election.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 21:40

  • How Widespread Is Underage Drinking?
    How Widespread Is Underage Drinking?

    Alcohol abuse is a behavioral risk factor connected to 2.4 million deaths in 2019, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington.

    While consuming large quantities of alcohol over a long period might not necessarily lead to a shortened lifespan, it hampers cognitive and motor function in its consumers.

    Additionally, as Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, multiple studies suggest that it also prevents proper brain development when abused by adolescents and young adults since the brain is among the last organs of the body to mature. Nevertheless, alcohol use and even heavy and binge drinking are especially common among U.S. residents aged 21 to 25, as the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows.

    Statista’s chart below, based on the results of this study, shows that the share of respondents using alcohol or participating in binge and heavy drinking in the last month from when they were surveyed is significantly higher for adults between 21 and 25 than for those aged 26 or older.

    61 percent of young adults consumed alcohol, while almost ten percent drank four to five drinks in a short timespan every day for at least five days in a row. The sudden spike between the age cohorts of 18 to 20 and 21 to 25 can be explained by the United States’ legal drinking age being set at 21.

    What’s harder to explain is that three percent of the respondents aged 12 to 17 participate in binge alcohol use.

    Infographic: How Widespread Is Underage Drinking? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests that parents and teachers can play a decisive role in preventing children from abusing alcohol.

    The results of a comprehensive study published in the journal Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research analyzing if parents allowing their 14-year-old children to drink leads to unhealthy drinking behaviors are clear:

    “Adolescents who were allowed to drink were more likely to have transitioned quickly from their first drink to consuming 5 or more drinks at one time and to drinking heavily 3 or more times in the past year”, say the study’s authors in their conclusion.

    “Given well-documented harms of adolescent heavy drinking, these results do not support the idea that parents allowing children to drink alcohol inoculates them against alcohol misuse.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 21:20

  • Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don't Be Naive
    Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don’t Be Naive

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to ‘go gray’: blend in, appear average.

    Let’s start by stipulating that I don’t “like” this forecast. I’m not “talking my book” (for example, promoting nuclear power because I own shares in a uranium mine) or issuing this forecast because I favor it. I simply see it as the most likely trajectory of the global financial system, based on history and the dynamics of human systems. “Liking” it or not liking it has nothing to do with it: the opinions of Titanic passengers who didn’t “like” that the ship was sinking didn’t affect the outcome.

    You already know the global financial system is untenable. In a nutshell, the expansion of production and consumption has been funded by the expansion of credit–money borrowed from future resources and income. The rate of expanding debt far surpasses the anemic rates of expanding production, and this rapidly expanding mountain of debt is perched precariously on the phantom collateral generated by The Everything Bubble, the astounding expansion of asset prices as those with the lowest cost access to credit have bid up every asset class, from real estate to gold to bitcoin to stocks to fine art.

    All these assets are phantom collateral because they were bid up on the wings of cheap, abundant credit. History is rather decisive: all credit-asset bubbles pop, and the price of the assets round-trips back to pre-bubble valuations. As the bubble pops, credit shifts from being abundant and near-zero in cost to being scarce and dear.

    The commercial real estate sector (CRE) is a real-time example of this dynamic. Half-empty buildings are being dumped at a fraction of their peak valuations, and then sold again for even less or abandoned to default and liquidation. This is how all bubbles pop; there is no other template supported by history. Humans cling to magical thinking and grasp at straws rather than face the unwelcome reality that the cycle has turned and there is no happy ending for those who believe the “real value” of an asset is the peak price at the top of the bubble.

    Now that we understand the impossibility of keeping The Everything Bubble forever inflated, let’s shift our attention to those tasked with keeping the system from collapsing. In my view, the closest analogy is police officers tasked with protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers who are safely isolated from the wretchedness they demand the cops deal with in a manner that meets with their refined approval.

    In other words, us and them: only those who share the responsibility for protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers can understand. Outsiders know little of the realities and are often naive, basing their convictions on what they think “should happen” rather than the limitations of real life.

    This will be the mindset of the authorities tasked with “saving” the system we all depend on–especially the wealthiest who have benefited the most. These is of course the class that feels most entitled to advocate for special treatment: we’re rich and important, so you should listen to us and do what works for us.

    In other words, like the do-gooders, naysayers and whiners telling the cops how to do their jobs. Those tasked with saving a system sliding toward an inevitable crisis will have little patience for obstructionists, however well-meaning. The attitude of those carrying the responsibility for saving the system will be: do your part, get out of the way, stop whining and be grateful we’re saving the system for your benefit.

    Let’s now shift to a very common belief of “investors”: foreseeing this crisis, we’ve piled up “hard money” assets that are safely hidden from the grubby, illegitimate grasp of authorities. When the crisis sweeps away the bubble, we’ll still be rich, and we’ll then scoop up all the bargain-priced assets, making ourselves even richer.

    It gives me no pleasure to say the obvious: please don’t be naive. Those who will be trying to save the system from collapse understand that every asset is only richly valued now because of the credit bubble. From their point of view, “investors” who are planning to preserve the bubble-valuation of their assets and then emerge to snap up everything for pennies on the dollar are, well, the enemy.

    Another widespread belief holds that the hyper-wealthy always sneak through the wormhole and emerge with all their goodies intact. This fosters the idea that if they can do it, so can I. History offers examples on both sides: the great estates of the wealthiest Romans did not survive intact when the empire crumbled (or put another way, when control of the shards shifted to a new elite).

    As the bottom 99.5% feel the squeeze, their rage at those at the top not paying their fair share will rise exponentially, and the political pressure on authorities to go after the hyper-wealthy will become too intense to ignore. Many of those trying to save the system will have already had enough of coddled billionaires, bankers and financier grifters.

    Another conviction that will be revealed as naive is the faith that the rules will stay unchanged, allowing us to hoard our stash and emerge unscathed to scoop up the bargains offered by the less prescient. History is again rather definitive: the rules will change overnight, and continue changing, as needed. One “emergency measure” after another will be imposed and become normalized.

    It’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of those struggling with the impossible responsibility of keeping the system from collapsing. From their point of view, everyone trying to evade the wealth taxes, windfall taxes, special assessments, etc. are ungrateful whiners, as what will anyone have if the system collapses? We’re doing you all a favor, taking only 10% in a wealth tax to preserve the 90% that remains yours.

    Another point of naivete is what happens to obstructionists in a full-spectrum surveillance Corporate-state. China has shown other nation-states how to do it properly: every digital communication and transaction is monitored, and while VPNs and other gimmicks offer a few wormholes, the fundamental reality is: it takes an awful lot of effort to not leave a trail of crumbs, and at some point, is it worth all the effort? It’s much easier to just pay the wealth tax, the windfall tax, grumble about it, and move on to enjoy life as best we can.

    In China, the local authorities politely invite transgressors to tea, and offer a suggestion to mend your ways and keep your nose clean. Those who insist on mucking up the works after the kindly advice will be neutered one way or another.

    The naivete also extends to ways to evade surveillance. We’re all going to get by on barter. Really? Have you actually tried to exchange stuff with anonymous others? Like many encounters in online boards, people don’t show up, they flake out or decide not to make the deal. It’s tediously time-consuming and frustrating unless you already have a network of trusted contacts who do this kind of thing all the time.

    In my experience, reciprocity with other trustworthy productive people works better than barter. Instead of haggling over price/value, just give stuff away. In a trusted network, whomever gets the free stuff will scrounge up something to give you for free in return. These networks tend to have a “node,” an outgoing, friendly, trustworthy person who can find a welcoming home for whatever is being freely distributed, and pass around what’s being given to those who gave freely of their surplus.

    Another point of naivete is the belief that as an asset soars in value, the authorities will magically restrain themselves from noticing this juicy target. If we factor in history and human nature, we will conclude the opposite is more likely: the authorities will redouble their efforts to track and collect that which is Caesar’s from those trying to evade the collection of everyone’s “fair share.”

    Given the resources of the NSA et al., how plausible is it to think little old me is going to leave no digital crumbs as I go on my merry way? Thanks to automation of data scraping, it’s going to get easier and cheaper to scrape data looking for miscreants trying to avoid paying “their fair share.”

    The whole idea of a wealth tax is it’s a tax on all wealth, held anywhere in the world. So burying assets offshore only works as long as the authorities turn a blind eye to tax havens. As pressures mount, trusting the eyes to remain blind might not be as “sure-thing” as many seem to believe.

    As specific assets soar in value, a “windfall tax” will become politically appealing. Since all this soaring wealth is unearned, shouldn’t the fortunate owners pay a bit more due to the windfall nature of their unearned wealth? Of course they should.

    The key point to understand is the system will have to grab enough collateral to fund itself while collateral evaporates in the deflation of the Everything Bubble. This will truly be a case of TINA–there is no alternative. Desperation will drive policy extremes few think of as possible, much less inevitable.

    Something else that may be revealed as naive is the faith that moving to another nation-state will offer secure respite from those demanding we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. This faith overlooks the global reach of these dynamics: rampant inflation, the debasement of currency, the increasingly desperate need for collateral and revenue to keep the system from imploding, the rising cost of risk and credit, the scarcity of collateral, and so on. How will the nation-state we’re moving to respond to these financial crises? What are the odds that they will magically escape the crisis, or come up with a painless solution that doesn’t demand any sacrifices of residents? How secure will the rule of law and the wealth of foreigners be once push comes to shove?

    In summary: to understand the next 8 to 10 years, start by having some sympathy for the fox and not just for the hare. Here we are, trying to save the system that everyone depends on, taking a modest 10% wealth tax, and the ungrateful wretches are whining and trying to evade paying their fair share.

    Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to go gray: blend in, look average: post photos of kittens and puppies, complain about the cost of groceries, drive a look-alike vehicle, live in an unremarkable house, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, forget about emerging as one of the rich who evaded Caesar and get on with enjoying one’s private life focused on well-being, and as difficult as it may be, work up a little gratitude for those carrying the responsibility for keeping the system from collapsing. A system that degrades but coheres is a far better place to live than a system that completely collapses.

    It gives me no joy to suggest please don’t be naive, but a realistic appraisal of what happens when things unravel suggests there are few limits on “emergency measures” anywhere on the planet and it’s best to plan accordingly and focus on what we can control rather than what we can’t control.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 21:00

  • Crime-Ridden San Francisco Wants To Punish Grocery Stores For Fleeing Said Crime
    Crime-Ridden San Francisco Wants To Punish Grocery Stores For Fleeing Said Crime

    Unpunished crime is so out of control in San Francisco that the city now wants to punish grocery stores who want to leave.

    Under the ‘Grocery Protection Act’ introduced by city Board of Supervisors member Dean Preston (Democratic Socialist), stores that want to flee all the crime and other increased liabilities will have to provide the city with six months advanced notice, and make efforts to find a replacement supermarket for the location being vacated, Benzinga reports.

    The move comes after While Foods shut down its flagship store in San Francisco after being open for just over a year, citing employee safety concerns.

    The reports show how workers at the store were routinely threatened with weapons, while vagrants would throw food at staff, engage in fights, and even defecate on the floor. 

    One incident saw a homeless man with a knife spray an employee with a fire extinguisher.

    …

    There were also cases of drug overdoses with one man dying in the bathroom after overdosing on fentanyl and methamphetamine. Thefts were also common with large quantities of alcohol stolen from the store.  –Daily Mail

    Nearly 570 emergency calls were logged from the location, including one call with desperate pleas to the police saying “male [with] machete is back,” and “another security guard was just assaulted.”

    Former SF Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey (who wasn’t assaulted at Whole Foods) said he was “incredibly disappointed” at the closing.

    “Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets and the many safety issues related to them,” Dorsey said.

    According to Preston, “Our communities need notice, an opportunity to be heard and a transition plan when major neighborhood grocery stores plan to shut their doors.”

    Dean Preston

    Preston’s proposal would allow anyone impacted by a noncompliant store closure to initiate legal proceedings.

    As Benzinga further notes, “It’s not just grocery stores that have had enough of the city. Other large businesses that recently closed their downtown San Francisco locations include Adidas, AT&T Inc., Nordstrom and Lego Group.”

    Maybe start punishing crime?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 20:40

  • 20 Years Later, Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Get Their Day In Court
    20 Years Later, Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Get Their Day In Court

    Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

    Two decades after they were tortured by U.S. military contractors at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, three Iraqi victims are finally getting their day in court Monday as a federal court in Virginia takes up a case they brought during the George W. Bush administration.

    The case being heard in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Al Shimari v. CACI, was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of three Iraqis. The men suffered torture directed and perpetrated by employees of CACI, a Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm hired in 2003 by the Bush administration as translators and interrogators in Iraq during the illegal U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

    Via AP: June 22, 2004 photo of a detainee in an outdoor solitary confinement cell talking with a military police officer at the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

    Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa’ad Zuba’e, and Salah Al-Ejaili accuse CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib, where the men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.

    “This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few,” Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Monday. “For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim.”

    “The U.S. government should do the right thing: Take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years,” Sanbar added.

    U.S. military investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Iraqi prisoners and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.

    A May 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba concluded that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%— were innocent. In addition to thousands of men and boys, some women and girls were also jailed there as bargaining chips meant to induce wanted insurgents to surrender. Some of them said they were raped or sexually abused by their American captors; lesser-known Abu Ghraib photos show women being forced to expose their private parts. Some female detainees were reportedly murdered by their own relatives in so-called “honor killings” after their release.

    Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison’s commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.

    Bush’s successor, former President Barack Obama, promised to investigate—and if warranted, to prosecute—the Bush-era officials responsible for the torture that had become synonymous with the War on Terror. Instead, the Obama administration protected them from prosecution.

    In 2013, L3 Technologies agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former Abu Ghraib detainees who were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation, rape threats, electrical shocks, mock executions, brutal beatings, and other abuse.

    The following year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling prohibiting Abu Ghraib torture victims from suing U.S. companies implicated in their abuse. But the court later reversed itself, finding the case had sufficient ties to the United States to be heard in an American court. The suit was later dismissed under the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from ruling on issues determined to be essentially political.

    Getty Images

    However, in 2016, a 4th Circuit panel ruled that “the political question doctrine does not shield from judicial review intentional acts by a government contractor that were unlawful at the time they were committed,” allowing the Iraqis’ case to proceed.

    “This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values,” CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher toldThe Guardian on Monday.

    “In many ways, this case may be seen as setting a precedent for holding contractors accountable for human rights violations should they happen in other contexts, too,” she added.

    CACI—which denies any wrongdoing—has tried to get the case dismissed 20 times. The company still lands millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts. In February, Fortuneincluded the firm on its “World’s Most Admired Companies” list for the seventh straight year.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 20:20

  • Lockheed Martin Wins $17BN Interceptor Contract To Protect US Homeland
    Lockheed Martin Wins $17BN Interceptor Contract To Protect US Homeland

    With one massive war in Eastern Europe grinding past two years and with another potential major war brewing in the Middle East, Western defense contractors are perhaps the only ones with a smile on their faces while much of the rest of humanity suffers.

    On Monday the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced that Lockheed Martin has been awarded a new US government contract worth $17 billion, to develop the next generation of missile interceptor systems that would safeguard the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missile attack.

    Illustration via northropgrumman.com

    According to Reuters, “The multi-year contract covers the development of the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) to modernize the current Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program.”

    “The network of radars, anti-ballistic missiles and other equipment is designed to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the report continues.

    This comes on the heels of record year for sales of US military hardware to foreign governments, which topped $238 billion – a record and 16% jump from the prior year. For its fiscal 2025 budget, the Biden White House is seeking a $28.4 billion set aside for missiles defenses.

    The Missile Defense Agency said the following as part of its announcement: “MDA is confident in this decision based on the technical maturity of the solutions, objective contractor-provided performance data, technical rigor in the design development process and early testing built into the program from the onset.”

    Reuters has noted that longtime Washington foes like North Korea and Iran are growing ever more capable in delivering long-range ballistic missile attacks. And for the US aerospace giant, “The win represents a shot in the arm for Lockheed after the U.S. said it wants to reduce F-35 orders and the Army said in February that it was abandoning development of a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, a next-generation helicopter for which Lockheed had submitted a design.”

    In 2022 – closer to the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, described the surge in the market for weapons as the highest since the Cold War. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” he said. 

    On the very same day of the announcement by MDA, pro-Palestine activists have targeted Lockheed’s Washington D.C. headquarters…

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    Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed’s stock price traded below $340 a share, the price increased to over $450 within a few months of the war’s start. On Monday, Lockheed shares closed up 0.60% at 453.08.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 20:00

  • Is Paxlovid A Dud?
    Is Paxlovid A Dud?

    Authored by Maryanne Demasi via The Brownstone Institute,

    Of all the antiviral drugs for Covid-19, Pfizer’s Paxlovid has been the most successful.

    Not for its safety and efficacy, but for its ability to earn the company billions in profits despite being largely ineffective for most people.

    In November 2021, before any data had emerged, the Biden Administration committed to purchasing 10 million treatment courses of Paxlovid worth $5.3 billion, pending authorisation by the US drug regulator.

    One month later, Paxlovid was granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) by the FDA for use in adult and paediatric populations, 12 years or older.

    The authorisation was based on early trial data showing the drug could reduce hospitalisations or death (89% relative risk reduction, 6% absolute risk reduction) in high-risk patients who were unvaccinated and had no prior exposure to Covid-19.

    But the problem was, most Americans by that time (Dec 2021) had already been vaccinated against Covid-19 or had prior exposure to the virus, making the trial results irrelevant to the majority of people.

    Pfizer had to prove its drug could benefit a broader market. 

    The manufacturer commenced the EPIC-SR trial, investigating the use of Paxlovid in unvaccinated people and vaccinated people with at least one risk factor for Covid-19 [clinicaltrials.gov].

    By July 2022, however, Pfizer stopped enrolling participants “due to a very low rate of hospitalization or death observed in the standard-risk patient population.”

    In a press release, the company announced that Paxlovid failed to impact its “novel primary endpoint of self-reported, sustained alleviation of all symptoms for four consecutive days.”  

    In other words, Paxlovid – a combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir – made no significant difference in alleviating symptoms of Covid-19 compared to placebo among non-hospitalised patients.

    Pfizer stated that it was difficult to find benefit in a population that was already at a low rate of hospitalisation or death from Covid-19.

    One year later, in August 2023, Pfizer quietly published the unfavourable findings on clinicaltrials.gov, without any fanfare or media attention. In fact, the media continued to promote the benefits of Paxlovid to the wider public.

    The New York Times, for example, ran multiple stories during the pandemic about the “Power of Paxlovid,” encouraging more people to take the drug and criticised its under-use.

    Simultaneously, Pfizer stoked public fear by overinflating the risk of Covid-19, paving the way for doctors to prescribe drugs like Paxlovid to manage the disease. Sometimes, the claims were misleading.

    Pfizer, for example, tweeted that 3 out of 4 American adults were at “high risk” for severe Covid-19, but then cited a study in the advertisement that did not support the claim – so far, the misleading tweet has been viewed 11.6 million times.

    “This is ridiculous,” tweeted Walid Gellad, Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, “I don’t know how it is legal…3 out of 4 adults are not at high risk of severe Covid.”

    That didn’t stop FDA commissioner Robert Califf from taking to social media to promote the benefits of Paxlovid.

    He tweeted the drug could reduce the risk of developing ‘long covid’ based on weak evidence, and admitted to ‘cheerleading’ the use of Paxlovid because he felt overall “the evidence was strong.”

    Califf copped criticism for his lack of impartiality as the head of the regulator, but justified his actions in a “public health emergency.”

    Regulatory affairs expert Jessica Adams said it was a poor excuse.

    “Something is really wrong with public health ‘leadership’ if it thinks that every norm can be thrown out the window in an emergency,” said Adams. “The FDA has learned nothing during the pandemic and is setting terrible precedents for future emergencies.”

    By 2023, reports of people experiencing “rebound” symptoms after using Paxlovid, were increasing. Authorities could no longer claim it was “rare.”

    High-profile officials such as former CDC director Rochelle Walensky, former NIAID director Tony Fauci, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden all had reported a rebound of Covid symptoms after completing a course of Paxlovid.

    Califf dismissed concerns about rebound, saying it was all just a “distraction,” but a study published in JAMA Network showed that symptomatic rebound in people with mild to moderate Covid-19 was as high as 25% after taking Paxlovid.

    In May 2023, the FDA granted Paxlovid full approval for managing mild to moderate Covid-19 infections in adults at high risk of developing severe disease (including vaccinated adults, despite no data showing benefit in this population).

    Last week, Paxlovid was back in the spotlight after the EPIC-SR trial was finally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, almost two years after Pfizer announced the futility of the study in July 2022.

    Regardless of all the positive media coverage and promotion of Paxlovid by public health officials and government advisors, the evidence is clear.

    Paxlovid, which now costs $1,400 for a 5-day course, has only shown benefit in a very rare population – that is, unvaccinated people who’ve never encountered the virus and are at high risk of serious Covid-19.

    *  *  *

    Republished from the author’s Substack

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 19:40

  • Illegal Immigrants Use Speedboat To Invade California – Nearly Run Over Beachgoers
    Illegal Immigrants Use Speedboat To Invade California – Nearly Run Over Beachgoers

    In a scene reminiscent of the Chuck Norris film Invasion USA, a speedboat loaded with at least a dozen illegal immigrants ripped through the waters just off the coast of Carlsbad, California, nearly slamming into bathers and surfers as they landed and sprinted across the beach.

    Some migrants raced to nearby waiting vehicles which sped away, the rest walked off in broad daylight to mix with the surrounding tourists.  Locals who filmed the migrants claimed police were called but didn’t show up.

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    Carlsbad, which is just north of San Diego, is only one of many beach towns in Southern California that has seen a spike in boats carrying illegals into the US.  Malibu has also seen multiple cases of invaders from the sea, usually small fast boats which are beached and left behind by migrants.

    A high percentage of young men among illegal migrants in the past couple of years has inspired public concerns that a number of these people may have extensive criminal records, might be gang or cartel members or, even more disturbing, that they could be foreign terrorists seeking to bypass the border altogether despite the lack of immigration enforcement by the Biden Administration. 

    Though the footage of immigrants shown frequently by the corporate media is careful to only depict travel weary mothers and children, the real story is the army of foreign military age males that are pouring into the US from abroad.  

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    Regardless of the motives for their illegal entry into the US, the migrant surge has put the American economy in great jeopardy along with the housing market.  Over 60% of migrants will utilize welfare programs and government subsidies upon entry into the country, a problem which we have seen in full force in cities like New York and Washington DC where Democrat mayors have called for the declaration of a state of emergency along with federal aid.  Until recently, Biden has denied that there is any immigration threat at all.

    The migrant surge is expected to continue and perhaps expand even further as the US closes in on November elections.  The return of Trump to the Oval Office would likely mean the reinstatement of Title 42-like restrictions that remove incentives for asylum seekers to enter illegally and that also allow Border Patrol agents to immediately boot captured immigrants back to their nations of origin.  A mad rush to beat the clock and slip into America before borders are made more secure is about to ensue.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 19:20

  • California Auditor Finds Homeless Council Can't Account For Money Spent
    California Auditor Finds Homeless Council Can’t Account For Money Spent

    Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

    Responsible businesses do regular audits of their finances to see which areas are making money and which not.

    Families also do audits, if only at tax time to see how much they owe.

    Contrast that with government. California State Auditor Grant Parks just came out with a new audit, “Homelessness in California: The State Must Do More to Assess the Cost‑Effectiveness of Its Homelessness Programs.”

    The Joint Legislative Committee requested the audit for homeless programs ending in 2023. Mr. Parks said the audit “focuses primarily on the State’s activities, in particular the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH),” which coordinates the state’s programs.

    This ought to be a massive scandal.

    Here’s the main conclusion.

    Note there’s no definitive number given, just “billions”—and even the number of programs, “at least 30,” is fuzzy:

    “More than 180,000 Californians experienced homelessness in 2023 – a 53 percent increase from 2013.

    To address this ongoing crisis, nine state agencies have collectively spent billions of dollars in state funding over the past five years administering at least 30 programs dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness.

    Cal ICH is responsible for coordinating, developing, and evaluating the efforts of these nine agencies.”

    Below is the chart of the PIT—point in time—counts of the homeless:

    (California State Auditor)

    Also note the number went up 20 percent after Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, despite his Jan. 7 Inaugural Address that year pledging, “We will launch a Marshall Plan for affordable housing and lift up the fight against homelessness from a local matter to a state-wide mission.” The Marshall Plan was a 1948 U.S. aid program to restore economic growth to war-torn Europe.

    ‘Lack of Coordination’

    Mr. Parks pointed to a Feb. 11, 2021 report by him, “Homelessness in California: The State’s Uncoordinated Approach to Addressing Homelessness Has Hampered the Effectiveness of Its Efforts.”

    And he said Cal ICH fulfilled a legislative requirement to report its financial assessments, but did so only for the fiscal years 2018-19 and 2020-21, not after.

    He added in the new report, “Further, it has not aligned its action plan for addressing homelessness with its statutory goals, nor has it ensured that it collects accurate, complete, and comparable financial and outcome information from homelessness programs. Until Cal ICH takes these critical steps, the State will lack up‑to‑date information that it can use to make data‑driven policy decisions on how to effectively reduce homelessness.”

    Basically, the state government and the citizens of California have little idea where these untold “billions” of dollars to help the homeless have gone.

    3 of 5 Programs Lack Enough Data

    Mr. Parks said he looked more closely at five of the “at least” 30 state homeless programs. I’ll break up his paragraphs to make it more clear: “When we selected five of the State’s homelessness programs to review, we found that two were likely cost-effective: Homekey and the CalWORKs Housing Support Program (housing support program). …

    • “Homekey refurbishes existing buildings to provide housing units to individuals experiencing homelessness for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the cost of newly built units.

    • “The Housing Support Program’s provision of financial support to families who were at risk of or experiencing homelessness has cost the State less than it would have spent had these families remained or become homeless.

    “However, we were unable to fully assess the other three programs we reviewed … because the State has not collected sufficient data on the programs’ outcomes. In the absence of this information, the State cannot determine whether these programs represent the best use of its funds.”

    The three unassessed programs were:

    • The State Rental Assistance Program, “Provides funds for rental arrears, prospective rental payments, utility and home energy cost arrears, utility and home energy costs, and other expenses related to housing incurred during or due, directly or indirectly, to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

    • The Encampment Resolution Funding Program, “Provides competitive grants to assist local jurisdictions in ensuring the wellness and safety of people experiencing homelessness in encampments by providing services and supports that address their immediate physical and mental wellness and result in meaningful paths to safe and stable housing.”

    • The Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program, “Provides local jurisdictions with funds to support regional coordination and expand or develop local capacity to address their immediate homelessness challenges.”

    If the rest of the “at least 30” homeless programs were examined, who knows how many would end up with too little data to assess. But if the 3 to 5 ratio holds, overall of the 30 it would be 12 assessed thoroughly, 18 not properly assessed because of too little data.

    Why Is Prop. 1 Money Needed?

    On March 5, California voters barely passed Proposition 1, which Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed hard. The margin was 50.18 percent yea to 49.82 percent nay. As I pointed out in my analysis in the Epoch Times, officially the bonds will cost $310 million a year for 30 years to pay back, or $9.3 billion total.

    The money will come from the general fund—which currently is $73 billion in deficit, according to the Legislative Analyst. Which is why for three decades I have called bonds “delayed tax increases,” because the money has to come from somewhere.

    Worse, as I noted, with interest rates staying high, the true payback amount could be higher, by some estimates as high as $12.45 billion.

    How can the state spend that money when it has no idea if the unaccounted “billions” currently being spent really are helping the homeless? Are the programs good, indifferent, or bad? Is the money really helping people—or just being wasted?

    It’s too bad this audit wasn’t available before the March 5 vote on Prop. 1. Likewise with the late production of the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year 2020-22, which came out more than a year late on March 15, just after the election, and with a “net position” $29 billion worse than previously tallied.

    If voters had known how bad the state finances really were, and the inability to assess current homeless programs’ finances, would they have approved Prop. 1?

    Conclusion: What Really Can Be Done?

    Former state Sen. John Moorlach, for whom I worked as press secretary, has been involved in helping the homeless since when he was a Certified Public Accountant in private practice in the 1980s. Later, as an Orange County Supervisor, he was the chairman of the Orange County Commission to End Homelessness.

    “Newsom is throwing money everywhere,” he said. “But, really, what are you doing? What’s the program? What are the results? How do you measure? And it’s just so sad to watch.”

    If current programs aren’t working, what could?

    “Recently I’ve started to started to think the way you take care of you low-income housing is you’ve got to built some nice housing, and let people move up. Then the housing in the old part of town would be the low-income housing.”

    He contrasted that with the current system, in which new complexes are built specifically to house the homeless. But due to government regulations, such as prevailing wage laws, “each unit costs $900,000.”

    He said often the new housing is for people who don’t even want to live inside. And older housing is where the poor used to live before.

    What’s certain is the current approach of “throw money at everything—and when that doesn’t work, throw more money at it,” isn’t working. Especially because, as the new audit shows, we have no idea even where most of the money is going.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 19:00

  • Heading For Supply Shock? Four Maritime Chokepoints Flash Red As Escalating Conflict Looms
    Heading For Supply Shock? Four Maritime Chokepoints Flash Red As Escalating Conflict Looms

    Just two days after Iranian commandos hijacked the Israeli-linked container ship MSC Aries in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s important to highlight that chaos continues to erupt at key global maritime chokepoints. 

    The hijacking of the Aries container ship was lost in the noise of the widely unsuccessful Iranian missile and drone strike against Israel on Saturday evening. It will likely be forgotten as the world focuses on what appears to be an imminent Israel counterattack against Iran. 

    Sal Mercogliano, a professor at Campbell University and shipping expert, wrote on X about an alarming number of maritime chokepoints under threat across the Middle East and Black Sea region. 

    Mercogliano pointed out four maritime chokepoints: the Bab el-Mandeb, the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, and the Bosphorus Strait, which are each experiencing some form of direct and/or indirect disruption due to the escalating chaos in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. 

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    Let’s begin wit the latest fare up in maritime violence on Saturday morning. Iranian commandos hijacked Aries as it was heading towards the Strait of Hormuz. This incident will keep focus on the world’s busiest shipping lane and a critical chokepoint for the world’s oil supply.  

    “If the Straits become an unreliable oil trading channel the outcome is binary. All previous Hormuz sabre-rattling has come to nought and I sincerely hope this is the same outcome; to the degree it becomes real and the Strait of Hormuz become blocked, crude will shoot past US$100/bbl without stopping for breath,” Liberum’s Joachim Klement wrote in a note to clients on Sunday. 

    Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting US, UK, and Israeli-affiliated ships for the last five to six months, disrupting global trade flows in and around Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The conflict has forced many Western vessels to sail around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid conflict in the region. Ship diversions have also led to sinking activity on the Suez Canal. 

    In the Black Sea region, Turkey’s Bosporus and Dardanelles straits have seen a lull in activity as the war rages on between Russia and Ukraine. 

    In the Middle East, 25% of global trade flows through the Suez Canal, Bab-El Mandeb Strait, and Strait of Hormuz, all of which are experiencing either conflict or some form of heightened risk (read the MUFG note here). 

    Here’s a snapshot of the world’s chokepoints. 

    An escalating conflict between Israel-Iran could quickly seize up one or more of these maritime chokepoints, spark supply chain chaos, and trigger an inflationary shock (maybe in the energy markets) across the West – something that would ruin Biden’s reelection odds or whatever is left of them and destroy Fed Powell’s ability to arrest inflation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 18:40

  • Biden Spending $300 Million On Sanctuary Cities
    Biden Spending $300 Million On Sanctuary Cities

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is distributing $300 million to sanctuary cities that provide services like shelter and food to illegal immigrants amid a massive increase in incursions across the southern border.

    The $300 million in grants will be provided through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), according to an April 12 press release. SSP offers funding to non-federal entities like NGOs and local governments that provide support to illegal immigrants released into the United States by the DHS. Out of the $300 million, $275 million will be distributed in the first allocation, with the remaining $25 million to be allocated later this year to meet operational requirements.

    “The initial funding will be available to 55 grant recipients for temporary shelter and other eligible costs associated with migrants awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings.”

    Costs covered under the program include expenses related to providing shelter, food, transportation, medical care, and personal hygiene for illegal immigrants. Other costs like modification of existing facilities, clothing, translation services, outreach information, and management and administration expenses are also covered.

    In addition to the $300 million funding, the DHS also announced $340.9 million for the SSP competitive grant program.

    Last year, over $780 million was distributed through SSP and another program that went to organizations and sanctuary cities across the country that provided services to illegal immigrants. Well-known sanctuary cities include Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco.

    The Biden administration’s latest funding splurge comes as the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States has ballooned in recent years.

    According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), border patrol agents encountered 1.73 million illegals at the southwest land border in fiscal year 2021. This number rose to 2.37 million in fiscal year 2022 and then to 2.47 million in 2023. For the first five months of this fiscal year, 1.34 million encounters have already been registered.

    Between October 2021 and March 2024, the total number of encounters stands at over 7.9 million illegal immigrants.

    During an April 10 press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he estimates that nearly 16 million illegal immigrants entered the United States under the Biden administration.

    “Since Joe Biden went into the Oval Office, it began on day one, they began to open that border wide,” he said. The Democrat government has taken more than 60 executive and agency actions to “open the border wide and send the welcome message to everybody around the globe, including violent criminals and terrorists and foreign nationals … coming here to do us harm.”

    Under the Trump administration, the number of people on the terrorism watchlist caught attempting to illegally enter the United States was 11. This number has surged to 351 under the Biden administration.

    “This is a disastrous situation,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s a catastrophe that was caused by intentional policy choices.”

    Biden’s Pro-Immigration Policies

    Back in January 2023, the Biden administration announced the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) program that allows people from the four nations the right to live and work lawfully in the United States for a period of two years under a legal mechanism called “humanitarian parole.”

    In an April 12 press release, CBP said that more than 404,000 individuals from these four nations who arrived via commercial flights “were granted parole under these processes.”

    According to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from foreign airports” were ferried into some 43 American airports in the past year through CBP-approved secretive flights.

    CBP did not reveal the names of the 43 American airports that received 320,000 illegal immigrants last year. Instead, the agency admitted that the process was creating law enforcement vulnerabilities.

    “The public can’t know the receiving airports because those hundreds of thousands of CBP-authorized arrivals have created such ‘operational vulnerabilities’ at airports that ‘bad actors’ could undermine law enforcement efforts to ‘secure the United States border’ if they knew the volume of CBP One traffic processed at each port of entry,” CIS wrote in a post.

    Former President Donald Trump has harshly criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, vowing to institute stronger measures if he returns to the White House.

    Speaking to reporters in late February, President Trump called President Biden “the worst president our country has ever had.”

    “He’s allowing thousands and thousands of people to come in from China, Iran, Yemen, the Congo, Syria, and a lot of other nations, many nations are not very friendly to us,” the former president said.

    “He’s transported the entire columns of fighting-aged men and … they look like warriors to me. Something’s going on. It’s bad.”

    During a rally in Ohio last month, President Trump promised swift action on the illegal immigration issue. “On day one, my administration will terminate every open border policy of the Biden administration and we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

    “Nobody’s been hurt by Joe Biden’s migrant invasion more than our great African American and Hispanic American communities … because they’re taking your jobs and they’re creating lots of problems,” he said.

    The millions of illegal immigrants flooding into the United States also puts a strain on America’s Social Security program, which would end up negatively affecting the lives of retirees, the former president stated.

    “Your Social Security will be destroyed by the people coming in … There’s too many of them. It’s not sustainable. Joe Biden is costing you Medicare and he’s costing you your Social Security.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 18:20

  • Tepco Loads Fuel Rods In World's Largest Nuclear Power Plant As Atomic Era Reignites
    Tepco Loads Fuel Rods In World’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant As Atomic Era Reignites

    The world is finally realizing, after trying to rid itself of nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, that the power of the atom will be the heart of clean, reliable electricity generation – not unreliable solar and wind.

    The latest sign that a nuclear renaissance is beginning to gain steam is news from Bloomberg on Monday morning that Tokyo Electric Power Co. will be loading fuel rods into one of the reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture. 

    The Kashiwazaki Kariwa is significant because it’s the world’s largest nuclear power plant, with a net capacity of 7,965 megawatts of electricity. Loading the No. 7 reactor with fuel rods is a sign that the power plant could be restarted soon.  

    Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority on Monday approved the plans to insert fuel rods at the No. 7 reactor at the site in Niigata prefecture. The plant will still need to complete additional inspections and win consent from the local governor — which is not guaranteed — before Tepco can restart generation.

    Approval for fuel loading is a step forward for Tepco’s facility, which has been halted since the Fukushima nuclear disaster brought all of Japan’s reactors offline. Kashiwazaki Kariwa has faced additional complications to a restart after security breaches in 2021.-Bloomberg

    The planned restart of Japan’s atomic fleet comes as power grids worldwide (maybe not China and or India) are undertaking massive decarbonization efforts to lower emissions. 

    In the US, the federal government recently announced that it would provide a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan for the first time. NJ-based Holtec International acquired the 800-megawatt Palisades plant in 2022 with plans to dismantle it. Still, with support from the state of Michigan and the Biden administration, the focus has shifted to restarting the nuclear power plant next year. 

    And Patti Poppe, the chief executive officer of Pacific Gas & Electric in California, said just weeks ago, “Nuclear should be part of the future,” adding the state’s only nuclear power plant – Diablo Canyon – should be granted a license to expand its lifetime. 

    Governments are beginning to realize (and Wall Street) that nuclear power is the single largest source of reliable, carbon-free electricity. It will play a vital role in powering the economy, whether that’s AI data centers (read “The Next AI Trade”) or electric cars and trucks. 

    Still, restarting plants is not easy. Also, keep an eye on uranium futures.

    And uranium stocks. 

    Nuclear will be powering up America for the digital age. We outlined this as early as December 2020 in a note titled “Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 18:00

  • "I Can't Go To My Son's Graduation": NY Judge Threatens Trump With Arrest
    “I Can’t Go To My Son’s Graduation”: NY Judge Threatens Trump With Arrest

    Update (1750ET): The first day of Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial was fairly uneventful – aside from the judge, a complete dick, barring the former President from attending his son’s graduation and threatening arrest if he does.

    Speaking after a long day of jury selection and ground rules (with more than 50 jurors dismissed), Trump walked out of the courtroom and expressed his obvious displeasure.

    “As you know my son is graduating from High School, and looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation for a son who’s worked very, very hard,” Trump said, adding that he was “looking forward for years to having graduation with his mother and father there,” adding that the trial is a “scam” and a “political witch hunt.”

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    Judge Juan Merchan also won’t allow Trump to attend a Supreme Court hearing in DC regarding immunity.

    “We got a real problem with this Judge,” Trump continued, adding “that I can’t go to my son’s graduation, or that I can’t go to the United States Supreme Court, that I’m not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be… it’s perfect for the radical left Democrats – that’s exactly what they want,” he continued, adding that it’s “election interference.”

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    *  *  *

    Update (1200ET): Monday’s ‘hush money’ trial against former President Donald Trump has begun, with jury selection and a discussion over evidence on the table. To get the blow-by-blow throughout the day, follow this thread on X by Inner City Press.

    The case stems from a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s former lawyer, convicted felon and admitted liar Michael Cohen, to adult film actress Stormy Daniels at the end of the 2016 election in an alleged scheme to buy her silence. Trump is required to be present for the trial, which will take place four days a week and could last up to two months.

    Judge Juan Merchan kicked off the day by refusing a request by Trump’s legal team to recuse himself from the case over an interview he gave to the press in which he mentioned the case, which Merchan said was within the law – while Merchan’s wife and daughter have worked for prominent Democrats and/or made anti-Trump statements.

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    Prosecutors sought to include evidence from the Access Hollywood ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ tape, as well as various sexual assault allegations from Trump accusers. Merchan allowed a transcript of the tape, and denied a request to present the other allegations in court.

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    Next, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Trump’s attorneys to explain how the former president shouldn’t be held in contempt for allegedly violating Merchan’s gag order – arguing that Trump’s efforts have continued to this day, and that witnesses in the case “have incurred the wrath of Trump supporters.”

    And now, jury selection begins… with Merchan telling the court that 500 prospective jurors are waiting.

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    Stay tuned for updates…

    *  *  *

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    I have long been critical of the case as a clear example of the weaponization of the criminal justice system. No one seriously believes that Alvin Bragg would have spent this time and money to prosecute what is ordinarily a state misdemeanor if the defendant was anyone other than Trump. One does not have to be like Trump to repel from the spectacle about to unfold in Manhattan.

    The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “The more laws, the less justice.”

    This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump. 

    After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to a former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

    Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election. This week will highlight the damage done to New York’s legal system because of this unhinged crusade. They’ve charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress.

    Just a few weeks ago, another judge imposed a roughly half billion dollar penalty in a case without a single victim who lost a single cent on loans with Trump. (Indeed, bank officials testified they wanted more business with the Trump organization).

    Now Bragg is bringing a case that has taken years to develop and millions of dollars in litigation cost for all parties. That is all over a crime from before the 2016 election that is a misdemeanor under state law that had already expired under the statute of limitations.

    Like his predecessor, Bragg previously scoffed at the case. However, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned and started a public pressure campaign to get New Yorkers to demand prosecution.

    Pomerantz shocked many of us by publishing a book on the case against Trump —  who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. He did so despite objections from his former colleague that such a book was grossly improper.

    Nevertheless, it worked. Bragg brought a Rube Goldberg case that is so convoluted and counterintuitive that even liberal legal analysts criticized it.

    Trump paid Daniels to avoid any publicity over their brief alleged affair. As a celebrity, there was ample reason to want to keep the affair quiet, and that does not even include the fact that he is a married man.

    It also occurred before the 2016 election and there was clearly a benefit to quash the scandal as a candidate. That political motivation is at the heart of this long-delayed case.

    It is a repeat of the case involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In 2012, the Justice Department used the same theory to charge the former Democratic presidential candidate after a disclosure that he not only had an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter but also hid the fact that he had a child by her. Edwards denied the affair, and money from donors was passed to Hunter to keep the matter quiet.

    The Justice Department spent a huge amount on the case to show that the third-party payments were a circumvention of campaign finance laws. However, Edwards was ultimately found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on the other five.

    With Trump, the Justice Department declined a repeat of the Edwards debacle and did not bring any federal charge.

    But Bragg then used the alleged federal crime to bootstrap a defunct misdemeanor charge into a felony in the current case. He is arguing that Trump intentionally lied when his former lawyer Michael Cohen listed the payments as retainer costs rather than a payment — to avoid reporting it as a campaign contribution to himself.

    Thus, if he had simply had Cohen report the payment as “hush money,” there would be no crime.

    Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling.

    Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims.

    The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The FEC later sanctioned by the campaign over its hiding of the funding.). When a reporter tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

    Likewise, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was called before congressional investigators and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

    Yet, there were no charges stemming from the hiding of the funding, though it was all part of the campaign budget.

    Making this assorted business even more repellent will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand. Cohen recently was denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system.

    Cohen has a long record as a legal thug who has repeatedly lied when it served his interests. He has a knack for selling his curious skill set to powerful figures like Trump and now Bragg.

    For those of us who have been critics of Cohen from when he was still working for Trump, it is mystifying that anyone would call him to the stand to attest to anything short of the time of day . . . and even then most of us would check our watches.

    Fortunately witnesses are no longer required to put their hand on the bible in swearing to testify truthfully in court. Otherwise, the court would need the New York Fire Department standing by in case the book burst into flames.

    So this is the case: A serial perjurer used to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department.

    They could well succeed in a city where nine out of ten potential jurors despise Trump. Trying Trump in Manhattan is about as difficult as the New York Yankees going to bat using beach balls rather than baseballs. It is hard to miss.

    However, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the New York legal system. Whatever the outcome, it may prove a greater indictment of the New York court system than the defendant.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 17:48

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Apr 15

Today’s News 15th April 2024

  • Why Mankind Remains So Lost In Economic-Ignorance & Tribalistic-Warmongering
    Why Mankind Remains So Lost In Economic-Ignorance & Tribalistic-Warmongering

    Authored by Jorge Besada via The Mises Institute,

    Carl Menger’s Overlooked Vital Evolutionary Insights

    Carl Menger is widely recognized as one of the economists leading the so-called marginalist revolution along with William Stanley Jevons and Léon Walras. There are two other contributions by Menger that are relatively underappreciated and are vital for making sense of the socioeconomic order, including why mankind remains so lost in economic ignorance and tribalistic warmongering.

    They are, first, his insights into the proper method or way to study the economy or social order and its emergence-evolution, and second, his application of such wisdom to explain the evolution of money and the entire socioeconomic order that further emerges thanks to money. Let’s further expand on these two.

    Menger wrote an entire book devoted to discussing the proper method with which to study the social sciences, aptly titled Investigations into the Methods of the Social Sciences. So how should we study the social sciences according to Menger? He writes,

    Natural organisms almost without exception exhibit, when closely observed, a really admirable functionality of all parts with respect to the whole, a functionality which is not, however, the result of human calculation, but of a natural process. Similarly we can observe in numerous social institutions a strikingly apparent functionality with respect to the whole. But with closer consideration they still do not prove to be the result of an intention aimed at this purpose, Le., the result of an agreement of members of society or of positive legislation. They, too, present themselves to us rather as “natural” products (in a certain sense), as unintended results of historical development. One needs, e.g., only to think of the phenomenon of money, an institution which to so great a measure serves the welfare of society, and yet in most nations, by far, is by no means the result of an agreement directed at its establishment as a social institution, or of positive legislation, but is the unintended product of historical development. One needs only to think of law, of language, of the origin of markets, the origin of communities and of states, etc. Now if social phenomena and natural organisms exhibit analogies with respect to their nature, their origin, and their function, it is at once clear that this fact cannot remain without influence on the method of research in the field of the social sciences in general and economics in particular. . . . Now if state, society, economy, etc., are conceived of as organisms, or as structures analogous to them, the notion of following directions of research in the realm of social phenomena similar to those followed in the realm of organic nature readily suggests itself. The above analogy leads to the idea of theoretical social sciences analogous to those which are the result of theoretical research in the realm of the physico-organic world, to the conception of an anatomy and physiology of “social organisms” of state, society, economy, etc.

    Like Herbert Spencer, his contemporary and arguably the most famous and influential intellectual of the late 1800s, Menger too felt like the social order was akin to a “social organism” and should be studied using an organic or evolutionary approach similar to how we study the biological order. Menger thus felt like the methods of the physical sciences, like their use of mathematics, was as inappropriate for understanding the monumental complexity and evolution of the social order as it was for the biological one.

    He writes, “I do not belong to the believers in the mathematical method as a way to deal with our science. . . . Mathematics is not a method for . . . economic research.”

    Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek would of course follow suit. Mises wrote, “As a method of economic analysis econometrics is a childish play with figures that does not contribute anything to the elucidation of the problems of economic reality.”

    Hayek also ridicules the “extensive use of mathematics, which must always impress politicians lacking any mathematical education, and which is really the nearest thing to the practice of magic that occurs among professional economists.”

    The following analogy helps us further understand Menger’s vital insights.

    Just like the human body organism and the numerous “systems” that coordinate it—like the respiratory-nervous-digestive systems—are the result of the actions of some seventy trillion human and bacterial cells but obviously NOT the result of any conscious planning or designing by them. And thanks to the likes of Darwin and a modern understanding of genetics, we can hypothesize how natural selection was the inadvertent “designer” of such systems and complex order. The modern global socioeconomic order—“social organism”—is also coordinated by a system, by what Menger’s intellectual descendants like Ludwig von Mises and his great protégé 1974 Nobel laureate in economics F.A. Hayek referred to as “the market process.” The market process is composed of “parts” like money, prices, economic competition, interest rates, and the legal-religious-governmental frameworks that sustain it. However, the result of the actions of men “do not prove to be the result of an intention aimed at this purpose . . . but is the unintended product of historical development,” similar to how cells inadvertently and unconsciously acted to create the systems that coordinate multicellular life.

    The above mindset or “method” allowed Menger to then make what is arguably the most important insight, or what I like to call the “flux-capacitor” idea, of the social sciences: Menger’s explanation of the evolution of money and its numerous ramifications. Consider the following: from the tradition of private property emerges the freedom to trade it with anyone in the entire planet which inadvertently transforms mankind into a global supercomputer where people via the private companies they create are motivated to innovate and learn from each other (competitors), thus inadvertently cooperating to discover and spread superior information and subsequent order throughout the world.

    Money is what enables this civilization-creating mechanism. Every social-order entity, whether a person or a company, is in a constant cycle of the production and consumption of wealth. A business’s sales revenue or a worker’s paycheck is an estimate of how much wealth was produced, and costs are an estimate of how much wealth was consumed while production took place. If there is more production (sales revenue) than consumption (costs), then the order is profitable and has thus increased the economic pie of wealth.

    Money is what allows the profit-loss calculation that allows billions of people and companies to order their actions in a profitable and thus pie-order-increasing manner. Also, without money, how would a heart surgeon trade his services for a toothpick? Everything mentioned above that plays a vital role in creating civilization or “the social organism” ultimately depends on and emerges from the use of money. Economics students quickly learn how money is what overcomes the “double coincidence of wants” problem that allows trade and its vital benefits like the ever-expanding division of labor and information to arise.

    Without money there is no complex division of labor or information above the levels of small tribes, and thus no large-scale civilization or “social organism.” Menger’s vital insight regarding money is that he showed how money, just like language, was an evolved and NOT designed innovation. Since money was an evolved and NOT designed innovation, this also means that all the other vital mechanisms that, taken together, make up the market process like profit-loss calculation and economic competition, they too are largely evolved/undesigned mechanisms.

    This is the key to understanding how we live in this massively complex world, with a rapidly expanding and intensifying division of labor and information that creates mind-bogglingly complex microchips, the internet, etc. Yet the masses and their politicians remain economically ignorant, segregating themselves into us versus them, using the technology to fight deadlier wars, and ignorantly attempting to centrally plan the social-order economy, which inadvertently destroys the evolved and undesigned economic competition which is what really creates and spreads the information that creates civilization.

    The above insights and more associated with Menger’s Austrian School of Economics, as Hayek tells us, “belong fully and wholly to Carl Menger.” Hayek again said, “There must be few instances . . . where the works of an author who revolutionized the body of an already well-developed science and who has been generally recognized to have done so, have remained so little known as those of Carl Menger.”

    Yes! And we are running out of time to catch up to Menger. It took a while for the vital myth-shattering ideas of Galileo, Bruno, and Copernicus to spread. We find ourselves in a similar situation.

    Whether homo sapiens ultimately self-destroy in another tribalistic world war, socialist revolution, environmental disaster, or covid-mania, self-mutilating economic lockdown, it will all come down to whether Menger’s ideas reach people of influence in time.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 04/15/2024 – 02:00

  • Bread And Circuses: What It Means For Once-Great Nations
    Bread And Circuses: What It Means For Once-Great Nations

    Authored by Nicole James via The Epoch Times,

    Democracy, that ever-so-fleeting fancy, has a tendency to tumble into a bit of a tizz before it topples over, panting and gasping like a winded walrus.

    John Adams, ever the prophet of doom, once quipped, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself”—a sentiment echoing through the corridors of time.

    And sounding much like the belch of a senator post-banquet in ancient Rome, where democracy was more a concept for philosophical banter than a practice.

    Indeed, Rome, with all its pomp and voracious appetite for self-indulgence, serves as a cautionary tale. It’s a well-trodden path.

    Once upon a time in Rome, there was Juvenal. Not your garden-variety naysayer, but a man whose tongue was so sharp, he could slice the moral fabric of society with a mere quip.

    “Bread and circuses,” he scoffed.

    “Keep the masses stuffed and entertained, and they won’t utter a peep against you.”

    How a Great Empire Withered on Opulence

    And so, Rome bloated, not just in the midriff but in its sense of self, as leisure became the national pastime.

    Back then, over 200,000 souls, their fingers sticky from pastry, found the concept of lifting a finger (unless it was to signal for another helping) utterly foreign.

    Rome was transformed into a grand stage, where almost every day was a festival, and the citizens were either performers, spectators, or busy in the vomitorium making room for the next course.

    Naval skirmishes in makeshift lakes, chariot races that put the fast and furious to shame, and theatre so risqué it could make a statue of Venus look prudish, were all funded by the very people it was designed to distract.

    Ninety-three days of sheer, unadulterated spectacle each year, turning Rome from a republic into an extravagant production, where democracy was but a whisper drowned out by the roar of the crowd.

    Sound familiar?

    A face-masked man walks by the ancient Colosseum in downtown Rome on Dec. 5, 2020. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images)

    As the mighty arm of the empire began to resemble less of a fearsome gladiator and more of a feeble old man waving a stick at rambunctious youths, the calendar started to look like a mushroom farm after a spring shower, each new holiday popping up to toast to victories most had forgotten the taste of.

    Seems positively contemporary, what with the world running out of calendar days and having to celebrate Easter Sunday on Trans Awareness Day, an event that surely had the ancients rolling in their extravagantly decorated sarcophagi, perplexed by the modern conundrum of “calendar overcrowding.”

    Emperors, those illustrious leaders of men, were reduced to headline acts in this comedic opera, plastering on smiles and feigning a zeal for the games that could rival a wet sponge’s enthusiasm for a desert trek.

    In this farce, the once hallowed ceremonies now resembled a confused shuffle of days, where the only thing more bewildering than the holidays themselves was the populace’s ability to keep track of what they were celebrating.

    Gone were the days of the iron-fisted rule of Julius Caesar or the cunning Augustus. Now, the sceptre was in the shaky grasp of the likes of Commodus and Septimius Severus, whose reigns were as inspiring as a flat ale on a hot day.

    Leadership, once a robust wine, had become a watery vinegar, with emperors inflating their egos and coffers, whipping up the populace into a frenzy with what amounted to little more than patriotic chest-beating and flag-waving.

    (Africa Studio/Shutterstock)

    The spectacles, meanwhile, morphed into a grotesque parade of the bizarre and the barbaric, a stark contrast to the fading reality of employment and land ownership—those became the stuff of fairy tales.

    Even the steadfast Marcus Aurelius watched helplessly as the empire’s coinage became as flimsy as modern promises of fiscal restraint, shrinking in both size and worth.

    Bread and Circuses of the Present

    Leap forward to the present, and the circus hasn’t so much as ended as it has swapped costumes.

    Today’s coliseum is filled with Drag Time Story Hours and a calendar so crammed with celebrations of every stripe of pride and culture that one might need a guide to navigate it.

    Subsidies shower down like the finale of a firework show, ensuring the populace remains too stuffed on the bread and dazzled by the circus of reality TV outrages and viral sensations to notice the ground shifting beneath their feet.

    In this grand festival of the now, one has to wonder if we’ve become spectators in our own version of Rome’s downfall, squinting at the bright lights, too entertained to notice we’re perched on the edge of history’s greatest pratfall.

    Will the grand banquet of our times end in a burp of regret?

    *  * *

    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
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 22:55

  • "This Person Is A Crazy Racist": New NPR CEO Exposed As Woke Activist
    “This Person Is A Crazy Racist”: New NPR CEO Exposed As Woke Activist

    Last week, veteran NPR reporter Uri Berliner – a longtime ‘Subaru driving’ lefty who was raised by a ‘lesbian peace activist mother’ – wrote a scathing report accusing the network of overwhelming bias.

    Introspection was the last thing on NPR’s mind, however, as new CEO Katherine Maher chastised Berliner as “profoundly disrespectful, hateful, and demeaning” to his colleagues for calling out political bias.

    Katherine Maher

    As Jonathan Turley notes:

    In a memo Friday, Maher told the staff that Berliner attacked not only “the quality of our editorial process and the integrity of our journalists” but “our people on the basis of who we are.”

    …

    Maher’s response was hardly surprising. She was a controversial hire at NPR. Many had hoped that NPR would seek a CEO who could steer the company away from its partisan and activistic trend. The prospect could have brought moderates and conservatives back into NPR’s listening audience. Maher, however, was part of that trend.

    This should come as no surprise given Maher’s history as a complete lunatic who spews woke diatribes on X – calling herself “someone with cis white mobility privilege” and other nonsense.

    In response to journalist Chris Rufo pointing this out, Elon Musk replied that she’s a “crazy racist!”

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    Maher also says that “America is addicted to white supremacy,” which is the “real issue.”

    She also excused looters, and even slammed Hillary Clinton for correctly gendering individuals.

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    What’s the answer? Donald Trump suggests defunding them.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 21:35

  • "Read Ludwig von Mises, Motherf**kers!" – Brazilian UFC Fighter's Victory Speech Pumps Austrian Economics
    “Read Ludwig von Mises, Motherf**kers!” – Brazilian UFC Fighter’s Victory Speech Pumps Austrian Economics

    While the Middle East wobbled on the precipice of World War III on Saturday, a Brazilian UFC fighter gave us hope by using his victory speech to deliver an emphatic endorsement of Austrian economics, Ludwig von Mises, the First Amendment and gun rights. 

    Renato Moicano’s televised speech came after he pulled off a comeback win over Jalin Turner at Las Vegas. Joe Rogan joined him in the ring to discuss the fight, but Moicano had other priorities, and proceeded to drop a profanity-peppered liberty bomb on the T-Mobile Arena crowd and a worldwide audience:  

    “I’m a huge advocate of the First Amendment. Today, of course I want the $300k bonus but they not going to give [it to me] because somebody say, ‘hey, this is fucking Disney, you cannot curse’…so I’m not going to do my speech, but…

    First off all I love America. I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment. I want to carry all the fucking guns. I love private property. And let me tell you something: If you care about your fucking country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school, motherfuckers!”

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    By “six lessons of the Austrian economic school,” Moicano was referring to a concise, 106-page Ludwig von Mises book, “Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow.” Among the best-selling Mises works, it’s broken into six sections: Capitalism, Socialism, Interventionism, Inflation, Foreign Investment, and Policies and Ideas. (The Brazilian version’s title translates to “The Six Lessons.”) 

    The lessons are transcribed from a series of lectures Mises delivered at the University of Buenos Aires in 1959. Per the book’s description, “Mises had urged Argentina to turn from dictatorship and socialism toward full liberty, so there is a special urgency behind the cool logic employed here. The book’s continued popularity is due to its clarity of exposition on the ways in which economic policy affects everyone.”

    Eager to follow Moicano’s directive? Via the Mises Institute, you can read the book online, download a PDF for free, or buy a paper copy from the Mises Bookstore for just eight Federal Reserve notes. It’s likely that plenty of people are already buried in their homework: On Saturday night, UFC fans and others dove into web searches to see what Moicano was talking about… 

    …while libertarians and Austrian economics devotees raced to share Moicano’s speech on social media: 

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 21:11

  • 19 Retired Generals, Admirals File Supreme Court Brief Against Trump Immunity Bid
    19 Retired Generals, Admirals File Supreme Court Brief Against Trump Immunity Bid

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

    More than a dozen former Defense Department officials, generals, and admirals filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing against former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity arguments.

    (Left) Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Right) Former President Donald Trump attends his trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Dec. 7, 2023. (Drew Angerer, David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

    It comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the former president’s assertions that he should enjoy immunity from prosecution for activity that he carried out while he was president. The former president invoked that argument after he was accused by federal prosecutors of attempting to illegally overturn the 2020 election results.

    The amicus brief’s signatories include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, retired Admiral Thad Allen, retired Gen. George Casey, retired Gen. Charles Krulak, and more.

    They claimed that granting President Trump immunity against criminal claims could lead to activity that put U.S. national security at risk.

    “The notion of such immunity, both as a general matter, and also specifically in the context of the potential negation of election results, threatens to jeopardize our nation’s security and international leadership,” their brief stated. “Particularly in times like the present, when anti-democratic, authoritarian regimes are on the rise worldwide, such a threat is intolerable and dangerous.”

    The arguments submitted by President Trump will “risk jeopardizing America’s standing as a guardian of democracy in the world and further feeding the spread of authoritarianism, thereby threatening the national security of the United States and democracies around the world,” the group added.

    The former secretary of Defense under President Trump, Mark Esper, was critical of their submission to the Supreme Court, arguing during a CNN interview that he “would prefer to see retired admirals and generals not get involved.”

    But President Trump’s lawyers have contended that the president’s office cannot function without immunity from the threat of prosecution because it could “incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” arguing that such a phenomenon is playing out right now after the former president was indicted multiple times last year.

    The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier issued a ruling against President Trump’s arguments that he should be declared immune from prosecution. The appeals process, meanwhile, has put on hold the former president’s trial in Washington.

    “A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents. The threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions, taking away the strength, authority and decisiveness of the presidency,” according to President Trump’s filing issued last month.

    The former president last October sought to have the charges dismissed based on his claim of immunity. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected those arguments in December.

    “Even if some level of Presidential malfeasance, not present in this case at all, were to escape punishment, that risk is inherent in the Constitution’s design,” President Trump’s attorneys also wrote to the high court.

    “The Founders viewed protecting the independence of the Presidency as well worth the risk that some Presidents might evade punishment in marginal cases,“ they said, adding that the Founding Fathers were ”unwilling to burn the Presidency itself to the ground to get at every single alleged malefactor.”

    Special counsel Jack Smith has pushed for the U.S. high court to reject the former president’s claims of immunity, telling the justices that President Trump’s actions that led to the charges, if he is convicted, would represent “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”

    Former CIA Director Michael Hayden (Ret.) testifies during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Aug. 4, 2015. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    “The effective functioning of the presidency does not require that a former president be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Mr. Smith wrote this week. “To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law including the president.”

    The signatories to the amicus brief include retired Army Gens. George Casey and Peter Chiarelli, retired Air Force Gens. John Jumper, Craig McKinley, and Charles Wald; retired Marine Corps Gens. Carlton Fulford, Charles Krulak, and Robert Magnus; retired Navy Admirals Steve Abbot, Samuel Jones Locklear, John Nathman, Bill Owens, and Scott Swift; and retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen.

    Several former civilian Pentagon officials signed onto the brief. They include former Army Secretary Louis Caldera, former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe, and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

    Backing President Trump, several GOP-led states filed a petition to the Supreme Court arguing that the justices should reverse the appeals court’s decision and grant the former president immunity in the cases.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 21:00

  • Whistleblowers To Further Dismantle Jan. 6 National Guard Narrative About Trump
    Whistleblowers To Further Dismantle Jan. 6 National Guard Narrative About Trump

    On Wednesday, whistleblowers from the Washington DC National Guard are expected to tell Congressional investigators that former President Donald Trump wanted them deployed, but an Army Secretary, Ryan McCarthy, delayed relaying this to DC National Guard Commander William Walker by at least two hours.

    According to the Daily Mail, at least three whistleblowers will also testify that their stories were ignored by the Democrat-led January 6 committee because it didn’t fit their narrative. The hearing will aim to further prove that Acting SecDef Christopher Miller did give advance approval to deploy the National Guard at Trump’s command.

    Instead of getting to the bottom of the breakdown in communication and focusing on improving Military preparedness for future incidents, the witnesses feel the January 6 panel was solely focused on pinning blame for the events that day on Trump.

    The officers, who were with Walker the day of the Capitol riot, will detail how they were on buses in full tactical gear for hours waiting for the go-ahead from the Army.

    McCarthy has stated under oath that he did give a timely order for deployment of the D.C. National Guard – but Walker’s troops said they found out about mobilization during a press conference, which led to a three-hour-and-19-minute delay of forces arriving at the Capitol. -Daily Mail

    Some have suggested that McCarthy was trying to intervene over the optics of the Army, under his command, trying to inhibit or interfere with certification of the 2020 presidential election results – and that he may have been vying for a spot in the incoming Biden administration.

    The hearing on Wednesday, “Three Years Later: D.C. National Guard Whistleblowers Speak Out on January 6 Delay,” will explore whether Trump was at fault for the delay in deploying the National Guard.

    Last month, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee reviewing the J6 investigation into the Capitol riot, released a never-before-seen transcript with Trump’s J6 security chief Tony Ornato, during which he testifies that Trump did in fact authorize the National Guard to be mobilized to DC that day – which completely shredded the J6 committee’s argument that Trump simply wanted to stoke chaos that day.

    Meanwhile, both Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and DC National Guard leader Maj. Gen. Walker have testified that Army Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt (ret.) delayed or ignored Sund’s request for National Guard support – claiming that Piatt said “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background.”

    On Wednesday, the whistleblowers will be able to corroborate these claims.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 19:15

  • The Only Market Traders Followed During Saturday's Attack On Israel Was Bitcoin
    The Only Market Traders Followed During Saturday’s Attack On Israel Was Bitcoin

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    The Iranian attack on Israel appeared as an iPhone price alert well before any news service would run the story. That’s how markets work. Crypto is the only liquid asset class that trades on Saturday, so those of us who never really turn off learned something big happened right around 3:45pm ET on Saturday (ZH: which is precisely when we noticed this first…).

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    Bitcoin dumped from $67,000 to $61,750 in a matter of minutes. Had the S&P 500 been open, it would’ve gapped lower by 3.0% give or take, in my estimation. Probably not enough to seriously stress the stop-loss mechanisms at all those grossly overleveraged multi-manager pod shops, but a reminder that markets are continuous until they are not.

    And anyway, by the time of the S&P futures market open on Sunday night at 6pm ET, and then the liquid cash market open at 9:30am ET Monday, we’ll know a lot more, and prices will reflect the new information.

    The Iranian regime posted this on X at 6:06pm ET, well after it initiated hostilities:

    Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!

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    Crypto traders appeared to take some comfort in the Iranian sentence: “The matter can be deemed concluded.” Bitcoin prices bounced off the bottom. And while Israeli sources indicated they intercepted 99% of the incoming drones and missiles, they also suggested the Iranian attack requires a decisive response.

    G7 countries planned a call for Sunday to coordinate a response. Biden pledged to stand by Israel. The US Navy sent an amphibious warship to the Eastern Mediterranean with 2,500 young Marines.

    And those of us, many thousands of miles from the region, prayed that we restore a semblance of balance, stability, peace, through greater internal political cooperation at home, principled diplomacy abroad, and overwhelming economic and military strength.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 18:52

  • Americans Panic-Search "World War III" And "Can I Be Drafted" As Iran Bombs Israel
    Americans Panic-Search “World War III” And “Can I Be Drafted” As Iran Bombs Israel

    Americans panic searched “World War III” and other related searches following Iran’s Saturday night attack on Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones.  

    Using data from Google Trends, “World War III” searches surged nationwide, hitting a five-year high. 

    Americans also searched “When will world war iii begin” and “When is world war iii going to happen” and even “Alexa, when will world war iii start,” as well as “Are We headed for world war iii”. 

    Meanwhile, a surge in Americans, likely younger millennials and Gen-Zers, have been asking Google search about the military draft age. 

     

    Here are other spiking internet searches.

    For all those neocon warmongering DC elites, remember that DEI Gen-Zers have already stated they will not fight any more of your foreign wars… What about recruiting all the military-aged migrants that just flooded the nation instead?

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    Meanwhile…

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    Sigh, America. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 18:05

  • Judge Upholds Georgia's Voter Citizenship Verification Requirements
    Judge Upholds Georgia’s Voter Citizenship Verification Requirements

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A federal judge has dismissed a legal challenge to Georgia’s voter citizenship verification requirements, keeping in place the state’s process of cross-checking citizenship status to determine voter eligibility and handing a win to election integrity advocates.

    A file image of voters standing in line to cast their ballots during the first day of early voting in the U.S. Senate runoff, in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 14, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

    Judge Eleanor Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued a ruling on April 11 that dismisses a lawsuit brought by a coalition of advocacy groups nearly six years ago that claimed Georgia’s voter citizenship verification requirements unfairly discriminated against naturalized citizens, who are more likely to be people of color.

    Following a three-day trial, the judge ruled that all four of the plaintiffs’ claims—including that the protocols violated multiple federal laws, the U.S. Constitution, and unfairly burdened the right to vote—are dismissed.

    In so doing, the judge sided with a motion for summary judgment made in 2021 by the defendant, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who argued that the state’s protocols for matching naturalized citizens’ voter registrations with the state’s citizenship records were “entirely reasonable” and placed a “minimum burden” on applicants.

    Mr. Raffensperger argued that, in almost every case, the requirement was fulfilled by matching driver’s licence or state identification numbers submitted for voter registration with corresponding records at the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS) to confirm citizenship status.

    When a naturalized citizen registers to vote in Georgia, their county registrar verifies proof of citizenship using DDS data. If that voter’s citizenship cannot be verified through that database, the onus is on the voter to submit proof of citizenship within 26 months or their voter registration application will be canceled.

    The plaintiffs have alleged that DDS data is often outdated, leading many naturalized citizens’ voter registrations to be flagged and canceled unfairly.

    Mr. Raffensperger disputed the claim that this issue affected many people, arguing in his motion that “any arguable burden on this small group of people to demonstrate they are now citizens is minimal and does not go beyond the ‘usual burdens of voting’ because it can be resolved as simply as showing the same photo identification that every Georgia voter is required to show in order to vote in person in Georgia.”

    He also argued that the citizenship process serves a “compelling interest” in ensuring that only eligible voters are allowed to cast a vote, an argument raised by election integrity advocates across the country amid various disputes over voting rules.

    ‘Common Sense’ Versus ‘Disappointing’

    The plaintiffs sued Mr. Raffensperger in 2018, arguing that the state’s protocols for matching naturalized citizens’ voter registrations with the state’s citizenship records violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

    They also claimed that these protocols put an unfair burden on the right to vote, in violation of 1st and 14th Amendment protections, while also claiming that the requirements ran counter to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by delaying or denying qualified voters from registering to cast ballots.

    The coalition of groups asked the court to rule that the citizenship matching protocols were illegal, and to permanently block their enforcement.

    The case eventually went to trial on April 8, 2024, leading to a favorable ruling for Mr. Raffensperger and delivering a win to election integrity advocates more generally.

    “Ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in our elections is critically important to secure and accurate elections,” Mr. Raffensperger said in a statement praising the ruling.

    “Georgia’s citizenship verification process is common sense and it works. With this ruling, we are able to continue ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections,” he added.

    Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, one of the plaintiffs, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the ruling is disappointing as it keeps in place obstacles to casting a vote.

    “This is disappointing because it will potentially disenfranchise citizen voters who now have to jump through multiple bureaucratic hurdles to vote,” Ms. Dennis said. “It will also create shock waves that may chill other new voters from trying to vote, even when they are eligible.”

    “Sadly, Georgia’s lawful voters will bear the brunt of anti-immigrant sentiments,” she added.

    Election Integrity or Voter Suppression?

    The ruling comes amid concern in some circles that noncitizens—including some of the many millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the United States since President Joe Biden took office—may cast votes unlawfully in the high-stakes 2024 election.

    It also comes amid a broader fight between those who see election integrity efforts as “voter suppression” and those who believe that the security of U.S. elections is too lax and should be tightened.

    According to a running tally by the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, expansive voting laws far outpaced restrictive ones in 2023.

    At least 53 expansive voting laws were introduced last year in at least 23 states, compared to 17 restrictive laws being passed in 14 states, suggesting that the election integrity movement is falling behind.

    Amid concerns over voter fraud, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently suggested that to win the presidential election in November, Republicans need to outvote Democrats by a significant margin.

    “Everybody who wants an honest election should know that in the long run, we need the French model. Everybody votes on the same day. Everybody has a photo ID, everybody’s accounted as a person,” Mr. Gingrich said in a February interview on Fox News.

    “But until we get to that, if Republicans want to win this year, under the rules that exist this year, they need to outvote the Democrats by about 5 percent, which is a margin big enough that it can’t be stolen,” he said.

    Elsewhere, an election integrity monitor laid out over a dozen “critical” reforms that it believes are necessary in order to secure voter integrity in the 2024 election, including outlawing ranked choice voting and non-citizen voting, consolidating election dates, requiring voter ID, and safeguarding vulnerable mail ballots.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 17:30

  • Trump Prepares For Monday's 'Fake Biden Trial' With 'Highly Conflicted' Manhattan Judge
    Trump Prepares For Monday’s ‘Fake Biden Trial’ With ‘Highly Conflicted’ Manhattan Judge

    Former President Trump will take his 2024 campaign to New York on Monday, where he’ll be sitting in a Manhattan courtroom for what he decried as a “Fake Biden Trial” to face 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with the Stormy Daniels ‘hush money’ embroglio. The trial comes after an unsuccessful bid to adjourn the case due to overwhelming pretrial publicity, which Judge Juan Merchan denied, calling adjournment “not tenable.”

    Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, left, and former President Donald Trump (via the Daily News)

    Trump has taken to Truth Social in recent days, suggesting on Sunday that Merchan is “perhaps the most highly conflicted Judge in New York State history,” who gave Trump’s legal team insufficient time to analyze “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that D.A. Alvin Bragg illegally hid, disguised, and held back from us.”

    Trump’s alleged crimes…

    As the WSJ notes, “The 34 felony counts in the indictment are all tied to records that prosecutors said Trump falsified as he reimbursed Cohen for the Daniels deal. They include 11 invoices, 12 general ledger entries and 11 checks.”

    As Mike Shedlock of Mishtalk notes, expect a media circus.

    A Recording Crime

    District Attorney Alvin Bragg took each receipt, invoice, and ledger receipt and made a separate felony charge out of each of them.

    Then Bragg twisted those charges into an intent to commit other crimes. Yet Trump is not charged with other crimes, only falsifying records. And it’s plausible that Trump had no direct knowledge of the mess.

    Michael Cohen

    This story goes back to Michael Cohen, a former attorney of Donald Trump, who landed in prison for by paying adult-film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump a decade earlier.

    The Journal notes that Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor under New York state law, but it can be elevated to a felony if records were falsified to conceal or commit another crime.

    What other crime? Trump is charged with none.

    Meanwhile as Politico reports, in addition to taking a “wrecking ball to Michael Cohen,” with nearly half of the respondents in a recent Politico/Ipsos poll saying that Cohen is not honest…

    Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s “Star Witness, Trump could try “asking the judge to give the jury the option of convicting him on lesser, misdemeanor offenses instead of the felony counts that have actually been brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team of prosecutors.”

    Conflicted Juan

    Journalist Laura Loomer, a Trump supporter, has posted several receipts over the past several weeks showing Merchan’s various conflicts – including the fact that his daughter professionally brags about “doing ground-breaking, historical work for clients” including “Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff, and others.”

    Loomer also noted that Andrew Laufer, the lawyer for Michael Cohen (DA Alan Bragg’s “Star witness”), is tight with NY Attorney General Letitia James – who Mercnah’s wife worked for in what Loomer describes as a “major conflict of interest.”

    When asked by Laufer to explain the conflict, Loomer replied: “Don’t play stupid. You know what the conflict is,” adding “The Trump Trial begins tomorrow. In New York. And the star witness’s lawyer is chummy with the NY AG.“

    Sununu Pledges Support

    In an interview with ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said he would support Trump even if he’s convicted.

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    Meanwhile the MSM is creaming over the thought or Orange Man Convicted.

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    As Mike Shedlock notes in closing:

    Can Trump Get a Fair Trial?

    That’s actually the wrong question. The right question is: Should there be a trial?

    Since there should not be a trial at all, by definition a trial cannot be fair.

    The charges are remarkably shaky and so is the key witness. It only takes one holdout to reach the correct conclusion, that felony charges are a sham.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 16:55

  • Over 1,300 Layoffs Hit Logistics Companies Across US
    Over 1,300 Layoffs Hit Logistics Companies Across US

    By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves

    Layoffs continue across the freight and logistics industry, with companies in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and Texas announcing job reductions and facility closures over the past two weeks.

    Universal Logistics

    Warren, Michigian-based Universal Logistics is permanently shuttering two of its subsidiaries and laying off a total of 677 employees, according to notices recently filed with the state.

    The layoffs are related to Universal-operated entities Logistics Insights Corp. and Universal Dedicated of Detroit, an auto parts warehousing and logistics facility. Both operations were in Detroit.

    Universal Dedicated of Detroit’s closure will affect 230 truck drivers who worked from the facility.  Logistics Insights Corp.’s closure includes 164 warehouse workers, 212 forklift operators, 26 dockworkers and 45 clerical employees.

    Universal Logistics is a truckload transportation, intermodal and logistics provider across the U.S, Mexico, Canada and Colombia. The company has more than 10,000 employees.

    It did not provide a reason for the cessation of operations at the two entities in their state filings.

    Officials for Universal Logistics did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FreightWaves.

    Swissport Cargo Services

    Global cargo handler Swissport Cargo Services recently announced it is laying off 235 workers at a cargo handling operation in Atlanta.

    The layoffs, which are related to losing a contract with e-commerce giant Amazon, are expected to be finalized by May 22.

    “We’re always evaluating our operations to better serve our customers and have made the decision to change vendors at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport,” Sam Stephenson, Amazon spokesperson, told FreightWaves. “This will not impact customer deliveries in the Atlanta area.”

    Amazon is working with incoming vendors to identify opportunities for impacted workers.

    On Feb. 19, Swissport announced it was laying off 378 workers at a cargo handling operation at Newark Liberty International Airport. The job reduction was also related to losing a customer contract, officials said.

    “Our customer has decided to change its service provider and to terminate the contract,” Swissport officials told FreightWaves. “To our great regret and as a result of this decision, all 378 Swissport employees at Newark airport will no longer be employed by Swissport.”

    The Kroger Co.

    The Kroger Co. recently announced it is cutting over 230 jobs and permanently closing delivery hubs in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, as well as Miami.

    The facilities operated as part of the Kroger Fulfillment Network, an e-commerce grocery delivery service for residential customers. The layoffs include 198 delivery drivers.

    “Despite our best efforts, including the support from new customers, learnings from other locations, and the incredible work of our associates, these facilities did not meet the benchmarks we set for success,” Kroger officials said in a statement to the media.

    The facilities will permanently close by the end of May.

    RXO Logistics 

    Transportation solutions provider RXO recently announced it is laying off 114 employees at a facility in Warren, Michigan.

    The layoffs are from RXO Managed Transport, a subsidiary operating at 29755 Chevrolet Road. Company officials did not give a reason for the layoffs in a notice filed with the state. 

    Officials for Charlotte, North Carolina-based RXO told Crain’s Detroit Business that the layoffs were related to the loss of a customer contract.

    The layoffs are expected to be finalized by May 31.

    Nosco Inc. 

    Packaging solutions provider Nosco Inc. is closing a facility in Carrollton, Texas, and laying off 51 workers.

    Company officials said the facility’s closure is related to the relocation of some operations to company headquarters in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

    The Carrollton facility will close permanently by Oct. 2. 

    Ryder Integrated Logistics

    Ryder Integrated Logistics is laying off 29 workers from a trucking facility in Romeoville, Illinois.

    The job cuts, which are scheduled to be finalized by April 30, are due to the loss of a customer, according to state filings.

    Ryder Integrated Logistics is a subsidiary of Ryder System, a Miami-based leasing, fleet management, transportation and supply chain solutions provider.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 16:20

  • Javier Blas Outlines Ten Takeaways For Crude Market Following Iran's Direct Attack On Israel 
    Javier Blas Outlines Ten Takeaways For Crude Market Following Iran’s Direct Attack On Israel 

    Iran’s direct attack on Israel on Saturday evening is viewed certainly as an escalation in the Middle East conflict. Tehran’s missile and drone attack (widely unsuccessful) has been well-telegraphed (read: here & here) for the last two weeks, pushing up Brent crude oil futures above the $90 a barrel mark on heightened geopolitical risks in the region. 

    Iran’s direct attack on Israel could lead some traders to reevaluate the geopolitical risk premium even more. And this is because Tehran’s attack on Israel was direct, instead of through the usual foreign proxies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. So far, crude prices have been up 17.5% this year and have surged nearly 4% since the strike on Iran’s embassy earlier this month. 

    “Oil prices might spike at the opening, as this is the first time Iran struck Israel from its territory,” said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG, as quoted by Bloomberg. 

    Staunovo added, “How long any bounce will last will also depend on the Israeli response.”

    According to Iman Nasseri, Middle East managing director at consultancy FGE, Brent crude has already priced in about a $10 risk premium. He said another $2 to $5 premium could be priced in on further concerns about tit-for-tat attacks across the region. 

    On Sunday, Iran warned the US if it supports an Israeli counterattack, then expect further escalation in the conflict across the region, especially with missiles and drones targeting US military bases. 

    Adding more fears in energy markets is the report earlier on Saturday that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized an Israeli-linked container ship near the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint in the region. Already, Iran-backed Houthis have targeted US and Israeli ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, yet another critical maritime chokepoint that disrupts global trade flows. 

    Making sense of this all is Bloomberg’s commodity expert Javier Blas, who outlined a few conclusions for energy markets following the flare-up in violence overnight:

    1. From a purely physical standpoint, nothing has changed in the world of oil. Middle Eastern crude is flowing into the global economy unimpeded, and the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy chokepoint, remains open to shipping. Put simply: there’s no oil shortage.

    2. The risk of a future disruption has increased. It would be naïve to say the Middle East looks today exactly as it did last week; a lot did change. I don’t think it was a purely symbolic attack. Even though telegraphed well in advance, Iran launched about 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, with the clear aim of overwhelming Israel’s defences. The options market, via deep out-of-the-money call contracts, should reflect the higher risks

    3. Iran appears to have aimed for an escalation to-deescalate, rather than opening the first chapter of a regional war. Even well before the drones and missiles reached Israel, Tehran indicated the attack was a one-off “legitimate defense” after the Israeli bombing of its embassy in Syria: “The matter can be deemed concluded.” If Israel considers that its response, bringing America and several Arab nations alongside to neutralize almost all the incoming bombs, was akin to a strategic victory, then the region returns to its precarious status quo. If so, headline oil prices don’t need to rally. Instead, the risk will be reflected better via the options market.

    4. Putting aside geopolitics, oil supply and demand fundamentals look healthy. Even the most bearish forecast for oil demand suggests consumption growth in 2024 will match the historical annual average of 1.2 million barrels a day. The bullish forecasts are for much higher growth, in the 1.5-to-1.9 million barrels a day range. On the supply side, a series of glitches have reduced production this year, particularly of US shale oil. As a result, global oil inventories, which typically increase in the first half of the year, have remained unchanged. Unless OPEC+ increases production soon, stockpiles will drop in the second half of the year.

    5. OPEC+ is keeping the market tight. Despite oil prices well above $80, it decided in late March to roll over its first-quarter output cuts into the second quarter. My expectation is that the group will open the taps at its next meeting, scheduled for June 1. In its last monthly oil report, the cartel noted on April 11 that the “robust oil demand outlook for the summer warrants careful market monitoring” – the kind of preparatory language ahead of an output hike.

    6. How OPEC+ increases production would be as important as the hike itself. I expect the group to hike output slowly, leaving its options open. Rather than pre-announcing a series of production increases, it could instead opt to call monthly meetings, keeping the market guessing whether it would add enough crude.

    7. Unless Israel and Iran engage in tit-for-tat attacks that disrupt oil flows, OPEC+ has more than enough spare production capacity to control a price rally. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq are keeping about 5 million barrels of day out of the market – equal to about 5% of the world’s demand, and more than what Iran itself produces.

    8. Barring a regional war, the biggest oil supply risk is political. President Joe Biden has promised a “diplomatic” response to the Iranian attacks. Since he was inaugurated in 2021, Biden has all but allowed Iran to increase its oil output, relaxing the enforcement of US sanctions on Tehran. In March, Iranian oil output hit a five-year high of 3.25 million barrels a day, up from 2.1 million in January 2021. If Biden resumes enforcing the sanctions, it could tighten the market significantly unless OPEC+ offsets the impact. I’m dubious Biden would take that course of action in an election year.

    9. Russia stands to win. Thanks to a tight oil market, Moscow is already selling its crude at $75 a barrel, well above the Group of Seven cap of $60 a barrel. If Washington enforces sanctions against Iran, it could create space for Russia’s own sanctioned barrels to both win market share and achieve even higher prices. One of the reasons why the White House turned a blind eye to Iranian oil exports is because its priority was to hurt Russia. Higher Iranian production was the unsaid — and unrecognized — cost of that policy. Now Washington needs to reconsider what’s its biggest concern.

    10. The risk that the White House would tap the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve later this year has increased notably. Even if half the size it was a decade ago, the stockpile of about 365 million barrels is still a formidable force. Biden can use the cover of rising tension in the Middle East to justify its use and try to push oil prices down toward $80 a barrel if OPEC+ decides it’s happy letting them rise to $99.99, or even beyond.

    All in all, higher crude prices are terrible news for President Biden’s reelection odds as inflation reaccelerates. We explained to readers in early March that the probability was rising that America’s enemies would ‘weaponize crude‘ against the US to trigger the next financial shock.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 15:45

  • WHO Official Admits Vaccine Passports May Have Been A Scam
    WHO Official Admits Vaccine Passports May Have Been A Scam

    Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle (subscribe here),

    The World Health Organization’s Dr. Hanna Nohynek testified in court that she advised her government that vaccine passports were not needed but was ignored, despite explaining that the COVID vaccines did not stop virus transmission and the passports gave a false sense of security. The stunning revelations came to light in a Helsinki courtroom where Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala is suing after he was denied entry to a café for not having a vaccine passport.

    Dr. Nohynek is chief physician at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and serves as the WHO’s chair of Strategic Group of Experts on immunization. Testifying yesterday, she stated that the Finnish Institute for Health knew by the summer of 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccines did not stop virus transmission

    During that same 2021 time period, the WHO said it was working to “create an international trusted framework” for safe travel while EU members states began rolling out COVID passports. The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation passed in July 2021 and more than 2.3 billion certificates were later issued. Visitors to France were banned if they did not have a valid vaccine passport which citizens had to carry to buy food at stores or to use public transport.

    But Dr. Nohynek testified yesterday that her institute advised the Finnish government in late 2021 that COVID passports no longer made sense, yet certificates continued to be required. Finnish journalist Ike Novikoff reported the news yesterday after leaving the Helsinki courtroom where Dr. Nohynek spoke.

    Dr. Nohynek’s admission that the government ignored scientific advice to terminate vaccine passports proved shocking as she is widely embraced in global medical circles. Besides chairing the WHO’s strategic advisory group on immunizations, Dr. Nohynek is one of Finland’s top vaccine advisors and serves on the boards of Vaccines Together and the International Vaccine Institute.

    The EU’s digital COVID-19 certification helped establish the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network in July 2023. “By using European best practices we contribute to digital health standards and interoperability globally—to the benefit of those most in need,” stated one EU official.

    Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala created a website discussing his case against Finland’s government where he writes that he launched his lawsuit “to defend basic rights” after he was denied breakfast in December 2021 at a Helsinki café because he did not have a COVID passport even though he was healthy. “The constitution of Finland guarantees that any citizen should not be discriminated against based on health conditions among other things,” Vauhkala states on his website.

    Vauhkala’s lawsuit continued today in Helsinki district court where British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra will testify that, during the COVID pandemic, some authorities and medical professionals supported unethical, coercive, and misinformed policies such as vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, which undermined informed patient consent and evidence-based medical practice.

    You can read Dr. Malhotra’s testimony here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 15:10

  • Video Evidence Shows Several Iranian Cruise Missiles Scored Direct Hits
    Video Evidence Shows Several Iranian Cruise Missiles Scored Direct Hits

    Both Israel and the US have declared a ‘victory’ in defending against the overnight massive Iranian drone and missile attack, which reportedly saw over 300 projectiles sent toward Israel. Ground anti-air systems were very active, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow system – the latter intended to thwart long-range missiles. The night skies over Israel were lit up for several hours, with explosions ringing out above various cities, especially Jerusalem.

    US systems were also heavily engaged on behalf of Washington’s closest Middle East ally. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also subsequently said its air force fighter jets downed some 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles. A statement further said “All the drones and cruise missiles were downed outside of the country’s airspace by the IAF and its allies, including the United States, United Kingdom, Jordan, France, and others.” 

    However, a few videos are widely circulating which appear to offer proof that at least some of Iran’s ballistic missiles found their way to a ground target, contradicting Israel’s optimistic narrative of almost “all” drones and missiles intercepted.

    The videos purport to show several missiles scoring direct hits on two key Israeli military bases in the south of the country: Nevatim Airbase and Ramon Airbase (locations on map above).

    First, the Nevatim Air Base, which is one of Israel’s largest. The below footage appears to show clusters of munitions raining down above the base – possibly decoy bomblets, before several ballistic missiles make impact on the ground.

    Video of ballistic missiles slamming into the Nevatim Air Base in the south after passing through a swarm of anti-air interceptors:

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    The IDF overnight confirmed a military base in southern Israel was slightly damaged.

    The Hill writes, “Iranian state-run media outlets reported that Ramon air base in southern Israel was struck by seven missiles, while they also reported successful attacks on Nevatim air base, one of the largest in Israel.”

    Second, the Ramon airbase in the Negev desert, where the missiles came in at least two waves…

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    More footage of different angles side-by-side, via Middle East Eye:

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    Regional geopolitical analyst and journalist, Rania Khalek, offers an interesting takeaway from last night’s dramatic events as follows…

    “This is a deterrence win for Iran. Had Israel been taken by surprise and not had the days long preparation to mitigate the impact of an Iranian attack this large, the damage would have been huge. There is no way Israel could have intercepted hundreds of Iranian missiles without a week of its allies putting defenses in place and Iran intentionally taking its time.

    A real war would NOT be telegraphed in advance so Israel can prepare with a symphony of air defenses from its allies. Biden understands the risks posed by further escalation, especially to US forces, which is why he told Netanyahu he will not back an Israeli counterstrike. The equation in the region has changed and Iran did it masterfully and responsibly without igniting the big war.”

    Below, IDF published footage showing fighter jet intercepts of inbound drones and cruise missiles…

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    However, whether there will be a big war or not is yet to be seen, based on how Israel responds. The New York Times has reported that PM Netanyahu backed off launching an immediate military response after a late night phone call with President Biden. But this likely opens the door for Netanyahu to implement his long desired plans to take out what Israel believes are Iranian nuclear sites.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 04/14/2024 – 14:35

  • 'Not Looking For A Significant Escalation' – Israel Threatens Imminent Response To Iranian Attack, Then Walks It Back
    ‘Not Looking For A Significant Escalation’ – Israel Threatens Imminent Response To Iranian Attack, Then Walks It Back

    Summary:

    • Iran sent 170 drones, 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles – carrying a combined 60 tonnes of explosive material – into Israel

    • Iran violated Iraqi and Jordanian airpsace

    • Israel and its allies – including the US – shot down 99% of the Iranian munitions

    • The attack caused minor damage to Nevatim air base, in southern Israel, and one young girl from a Bedouin town in the south was hospitalized for severe shrapnel injuries

    • “We intercepted. We thwarted. Together we will win,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X.

    • Israel and its allies reportedly viewed the event as a “win.”

    • The G7 condemned Iran’s “direct and unprecedented attack against Israel” and warning of an “uncontrollable regional escalation.”

    • Iran threatened attacks on US bases in the MidEast if Washgton joins in any counter-offensive.

    • De-escalation – The Israeli war cabinet voted to “exact a price from Iran in a manner and at a time that is right,” but not immediately, according to US officials.

    • “We don’t want to see this escalate,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, adding that “we’re not looking for a wider war with Iran.”

    *  *  *

    Update (1405ET): A flurry of geopol headlines just hit… 

    Let’s begin with this report from Reuters.

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    And this is from Israeli Channel 14. 

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    Moments after those headlines hit, there was a report from Yeshiva World News’ Moshe Schwartz indicating:

    “An immediate response with strikes within Iran was approved by a clear majority of the Israeli war cabinet but was called off at the last minute following Biden/Netanyahu phone call. The war cabinet still supports the planned response – but not necessarily immediately.” 

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    And these headlines:

    • ISRAEL HAS MADE CLEAR TO US IT IS NOT LOOKING FOR A SIGNIFICANT ESCALATION WITH IRAN -SENIOR US ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL
    • US HAS BEEN IN CONTACT WITH IRAN VIA SWISS CHANNEL: OFFICIAL

    Meanwhile, earlier, the US declared it would not participate in any counterattack against Iran. 

    “We don’t seek a war with Iran. We’re not looking for escalation here,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC on Sunday. 

    Even earlier, President Biden discussed the evolving conflict between Iran-Israel in a meeting of the Group of Seven “to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.”

    Iran told the US earlier today that if it supports Israel’s counterattack, expect its military bases in the Middle East to be attacked with missiles and suicide drones. 

    In markets, Bitcoin instantly responded to the rollercoaster of headlines, initially down 3% but then surging to erase losses. Now moving lower. 

    To sum up, US officials say Israel ‘isn’t looking’ for an escalation with Iran. Maybe Brent >$100/bbl is why… 

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    And if there was any retaliation strike against Iran by Israel, the US would not be joining. 

    *   *   * 

    Update (0700ET): There are mounting concerns that Israel could strike back. If so, Iran warned Washington that US military bases could be in the crosshairs of missiles and suicide drones. 

    “Our response will be much larger than tonight’s military action if Israel retaliates against Iran,” Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, told state media, as quoted by The Times of Israel. He said that Tehran warned Washington that any backing of an Israeli retaliation strike would result in US bases being targeted. 

    “If the Zionist regime (Israel) or its supporters demonstrate reckless behavior, they will receive a decisive and much stronger response,” Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi said in a statement.

    Update(Midnight ET): It is just after 7am Israel local time and Israel’s military is reporting the Iranian attack has stopped, several hours after Iran said its ‘limited’ operation has “concluded” – which involved an unprecedented hundreds of suicide drones as as well as ballistic missiles sent against Israel in retaliation for the April 1st Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Below is the top story from English-language Times of Israel: 

    Hebrew media reports claim that not a single drone or cruise missile managed to infiltrate Israeli airspace.

    According to the unsourced reports, most ballistic missiles were also knocked down outside of Israeli airspace.

    A report in Ynet says some 20 cruise missiles were downed short of Israel’s borders. The US, UK and Jordan helped take down many of the drones.

    Israel is reporting very little damage inside the country (though previously admitting “minor damage” against at least one key airbase in the south). 

    After the enormous Iranian drone and missile swarm a senior Israeli official has been quoted by Israel’s Channel 12 as saying “Iran’s attack was a strategic failure.” The official added in a threatening manner, “Now they can get ready and not sleep in peace.” Israel’s war cabinet appears to be readying a military response…

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    Crucially, the Biden White House appears to be strongly signaling to the Netanyahu government that the attack is ‘done’ and that the United States will not back any follow-up counterattack operations against Iran:

    US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will not aid any Israeli counterattack on Iran, US media report, citing senior administration officials.

    Axios and CNN report that message was passed during a phone call between the pair.

    Axios reports that Biden told Netyanyahu the US will oppose any Israeli counterattack.

    CNN reports that Biden said the US will not take part in any such counteraction.

      Israel has called on a United Nations Security Council meeting to condemn the Iranian aggression, which is expected to take place late Sunday. The US administration appears to be lobbying for a status quo and for Israel to not mount a strong response. 

      Below is a portion of the Axios report on the Bibi-Biden late night phone call:

      Behind the scenes: Biden told Netanyahu the joint defensive efforts by Israel, the U.S. and other countries in the region led to the failure of the Iranian attack, according to the White House official.

      • “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to the official.
      • The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood.
      • U.S. Secretary of State Lloyd Austin spoke on Saturday with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and asked that Israel notify the U.S. ahead of any response against Iran, a senior Israeli official said.

      Meanwhile, Israel’s official channels are filled with ‘fighting words’ like the following:

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      * * * 

      Update(20:00ET): CNN is reporting there have been several explosion on the ground across Israel, but there’s yet to be official confirmation of the extent of casualties. Israeli media is reporting the first as follows: “Medics treating first injury from Iran attack – a 10-year-old boy from Bedouin town near Arad in serious condition.” The IDF spokesman is confirming at least one of its military bases has been hit in the south by an Iranian cruise missile, sustaining “minor damage”. This was reportedly at Dimona, where Israel reportedly has undeclared nuclear weapons, making such a strike highly dangerous. Further Iran’s IRNA is reporting:

      Iran successfully struck the Israeli airbase in the Negev Desert with ‘Khaybar’ ballistic missiles.

      Importantly, Times of Israel is reporting that Israel’s military is preparing a response, in what is likely to become a continuing tit-for-tat in the coming days:

      Israel plans a “significant response” to the unprecedented Iranian drone salvo against it, top-rated Channel 12 TV quotes an unnamed senior Israeli official as saying early on Sunday.

      The IDF has called this new attack a “major escalation”. Over “200 different kinds” of projectiles were fired toward Israel, the IDF spokesman said. For more than the past week Israeli leaders have firmly warned that should Iran launch retaliation from within its own soil, the Israeli response against the Islamic Republic will be ‘stronger’ – as Netanyahu previously put it. That’s precisely what has happened and so a major Israeli response is likely.

      Below: stunning footage over the Temple Mount of Jerusalem as Israeli anti-air highly active:

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      More over Jerusalem:

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      German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has condemned Iran’s attack on Israel, saying it risks plunging the entire region “into chaos.”

      “We condemn the ongoing attack in the strongest possible terms, risking to plunge an entire region into chaos,” Baerbock wrote on X. “Iran and its proxies must stop this immediately. In these hours, we stand firmly by Israel.” However, by and large there was silence from European and NATO leaders when Israel mounted an unprecedented attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1st.

      Meanwhile, the US says it is still intercepting inbound drones and missiles. The IDF says it has “numerous” fighter jets in the air right now. Iran has warned Washington not do get involved in the conflict, saying American bases in the region are at risk if it does so.

      An extremely vague Biden statement:

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      Al Jazeera LIVE FEED:

      * * *

      Update(1845): Ballistic missiles are still in the air headed for Israel along with more than 100 drones. Live visuals have shown projectiles falling on Israel. Iran is now very publicly saying the matter has “concluded”:

      IRAN’S UN MISSION: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”

      From Israel’s perspective, Iran has now crossed a red line, and Netanyahu is likely to now see himself as having carte blanche to take out Iran nuclear facilities.

      * * *

      Update(1805): Iranian state media has just reported that the elite IRGC has launched its first wave of ballistic and(or) cruise missiles at Israel. Already an estimated hundreds of drones are headed toward Israel. It appears Iran is seeking to overwhelm Israel’s anti-air defense systems. The United States is expected to help Israel intercept this barrage. There are statements from the Houthis saying they have also launched rockets against Israel, and there are fears Hezbollah is about to unleash a barrage too, with early reports saying dozens of Katyusha rockets have already been sent into northern Israel tonight. Unconfirmed reports have said rockets have been launched from Iranian assets in Syria too.

      Below is the IRGC confirmation via PressTV: “In response to the Zionist regime’s numerous crimes, including the attack on the consular section of Iran’s Embassy in Damascus and the martyrdom of a number of our country’s commanders and military advisors in Syria, the IRGC’s Aerospace Division launched tens of missiles and drones against certain targets inside the occupied territories,” the statement read. At this point the question is which will hit first: the slower-moving drones which were launched well over an hour ago, or the ballistic missiles which are likely to take less than 30 minutes to reach their targets.

      The Iranian attack has an official name, and Tehran is warning that the US and foreign countries must ‘stay away’ from the conflict…

      IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SAYS OPERATION ‘TRUE PROMISE’ IS PART OF PUNISHMENT FOR ISRAELI CRIMES’ – IRANIAN STATE TV

       

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      Already hawks in the US are urging Biden to intervene heavily on the side of Israel…

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      According to an unconfirmed note:

      Al Jazeera citing Channel 12: British fighters participate with American fighters in intercepting Iranian marches in the airspace of Jordan and Syria.

      Geopolitical analyst Max Abrahms writes that “Iran and Israel are now at war. A real, direct war.”

      * * *

      Update(1554ET): Axios correspondent Barak Ravid has cited several US and Israeli officials who say Iran’s attack against Israel has started. It is currently almost 11pm in Israel. It could take hours for the drones to reach Israel, however, the big question remains whether Tehran sends ballistic missiles. Both the IDF and the Biden administration have confirmed that drones are en route to Israeli airspace. Iranian state TV also since confirmed. The White House has said the attack is “likely to unfold over a number of hours.”

      “Iran launches attack against Israel using dozens of drones, four U.S. and Israeli officials told me,” Ravid writes. Airspace across Iran, Iran, Jordan, and Israel has reportedly been shut in the last hours. There are reports citing the Jordanian government saying it stands ready to shoot down any drones that violate its airspace. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Houthis have launched projectiles out of Yemen.

      Airspace shut from Iran to Iraq to Jordan…

      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued the following nighttime speech just ahead of the reported attack:

      “Citizens of Israel, in recent years, and even more so in recent weeks, Israel has been preparing for the possibility of a direct attack from Iran,” the premier says in a video statement. “Our defense systems are deployed, and we are prepared for any scenario, both in defense and offense. The State of Israel is strong, the IDF is strong, the public is strong.”

      “We appreciate the US for standing by Israel’s side as well as the support of the UK, France and many other countries.” “I established a clear principle — whoever hurts us, we will hurt them. We will defend ourselves from any threat and we will do so calmly and with determination.”

      “I know that you, the citizens of Israel, are also keeping calm. I urge you to listen to the directives of the Home Front Command.”

      “Together we stand, and with God’s help, together we will overcome all of our enemies,” Netanyahu says.

      Schools in Israel and public gatherings have been closed for the coming days. The IDF is giving the citizenry guidelines about seeking bomb shelters and awaiting instructions.

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      Crypto is crashing on the news…

       

      President Joe Biden has reportedly cut short a beach vacation to head back to the White House where he’s meeting with his national security team, monitoring the attacks, as well as Israel’s defense. It’s as yet unclear if Iran has launched ballistic missiles, following the initial drone salvo. Fox News is reporting that the head of US Central Command, Michael Kurilla, has safely departed Israel.

      Israel’s Home Front command has issued the following emergency notification restricting gatherings across the country in anticipation of inbound Iranian projectiles. There are also “work from home” orders being issued, especially for non-essential government personnel.

      Meanwhile just yesterday…

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      * * *

      The past days have seen American diplomats in a global push to get countries to hold back Iran from launching a retaliatory attack on Israel for its April 1st embassy attack in Damascus.

      Washington is especially leaning on China, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in hopes that a united diplomatic front could deescalate the situation, at a moment Israel is bracing for an assault.

      US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with several officials over the past week, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “We have also engaged with European allies and partners over the past few days and urged them as well to send a clear message to Iran: that escalation is not in Iran’s interest, it’s not in the region’s interest and it’s not in the world’s interest,” a statement from the State Department indicated.

      Blinken “has been making clear to every country that has any semblance of a relationship with Iran that it is in their interest to use that relationship to send a message to Iran that they should not escalate this conflict. But I will let those countries speak for themselves about what action they may or may not take,” the statement from spokesman Matthew Miller said.

      Miller added that US has also “engaged with European allies and partners over the past few days” to deliver a message urging restraint to Iran. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have also been engaging the Iranian foreign minister in recent days.

      Blinken’s message to Turkey and Saudi Arabia was that they should “urge Iran not to escalate.” Going into this weekend, it’s being widely reported that a major Iranian attack, possibly including ballistic missiles and drones, remains ‘imminent’. US officials have told media sources that Iran has been observed moving major military assets including missile systems.

      Though Iranian operatives on Saturday morning have seized an Israeli-linked tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, it seems the ‘big attack’ is still on hold for now.

      The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, suggests there may be a diplomatic way out that avoids full Iranian military retaliation. Iran is “proposing the following: If a ceasefire is reached in Gaza and Israel does not attack the city of Rafah, it is ready, in order to reduce escalation and tension, not to take any action against Israel at the present time,” the newspaper stated.

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      But it’s anything but clear that a leader like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be willing to alter his plans to eradicate Hamas based on dictates from Tehran. Currently, the atmosphere seems one of the calm before the storm.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 04/14/2024 – 14:05

    • A Reliable Voting Bloc For Decades, Minorities Now Look For Alternatives To Democrats
      A Reliable Voting Bloc For Decades, Minorities Now Look For Alternatives To Democrats

      Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

      Democrats gathered at the state fairgrounds in Columbia, South Carolina, to await the results of their party’s primary election. President Joe Biden, the only candidate to campaign in the state, won handily, as expected.

      (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock)

      From the podium, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), 83, took a call from the chief executive, who thanked South Carolinians for their support. Applause followed, with congratulations all around.

      As the modest crowd dispersed, Mr. Clyburn spoke with the press. The veteran congressman and staunch Biden ally said that the president’s support among black voters remained unshakable.

      “The best illustration of that is that he got 96 percent of the vote in this primary,” Mr. Clyburn said. “But his largest percentage—over 97 percent—was in the town of Orangeburg, where there are two HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities] and a community college.”

      “I go to an African American barbershop,” Mr. Clyburn said. “I go to an African American Church. Joe Biden is as strong with African Americans as he has ever been.”

      Mr. Clyburn’s view defies the findings of several recent polls and contradicts a trend that has been observable for several years. Namely, that Democrats have a problem with black voters, especially men. Hispanic voters, too.

      Over the last eight years, minority voters have slowly but steadily migrated away from associating themselves with the Democratic Party, a movement that appears to be led by men.

      An April poll from The Wall Street Journal shows that 30 percent of black men in battleground states intend to vote for Donald Trump. Hispanic voters who lean Republican are approaching parity with those who lean Democrat.

      In simplest terms, analysts say, it amounts to a classic case of leaders being blind to generational change, taking their constituents for granted, and failing to deliver on the most basic function of government—to create conditions in which people can thrive.

      It is unclear whether Democrats can halt—or at least counter—this decline in minority support before the November election. What is clear is that the demographic composition of both parties is in flux. These shifting political allegiances could significantly impact both the 2024 election and the future of party politics.

      A man holds a ‘Blacks for Trump’ sign as he waits to see Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at an event in Sterling Heights, Mich., on Nov. 6, 2016. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

      Steady Migration

      Support for the Democratic Party among black and Hispanic voters has been eroding for years.

      The percentage of black voters who “lean Democrat” topped out at near 90 percent in 2008 but fell to 66 percent by 2023, the lowest level yet recorded according to data from Gallup’s annual polling on the subject.

      Meanwhile, the percentage of black voters who “lean Republican” rose from single digits to 19 percent over the same period.

      The percentage of Hispanic voters who “lean Democrat” fell from about 60 percent in 2016 to 47 percent in 2023, while the percentage of those who “lean Republican” rose from about 25 percent to 35 percent.

      A similar shift occurred among Asian-American voters. Some 30 percent of Asian Americans voted Republican in 2020 according to Gallup. That’s up from 18 percent in 2016, according to exit polling. In California, the shift was even more pronounced with 54 percent of Asian American voters favoring Trump in 2020 according to the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

      “It shows up consistently in survey after survey, and it also shows up in actual electoral results going back to 2016,” Matthew Wilson, a professor at Southern Methodist University, told The Epoch Times.

      “And there’s just real movement and more diversity in the electoral outcomes in [predominantly black and Hispanic precincts] than had been true in the past. So I think Democrats who are inclined to write it off as artificial are engaged in wishful thinking because it shows up in multiple different indicators.”

      And the shift is being driven by multiple factors, observers say, which may vary by ethnic group.

      Supporters cheer President Joe Biden as he speaks during a rally at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Nov. 1, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

      Failure to Improve

      A signal issue that cuts across ethnic lines is the perceived failure of the Biden administration to improve the economic condition of the people.

      “Unfortunately, Biden can’t hide from this economy, and minorities are losing trust in it,” Charlie Kolean of the R.E.D. political action committee told The Epoch Times. “Minorities see that big government is no longer helping them but hurting them.”

      That matches the finding of Whitley Yates, diversity engagement director for the Indiana Republican Party.

      “For the black community in general, they have been lied to consistently. They have been promised things every election cycle and have been used by the Democratic Party to remain in positions of power without any type of progress for those communities,” Ms. Yates told The Epoch Times.

      Black unemployment was low and median household income rising under President Trump, according to Ms. Yates, but President Biden was able to appeal to black voters based on promises of student loan relief and the legalization of marijuana, seen as a criminal justice issue by many black Americans.

      While hundreds of thousands of student loans have been partially paid or forgiven under President Biden, the economic life of many black citizens has worsened. “The way this economy has impacted the black community has been catastrophic. Inflation and the consumer price index have gone up astronomically, which has hurt businesses,” Ms. Yates said. “People began to realize that it was a lot of smoke and mirrors.”

      To some extent, this shift in allegiance plays out along generational lines, at least among black voters, according to Marcurius Byrd, a Democratic organizer from Columbia, South Carolina.

      “Our generation didn’t grow up with the things that a lot of people who lived through the Civil Rights era did,” Mr. Byrd told The Epoch Times. “The Democratic Party has given them more victories within their lifetimes. We haven’t really seen that in the younger generations.”

      For many black voters, the question for Democrats appears to be “What have you done for me lately?”

      “There’s a thirst for someone who’s not going to just talk about what’s wrong, but who is going to produce tangible policies that people can feel,” Ms. Yates said.

      “Biden’s biggest worry is that black voters see him as not delivering on voting rights, responsible for inflation, and failing to stop Israel’s devastation of Gaza.” Donald Nieman, professor of history and provost emeritus at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

      Democrats are also at risk of losing Asian American voters based on economic performance. In a recent AAPI Data/AP-NORC survey, 67 percent of Asian voters said they disagreed with President Biden’s handling of inflation (67 percent), the economy (58 percent), and student debt (54 percent). More than 40 percent of registered Asian voters said inflation was the most important issue in a Gallup survey.

      Read more here…

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 04/14/2024 – 14:00

    • 'Retaliation Risk' – What Wall Street Thinks Ahead Of Market Open
      ‘Retaliation Risk’ – What Wall Street Thinks Ahead Of Market Open

      The first actual ‘market’ response we have seen to Iran’s attack on Israel is in crypto, which saw – rather intriguingly – a huge puke as the drones/missiles flew, and then some comeback as the impact of the attack seemed marginal at worst (and for now retaliation remains muted)…

      Source: Bloomberg

      But, this afternoon is when things will really heat up as FX and futures markets open, with much riding on whether Iran’s unprecedented weekend strike on Israel triggers rounds of retaliation.

      Amid already frayed nerves from resurrected inflation fears and higher-for-longer rates outlooks, geopolitical risk premia will be forced top of mind.

      “Investors’ natural reaction is to look for safe-haven assets in moments like this,” said Patrick Armstrong, chief investment officer at Plurimi Wealth LLP.

      “Reactions will be somewhat dependent on Israel’s response. If Israel does not escalate from here, it may provide an opportunity to buy risk assets at lower prices.”

      For now, the optimists may be winning as Iran’s statement that “the matter can be deemed concluded” and a report that President Biden told Israeli PM Netanyahu that the US won’t support an Israeli counterattack against Iran, seems to be driving down the odds of a more escalatory retaliation (meaning anything other than a ‘theatrical’ response).

      Bloomberg reports that stock markets in Saudi Arabia and Qatar posted modest losses under thin trading volumes…

      Source: Bloomberg

      …while Israeli stocks fluctuated and ended with a very modest gain.

      Source: Bloomberg

      “Middle Eastern markets opened with relative calm following Iran’s attack, which was perceived as a measured retaliation, rather than an attempt at escalation,” said Emre Akcakmak, a senior consultant at East Capital in Dubai.

      “However, the market impact might extend beyond the Middle East due to secondary effects on oil and energy prices, potentially influencing the global inflation outlook.”

      Worries about turmoil in the region have also been filtering through global markets. The S&P 500 is coming off its biggest weekly decline since October on the back of higher-than-expected inflation and disappointing bank earnings.

      Here’s what investors and analysts are saying (courtesy of Bloomberg):

      Erik Meyersson, chief emerging markets strategist at SEB:

      “Our oil analysts do not see much sign of a geopolitical risk premium in oil prices so far. We expect this to reflect market perceptions of low risks of escalation up until now. This equilibrium is likely to be tested if Iran and Israel continue to attack each other.”

      Gonzalo Lardies, senior equities fund manager at Andbank:

      “A new environment of uncertainty is now opening up, but the market on Friday already partially priced in this situation, so if it does not get worse the impact should not be very high. The risk is if this situation escalates and there is contagion in the region.”

      Alfonso Benito, chief investment officer at Dunas Capital:

      “I wouldn’t expect sharp drops given how Israel has defended its air shield. We should see defense companies up, oil up and gas up, while airlines could decline. Bonds will rise, but I don’t think excessively. Investors could take advantage to partially correct the increases of recent months.”

      Joachim Klement, a strategist at Liberum:

      “The reaction will very much depend on the reaction of Israel today and whether the US can manage to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu.”

      “In the next couple of days, stock markets will focus on the geopolitical situation, rather than central bank action or the strong economy in the US. Hence, we expect the rally to stall until there is more clarity if the situation in Iran-Israel calms down. If we end up in a shooting war between Israel and Iran, then the rally will be stalled for longer.”

      Mark Matthews, strategist at Bank Julius Baer in Singapore:

      “The good thing is that Iran did warn about the attack well beforehand. Military analysts say it was done in a way that minimized casualties. I don’t see why it would cause Fed rate expectations to fall more or it would cause the oil price to go up a lot. Iran is trying to defuse this and so is the US. The key is what Israel’s answer will be, and then Iran’s answer to that. If Israel does a de-escalatory strike, and then the Iranians do an even more de-escalatory strike, then it will be over with.”

      Geoff Yu, senior strategist for EMEA Markets at BNY Mellon in London:

      “There is scope for further accumulation of dollars, even with recent buying after the CPI data. Our clients remain overweight the euro, Canadian dollar and some high-carry currencies such as the Mexican peso, so this is where we would watch for rotation in the greenback’s favor.”

      Neil Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics in London:

      “Our sense is that events in the Middle East will add to the reasons for the Fed to adopt a more cautious approach to rate cuts, but they won’t prevent it from cutting altogether. We expect the first move in September. And assuming that the energy prices don’t spiral over the next month or so, we think that both the ECB and BOE will cut in June.”

      US equity and bond futures will open at 6 p.m. New York time Sunday; FX markets before that.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 04/14/2024 – 13:25

    • Trump: "Everything Biden Touches Turns To $hit"
      Trump: “Everything Biden Touches Turns To $hit”

      Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

      During a huge rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania Saturday night, Donald Trump blasted Joe Biden, reeling off a list of massive failures and urging that “everything he touches turns to shit.”

      Trump was speaking while Iran, which just four years ago was crippled under Trump, but in the past three years has prospered after Biden eased sanctions, decided to launch a full on military attack on Israel.

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      “Before going any further, I want to say God bless the people of Israel,” Trump stated, adding “They’re under attack right now. That’s because we show great weakness.”

      Trump urged that such an attack would never have happened under his watch.

      “America prays for Israel,” he stated, adding “We send our absolute support to everyone in harm’s way. This is an attack that would not have happened. I mean, to think about what we have to go through and the things we put up with, with the border, with no energy independence.”

      Trump vowed to “revive American strength abroad” and “rebuild the greatest economy in the history of the world,” noting that inflation is now “close to four percent again.”

      “First of all, Crooked Joe, he claimed inflation was transitory, remember that? Then he said, ‘oh, it’s temporary’, then he said, ‘it won’t happen, it really won’t happen’,” Trump asserted, adding “And then he said, ‘Well, it’s much higher than expected,’ and then the supply chain slows, and then the energy went through the roof.”

      He continued, “All of America knows that the real blame for this nightmare lies with one person. Crooked Joe Biden,” adding “As crooked as you can get. That’s why the people of Pennsylvania are going to tell crooked Joe, ‘You’re fired get out! You’re fired!’”

      “One of the leading drivers of Biden’s inflation disaster is his war on American energy, and Pennsylvania energy is a big problem,” Trump further iterated, prompting the crowd to break into chants of “Genocide Joe! Genocide Joe! Genocide Joe!”

      “They’re not wrong,” Trump responded, adding “He’s done everything wrong. Think of it, we’ve been in this mess together for three and a half years. Only a little more than six months until that most important day in the history of our country, November 5th. Think of that. But, what has he done that’s good? Nothing. Has anything that he’s done turned out? Everything he touches turns to shit.”

      Trump pointed out that since Biden took office “gasoline prices are up over 50 percent and electricity prices are up 39 percent, rising 13 times faster” than in the previous seven years.

      “When I’m back in the White House, we will end Joe Biden’s inflation train wreck and we will tell Pennsylvania, drill, baby, drill,” Trump promised, adding “Under my leadership, we had energy independence, and soon we would have had energy dominance.”

      The full speech is below:

      In the wake of Iran’s actions yesterday, many on X pointed out exactly how this is another example of Biden’s Midas in reverse touch:

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

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 04/14/2024 – 12:50

    • Israel's Defense Against Iran Attack Overnight 'Likely Cost Over $1 Billion'
      Israel’s Defense Against Iran Attack Overnight ‘Likely Cost Over $1 Billion’

      Via Middle East Eye

      It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defense systems that intercepted Iran’s massive drone and missile attack overnight,  according to a former financial adviser to Israel’s military. 

      “The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night,” estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.

      Iranian Army via AP

      Aminoach highlighted that the staggering price tag stands in contrast to the relatively low amount that Iran had spent to launch its assault, which some estimates have put at less than 10 percent of what it cost Israel to stop the attack. 

      Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel on Saturday, in response to an Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria that killed two senior Revolutionary Guard commanders earlier this month.

      Israel said its military forces and its allies had intercepted 99 percent of the missiles, but some ballistic missiles penetrated Israeli defences and hit the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel. 

      “If we’re talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we actually bring down mainly with fighter jets,” he said. 

      “Then add up the costs – $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a David’s Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of 4-5bn shekels.”

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      David’s Sling is a weapons system meant to intercept medium to long-range rockets and missiles. The Arrow system was designed to thwart long-range missiles, including the types of ballistic missiles Iran launched on Saturday and of long-range missiles launched by the Houthis in Yemen.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 04/14/2024 – 11:40

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Apr 14

    Today’s News 14th April 2024

    • Biden Tells Bibi: US Will Not Support A Counterattack Against Iran After Hundreds Of Drones, Missiles Sent
      Biden Tells Bibi: US Will Not Support A Counterattack Against Iran After Hundreds Of Drones, Missiles Sent

      Update(Midnight ET): It is just after 7am Israel local time and Israel’s military is reporting the Iranian attack has stopped, several hours after Iran said its ‘limited’ operation has “concluded” – which involved an unprecedented hundreds of suicide drones as as well as ballistic missiles sent against Israel in retaliation for the April 1st Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Below is the top story from English-language Times of Israel: 

      Hebrew media reports claim that not a single drone or cruise missile managed to infiltrate Israeli airspace.

      According to the unsourced reports, most ballistic missiles were also knocked down outside of Israeli airspace.

      A report in Ynet says some 20 cruise missiles were downed short of Israel’s borders. The US, UK and Jordan helped take down many of the drones.

      Israel is reporting very little damage inside the country (though previously admitting “minor damage” against at least one key airbase in the south). 

      After the enormous Iranian drone and missile swarm a senior Israeli official has been quoted by Israel’s Channel 12 as saying “Iran’s attack was a strategic failure.” The official added in a threatening manner, “Now they can get ready and not sleep in peace.” Israel’s war cabinet appears to be readying a military response…

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      Crucially, the Biden White House appears to be strongly signaling to the Netanyahu government that the attack is ‘done’ and that the United States will not back any follow-up counterattack operations against Iran:

      US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US will not aid any Israeli counterattack on Iran, US media report, citing senior administration officials.

      Axios and CNN report that message was passed during a phone call between the pair.

      Axios reports that Biden told Netyanyahu the US will oppose any Israeli counterattack.

      CNN reports that Biden said the US will not take part in any such counteraction.

        Israel has called on a United Nations Security Council meeting to condemn the Iranian aggression, which is expected to take place late Sunday. The US administration appears to be lobbying for a status quo and for Israel to not mount a strong response. 

        Below is a portion of the Axios report on the Bibi-Biden late night phone call:

        Behind the scenes: Biden told Netanyahu the joint defensive efforts by Israel, the U.S. and other countries in the region led to the failure of the Iranian attack, according to the White House official.

        • “You got a win. Take the win,” Biden told Netanyahu, according to the official.
        • The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood.
        • U.S. Secretary of State Lloyd Austin spoke on Saturday with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant and asked that Israel notify the U.S. ahead of any response against Iran, a senior Israeli official said.

        Meanwhile, Israel’s official channels are filled with ‘fighting words’ like the following:

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        Update(20:00ET): CNN is reporting there have been several explosion on the ground across Israel, but there’s yet to be official confirmation of the extent of casualties. Israeli media is reporting the first as follows: “Medics treating first injury from Iran attack – a 10-year-old boy from Bedouin town near Arad in serious condition.” The IDF spokesman is confirming at least one of its military bases has been hit in the south by an Iranian cruise missile, sustaining “minor damage”. This was reportedly at Dimona, where Israel reportedly has undeclared nuclear weapons, making such a strike highly dangerous. Further Iran’s IRNA is reporting:

        Iran successfully struck the Israeli airbase in the Negev Desert with ‘Khaybar’ ballistic missiles.

        Importantly, Times of Israel is reporting that Israel’s military is preparing a response, in what is likely to become a continuing tit-for-tat in the coming days:

        Israel plans a “significant response” to the unprecedented Iranian drone salvo against it, top-rated Channel 12 TV quotes an unnamed senior Israeli official as saying early on Sunday.

        The IDF has called this new attack a “major escalation”. Over “200 different kinds” of projectiles were fired toward Israel, the IDF spokesman said. For more than the past week Israeli leaders have firmly warned that should Iran launch retaliation from within its own soil, the Israeli response against the Islamic Republic will be ‘stronger’ – as Netanyahu previously put it. That’s precisely what has happened and so a major Israeli response is likely.

        Below: stunning footage over the Temple Mount of Jerusalem as Israeli anti-air highly active:

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        More over Jerusalem:

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        German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has condemned Iran’s attack on Israel, saying it risks plunging the entire region “into chaos.”

        “We condemn the ongoing attack in the strongest possible terms, risking to plunge an entire region into chaos,” Baerbock wrote on X. “Iran and its proxies must stop this immediately. In these hours, we stand firmly by Israel.” However, by and large there was silence from European and NATO leaders when Israel mounted an unprecedented attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1st.

        Meanwhile, the US says it is still intercepting inbound drones and missiles. The IDF says it has “numerous” fighter jets in the air right now. Iran has warned Washington not do get involved in the conflict, saying American bases in the region are at risk if it does so.

        An extremely vague Biden statement:

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        Al Jazeera LIVE FEED:

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        Update(1845): Ballistic missiles are still in the air headed for Israel along with more than 100 drones. Live visuals have shown projectiles falling on Israel. Iran is now very publicly saying the matter has “concluded”:

        IRAN’S UN MISSION: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”

        From Israel’s perspective, Iran has now crossed a red line, and Netanyahu is likely to now see himself as having carte blanche to take out Iran nuclear facilities.

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        Update(1805): Iranian state media has just reported that the elite IRGC has launched its first wave of ballistic and(or) cruise missiles at Israel. Already an estimated hundreds of drones are headed toward Israel. It appears Iran is seeking to overwhelm Israel’s anti-air defense systems. The United States is expected to help Israel intercept this barrage. There are statements from the Houthis saying they have also launched rockets against Israel, and there are fears Hezbollah is about to unleash a barrage too, with early reports saying dozens of Katyusha rockets have already been sent into northern Israel tonight. Unconfirmed reports have said rockets have been launched from Iranian assets in Syria too.

        Below is the IRGC confirmation via PressTV: “In response to the Zionist regime’s numerous crimes, including the attack on the consular section of Iran’s Embassy in Damascus and the martyrdom of a number of our country’s commanders and military advisors in Syria, the IRGC’s Aerospace Division launched tens of missiles and drones against certain targets inside the occupied territories,” the statement read. At this point the question is which will hit first: the slower-moving drones which were launched well over an hour ago, or the ballistic missiles which are likely to take less than 30 minutes to reach their targets.

        The Iranian attack has an official name, and Tehran is warning that the US and foreign countries must ‘stay away’ from the conflict…

        IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SAYS OPERATION ‘TRUE PROMISE’ IS PART OF PUNISHMENT FOR ISRAELI CRIMES’ – IRANIAN STATE TV

         

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        Already hawks in the US are urging Biden to intervene heavily on the side of Israel…

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        According to an unconfirmed note:

        Al Jazeera citing Channel 12: British fighters participate with American fighters in intercepting Iranian marches in the airspace of Jordan and Syria.

        Geopolitical analyst Max Abrahms writes that “Iran and Israel are now at war. A real, direct war.”

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        Update(1554ET): Axios correspondent Barak Ravid has cited several US and Israeli officials who say Iran’s attack against Israel has started. It is currently almost 11pm in Israel. It could take hours for the drones to reach Israel, however, the big question remains whether Tehran sends ballistic missiles. Both the IDF and the Biden administration have confirmed that drones are en route to Israeli airspace. Iranian state TV also since confirmed. The White House has said the attack is “likely to unfold over a number of hours.”

        “Iran launches attack against Israel using dozens of drones, four U.S. and Israeli officials told me,” Ravid writes. Airspace across Iran, Iran, Jordan, and Israel has reportedly been shut in the last hours. There are reports citing the Jordanian government saying it stands ready to shoot down any drones that violate its airspace. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Houthis have launched projectiles out of Yemen.

        Airspace shut from Iran to Iraq to Jordan…

        Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued the following nighttime speech just ahead of the reported attack:

        “Citizens of Israel, in recent years, and even more so in recent weeks, Israel has been preparing for the possibility of a direct attack from Iran,” the premier says in a video statement. “Our defense systems are deployed, and we are prepared for any scenario, both in defense and offense. The State of Israel is strong, the IDF is strong, the public is strong.”

        “We appreciate the US for standing by Israel’s side as well as the support of the UK, France and many other countries.” “I established a clear principle — whoever hurts us, we will hurt them. We will defend ourselves from any threat and we will do so calmly and with determination.”

        “I know that you, the citizens of Israel, are also keeping calm. I urge you to listen to the directives of the Home Front Command.”

        “Together we stand, and with God’s help, together we will overcome all of our enemies,” Netanyahu says.

        Schools in Israel and public gatherings have been closed for the coming days. The IDF is giving the citizenry guidelines about seeking bomb shelters and awaiting instructions.

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        Crypto is crashing on the news…

         

        President Joe Biden has reportedly cut short a beach vacation to head back to the White House where he’s meeting with his national security team, monitoring the attacks, as well as Israel’s defense. It’s as yet unclear if Iran has launched ballistic missiles, following the initial drone salvo. Fox News is reporting that the head of US Central Command, Michael Kurilla, has safely departed Israel.

        Israel’s Home Front command has issued the following emergency notification restricting gatherings across the country in anticipation of inbound Iranian projectiles. There are also “work from home” orders being issued, especially for non-essential government personnel.

        Meanwhile just yesterday…

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        The past days have seen American diplomats in a global push to get countries to hold back Iran from launching a retaliatory attack on Israel for its April 1st embassy attack in Damascus.

        Washington is especially leaning on China, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in hopes that a united diplomatic front could deescalate the situation, at a moment Israel is bracing for an assault.

        US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with several officials over the past week, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “We have also engaged with European allies and partners over the past few days and urged them as well to send a clear message to Iran: that escalation is not in Iran’s interest, it’s not in the region’s interest and it’s not in the world’s interest,” a statement from the State Department indicated.

        Blinken “has been making clear to every country that has any semblance of a relationship with Iran that it is in their interest to use that relationship to send a message to Iran that they should not escalate this conflict. But I will let those countries speak for themselves about what action they may or may not take,” the statement from spokesman Matthew Miller said.

        Miller added that US has also “engaged with European allies and partners over the past few days” to deliver a message urging restraint to Iran. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have also been engaging the Iranian foreign minister in recent days.

        Blinken’s message to Turkey and Saudi Arabia was that they should “urge Iran not to escalate.” Going into this weekend, it’s being widely reported that a major Iranian attack, possibly including ballistic missiles and drones, remains ‘imminent’. US officials have told media sources that Iran has been observed moving major military assets including missile systems.

        Though Iranian operatives on Saturday morning have seized an Israeli-linked tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, it seems the ‘big attack’ is still on hold for now.

        The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, suggests there may be a diplomatic way out that avoids full Iranian military retaliation. Iran is “proposing the following: If a ceasefire is reached in Gaza and Israel does not attack the city of Rafah, it is ready, in order to reduce escalation and tension, not to take any action against Israel at the present time,” the newspaper stated.

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        But it’s anything but clear that a leader like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be willing to alter his plans to eradicate Hamas based on dictates from Tehran. Currently, the atmosphere seems one of the calm before the storm.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 23:59

      • Illegal Immigration Costs American Households Hundreds Of Billions Annually
        Illegal Immigration Costs American Households Hundreds Of Billions Annually

        Authored by Chadwick Hagan via The Epoch Times,

        Illegal immigration weighs heavily on the wallets of hardworking American taxpayers – to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

        Still, the Biden administration turns a blind eye to these fiscal strains, neglecting the toll on our economy, the structural integrity of our nation, and the safety of our citizens.

        Estimates suggest that illegal immigrants cost each household about $1,000, adding up to more than $120 billion a year.

        Sources such as Newsweek hint that the true cost may be even higher, possibly reaching $150 billion annually, an amount shared by both federal and state governments. In all actuality, the financial impact could be much worse.

        The situation continues to deteriorate by the day. Just this past December, Border Patrol recorded 249,785 arrests along the Mexican border, a 31 percent spike from November 2023 and a 13 percent surge from the December 2022 record.

        Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration and the adoption of his open borders approach, more than 7.2 million illegal immigrants have streamed into the United States through the southern border, a number surpassing the population of 36 states.

        Some estimate that number to be nearer to 10 million. The lawlessness makes it impossible to keep an accurate count.

        The repercussions of illegal immigration cast long shadows over various aspects of our society, from heightened crime rates to suppressed wages to the depletion of taxpayer resources. Public services face strain, with illegal immigrants accessing emergency health care, enrolling their children in public schools, and tapping into social welfare programs. Some argue their willingness to accept lower wages drives down earnings, leading to reduced tax revenues and increased reliance on social welfare programs among low-wage workers, citizens, and legal residents alike. Even our property tax is paying for illegal immigrants. This generational problem demands pragmatic consideration and competent leadership.

        To exacerbate matters, if illegal immigrants operate solely within cash transactions, much of their income goes undocumented.

        This is why I advocate for measures such as the Fair Tax Act, which replaces income tax with a consumption tax, ensuring revenue from cash transactions is taxed.

        While proponents argue that illegal immigrants are paying into our tax system, and even our Social Security system, it is hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction.

        According to a 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research paper (Working Paper 31086, “Measuring the Characteristics and Employment Dynamics of U.S. Inventors”), the majority of innovation in America is driven by white and Asian (including Indian) individuals.

        The paper estimates that 96.5 percent of U.S. inventors were white or Asian as of 2016.

        The question remains: Why are we allowing our borders to be overrun by illegal immigrants when we need controlled and tactical immigration to pay into our depleted social systems and kick-start the next wave of innovation?

        Why would the United States prohibit valuable workers from becoming American citizens while on work visas yet entice unskilled and impoverished workers to enter the country and stay illegally?

        These unanswered questions only add fuel to the fires of conspiracy and intrigue.

        Giving priority to visas for highly skilled workers will not only strengthen our domestic initiatives but also stimulate innovation and bolster economic growth. It is beyond puzzling that the United States of America continues to welcome unskilled workers when our nation’s prosperity hinges on innovation and skilled labor. The Democratic Party’s reluctance to use the term “illegal immigrants,” echoed by figures such as Nikki Haley, is equally confusing. As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rightly pointed out, coming to this country illegally is illegal.

        We need to fast-track immigrants who are likely to innovate and create wealth instead of prioritizing low-skilled workers.

        It’s time for responsible leadership to step up and implement immigration policies that benefit the United States and the American people.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 23:20

      • These Are Asia's Richest Billionaires
        These Are Asia’s Richest Billionaires

        As of the start of April, Mukesh Ambani (66) is the richest man in Asia, with a net worth of $116.1 billion, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List,

        Ambani is the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, a conglomerate that focuses not only on petrochemicals, but also textiles and telecommunications. As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, Ambani ranks 11th on Forbes’ worldwide list, which is headed by Bernard Arnault & family (LVMH) with $221.8 billion, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) with $197.5 billion and Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, X formerly Twitter) with $189.0 billion.

        Infographic: Asia's Richest Billionaires | Statista

        You will find more infographics at Statista

        In second place – and some 32.8 billion dollars behind – comes 61-year-old Gautam Adani who is the chairperson of the Adani Group, a conglomerate that deals with businesses exporting and importing raw materials and finished goods, including coal trading, mining, oil and gas exploration, as well as ports, energy and agricultural commodities.

        He is succeeded by Zhong Shanshan (69), with a net worth of $64.5 billion. Shanshan is the founder of beverages company Nongfu Spring as well as the founder of Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, a private Chinese company and major supplier of Covid-19 testing kits.

        Rounding off the top ten comes Savitri Jindal (74), the widow of Om Prakash Jindal who founded the Jindal Group in India, whose interests lay in steel, power, cement and infrastructure, with an estimated net worth of $34.8 billion, followed by Shiv Nadar (78), founder and chairman of the IT enterprise HCL Technologies, with $34.5 billion.

        The top ten richest people in Asia have a total net worth of $542.1 billion.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 22:45

      • Snopes Changed Fact-Check After Pressure From Biden Administration: Emails
        Snopes Changed Fact-Check After Pressure From Biden Administration: Emails

        Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

        The fact-checking website Snopes changed one of its ratings after pressure from President Joe Biden’s administration, newly disclosed emails show.

        Snopes on Jan. 10, 2023, said that there was some truth to a claim that President Biden’s administration was planning to ban gas stoves.

        Under a heading of “what’s true,” Snopes said that “The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a federal agency, is currently considering a ban on gas stoves if they can’t be made safer, due to concerns over harmful indoor pollutants that cause health and respiratory problems.”

        Under another heading, it said that the ban has not been put in place.

        The article quoted Richard Trumka Jr., a CPSC commissioner, as saying that “any option is on the table” when dealing with gas stoves. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Mr. Trumka told Bloomberg a few days prior.

        Pamela Rucker Springs, a spokeswoman for the CPSC, hours after the rating was published contacted Snopes writer Nur Ibrahim, the newly disclosed emails show.

        She said she it was “not accurate to say that CPSC is ‘considering a ban on gas stoves’ and that Mr. Trumka’s views ”do not represent official statements on behalf of the commission.”

        “We would appreciate a correction to this story,” Ms. Springs said.

        Mr. Ibrahim responded the following day saying Snopes would “correct the article.”

        Snopes then changed the fact-check rating from “mixture” to “false.”

        The CPSC “is not currently considering a ban on gas stoves, though a commissioner said ‘anything is on the table’ if they can’t be made safer,” the updated article states.

        Ms. Springs sent a link to the updated page to White House official Michael Kikukawa, the newly disclosed documents show. “Sent over tough letter to this writer yesterday when the initial claim was rated as ’mixed,’” she wrote.

        “Nice!! So helpful going forward,” Mr. Kikukawa responded.

        Mr. Kikuwaka told Ms. Springs in another email that the White House would be circulating a statement “making clear POTUS does not support banning gas stoves” and sharing social media posts from the commission and Mr. Trumka. “Will also be pushing people your way,” he wrote.

        The emails were obtained by the Functional Government Initiative nonprofit through the Freedom of Information Act.

        “A commissioner appointed by President Biden wanted to ban gas stoves, and he got caught, provoking a public outcry. So, the CPSC staff leaned on Snopes, seeking to counter the narrative by splitting hairs about commission processes. And the White House finds this ‘helpful.’ Helpful with what?“ Pete McGinnis, spokesman for the nonprofit, said in a statement.

        ”This goes beyond dysfunction—the government using sympathetic media to censor inconvenient news. The American people deserve both to keep their gas stoves and to know the truth about what regulations government officials are considering.”

        Snopes did not respond to a request for comment.

        Closer to Ban

        The CPSC framed the possibility of banning stoves as solely on Mr. Trumka, issuing a statement from Alexander Hoehn-Saric.

        The chairman of the commission said, “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

        At the same time, CPSC officials acknowledged that they were investigating emissions from gas stoves and were “exploring new ways to address any health risks.”

        Mr. Trumka said in an internal memorandum reviewed by The Epoch Times that there was “sufficient information” for the commission to issue a notice of a proposed rule “proposing to ban gas stoves in homes.” He told Peter Feldman, another commissioner, that “emerging evidence” showed that “gas stoves in homes emit toxic gases that cause illnesses and that lower-cost, safer alternatives are available.” The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, which obtained the memo, said that it proved the administration ”intended to ban gas stoves.”

        The CPSC later approved a final notice of rulemaking offered by Mr. Trumka asking for “proposed solutions” to “hazards” from gas stoves.

        That notice has not appeared to have resulted in a new rule as of yet.

        Separately, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a proposed rule that would ban about half of the gas stoves on the market. When the final rule was released in January, though, it had been watered down and only affected about three percent of gas stoves.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 22:10

      • Investors Bet On Further Rise In US Gasoline Prices
        Investors Bet On Further Rise In US Gasoline Prices

        By John Kemp, senior energy analyst at Reuters

        Portfolio investors have amassed one of the largest bullish positions in U.S. gasoline futures and options since before the coronavirus pandemic, anticipating that prices will continue climbing over the next few months.

        U.S. gasoline has emerged as the most attractive part of the petroleum complex for investors betting prices will rise further this year in the run up to presidential and congressional elections in November.

        Relatively low inventories, employment gains, strong household income growth and the prospect of an active hurricane season are expected to keep gasoline consumption high and inventories under pressure.

        Ukraine’s drone attacks on refineries in Russia threaten to tighten the international supply situation even further and have prompted the Biden administration to warn Ukraine’s government to change its targeting.

        BUOYANT CONSUMPTION

        U.S. gasoline consumption is correlated with employment and household incomes so the current rise in nonfarm jobs and wage rates are likely to underpin strong use in 2024.

        Domestic consumption has been trending structurally lower since 2007 as a result of improvements in fuel economy, ethanol blending and more recently the deployment of electric and hybrid vehicles. But lower domestic use has been more than offset by strong growth in exports, mostly to Mexico and other countries in Latin America, which has kept overall refinery production trending higher.

        Strong domestic consumption during the peak summer driving season is likely to cause inventories to tighten cyclically and exert upward pressure on prices in 2024.

        ACTIVE HURRICANE SEASON

        Nearly half of the total refinery capacity in the U.S. is located along the Gulf of Mexico on the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

        Every year there is a small but non-zero chance refinery processing will be disrupted by a direct hit from a major hurricane.

        The North Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June through November with activity peaking in August and September (“Tropical cyclone climatology”, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2024).

        The precise number of storms, their intensity and the location of landfalls is highly variable and notoriously difficult to predict months in advance.

        But the expected shift from El Nino to La Nina conditions underway in the central and eastern Pacific is often associated with an increased number and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic (“Impacts of El Nino and La Nina on the hurricane season,” NOAA, 2014).

        At the same time, Atlantic storm creation and intensity is strongly correlated with sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean and the tropical North Atlantic.

        Tropical storm formation requires sea surface temperatures of at least 26°C, among a number of other conditions (“Cyclogenesis”, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 2017).

        Sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic were at a record seasonal high in March 2024, according to data from the U.S. Climate Prediction Centre.

        Sea surface temperatures surged higher around the world, including a very strong warm El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific, but the exceptional warming was most pronounced in the Atlantic.

        Surface temperatures in the Atlantic from 5° to 20° North and from 30° to 60° West averaged almost 27.1°C in March, which was more than 1.5°C above the long-term seasonal average.

        If the surface warmth persists into the second and third quarters it is likely to result in an above average number of tropical storms and more major hurricanes in 2024 and an elevated threat to the Gulf Coast refineries.

        Colorado State University researchers have predicted an “extremely active” hurricane season in 2024 (“Forecast for 2024 hurricane activity,” CSU, April 4, 2024).

        The number of named tropical storms and hurricanes is expected to be more than 50% higher than the long-term average.

        BULLISH POSITION

        Hedge funds and other money managers owned bullish long positions equivalent to 99 million barrels on April 2, the highest number for more than four years.

        After adjusting for a minority of bearish short positions, the net position was 84 million barrels, which was in the 88th percentile for all weeks since 2013.

        Fund managers were more bullish on gasoline than on crude (56th percentile) or middle distillates such as diesel and gas oil (53rd percentile).

        Bullish long positions in gasoline outnumbered bearish short ones by a ratio of more than 6.4:1 (68th percentile) on April 2.

        The long-short ratio suggests positioning is less stretched than the absolute number of long positions, but there is still downside risk to prices when long positions are unwound.

        LOW INVENTORIES

        On April 5, U.S. gasoline inventories were 5 million barrels (-2% or -0.42 standard deviations) below the prior ten-year seasonal average.

        Stocks had been as much as 7 million barrels (+3% or +0.75 standard deviations) above seasonal average in late January.

        But a site-wide power failure stopped BP’s massive refinery at Whiting, Indiana, lasting for more than a month from the start of February and resulted in a sharp depletion of stocks.

        Since the refinery restarted in March, the deficit has narrowed slightly, but inventories remain below normal for the time of year, putting upward pressure on prices.

        EVEN HIGHER PRICES?

        U.S. retail gasoline prices (including taxes) averaged $3.54 per gallon in March 2024, almost exactly in line with the average since the start of the century once inflation is taken into account.

        Inflation-adjusted prices have risen from a recent low of $3.22 in January 2024 but are still well below the recent high of $5.42 in June 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

        Fund managers are betting heavily that gasoline prices will rise further over the remainder of the year.

        From a purely positioning perspective, the large number of bullish long positions that must eventually be liquidated has itself created downside risk to prices.

        From a fundamental perspective, however, low inventories, strong consumption, threat to Russia’s refineries, and elevated hurricane risk to U.S. refineries are all sources of upside potential.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 21:35

      • Trump Suggests Offering Aid To Ukraine In The Form Of A Loan
        Trump Suggests Offering Aid To Ukraine In The Form Of A Loan

        Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

        Former President Donald Trump has suggested that he would support Republicans approving Ukraine aid in the form of a loan, but that Europe must “equalize” its efforts to help Ukraine in its war against Russia.

        During a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), President Trump said they are “thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift.”

        “We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars, and we’ll take a look at it,” the former president said.

        “But much more importantly to me is the fact that Europe has to step up, and they have to give money. They have to equalize. If they don’t equalize I’m very upset about it, because they’re affected much more than we are.”

        President Trump has been skeptical of Washington’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and said that he would bring the fighting to an end within 24 hours if he were to return to the White House.

        The former president has previously called on the U.S. government to stop sending money in the form of foreign aid to any country “unless it is done as a loan.”

        Mr. Johnson, who was also present during the press conference, has delayed for months a House vote on legislation already passed by the Democratic-led Senate providing $60 billion in aid for Ukraine.

        Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a press conference during the “Ukraine Year 2024” forum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2024. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

        Ukraine Willing to Accept US Aid in Loan

        Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a local broadcaster last week that his government would be open to accepting U.S. aid in the form of loan if that is the only option left.

        “You know, a senator was here recently, and he asked me: would you agree to take the loan money? I said, ‘What are the options?’ He said, ‘Well, if, for example, they tell you that the money is a loan or you won’t get it.’ I said, ‘What’s the point of such an election if there is no choice?’

        “Let’s be honest: we will agree to any option. I’ll tell you more: if Ukraine was offered a package on credit today or free of charge in a year, we would say: only today. There is no choice here. Our only choice is to survive and win. We are trying to do this in different ways. This is about the loan. Important: the sooner the better,” he said.

        But Mr. Zelenskyy said he remains optimistic in getting “a positive vote” from the U.S. Congress.

        “Unfortunately, we are a bit hostage to this situation. Unfortunately, the issue of Ukraine, namely the issue of Russia’s war against Ukraine, has become a domestic political issue in the United States today. Although this is the security of the whole world,” he remarked.

        Ukraine Aid Package in Progress

        Mr. Johnson told Fox News on March 31 that legislation to provide additional aid for Ukraine is being drafted in the House and will be brought to the floor when members return from their current recess.

        “When it comes to the supplemental, we’ve been working to build that consensus. We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations,” he said.

        Mr. Johnson has been supportive of continued aid for Ukraine but has also stressed the importance of securing the United States’s own borders first.

        When the Senate passed legislation that included funding for both Ukraine and immigration enforcement, he led the opposition in the House on the grounds that the bill heavily prioritized Ukraine and offered no significant border policy reforms.

        As of yet, there has been no agreement reached on the crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border. While President Joe Biden and Democrats say additional funding is needed to stop the historic surge of illegal immigrants into the United States, Republicans hold that the president already possesses the funds and authority to fix the problem.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 21:00

      • Watch: Non-English Speaking Military-Aged Venezuelan Male Attempts To Rob Bank In Ohio Using Translator App
        Watch: Non-English Speaking Military-Aged Venezuelan Male Attempts To Rob Bank In Ohio Using Translator App

        President Biden’s disastrous open southern border policies have sparked a migrant crime wave. This comes amid the ten million plus illegal aliens that have invaded the nation through the collapsed southern border, alongside recent calls from radical progressive lawmakers across crime-ridden metro areas to defund the police and limit criminal prosecution. All of this is a perfect storm of crime and chaos heading into the summer months. 

        According to Bloomberg data, the story count featuring “migrant crime” has surged from only a handful of headlines to hundreds in the last 3.5 months. 

        Some of these headlines include Chilean crime gangs roaming the nation on a burglary spree, targeting wealthy neighborhoods from coast to coast. Some migrants have even taken to social media to inform others about seizing homes from Americans under progressive squatting laws. Others run amuck in progressive metro areas where Soros-backed district attorneys fail to prosecute some criminals. 

        The latest instance of the migrant invasion and escalating crime wave was a 20-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela who attempted to rob a bank in Sandusky, Ohio. 

        On April 4, Sandusky Police were called to the West Perkins Avenue bank for a ‘suspicious man loitering’, according to local media outlet Sandusky Register. 

        “While en route to the bank, officers received additional information that Yeixon Brito-Gonzalez, who only spoke Spanish, was asking tellers to put money in a white trash bag,” the paper said. 

        Video released of the attempted robbery shows the illegal alien using a translator app on a smartphone to instruct the teller to load a trash bag full of cash. 

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

        Here’s more from the Sandusky Register: 

        In speaking with bank personnel, officers learned that Brito-Gonzalez had attempted to get behind the bank counter and then sat in a chair.

        He purportedly showed a teller his phone several times with messages translated into English from Spanish. The messages directed the teller to get money and place it in a white trash bag Briton-Gonzalez had with him.

        Officers later located Brito-Gonzalez in the 1300 block of E. Parish St. They learned he only spoke Spanish so they called in an officer who is fluent in that language, the report states.

        It was discovered that he had a white trash bag in his possession. He also voluntarily showed officers his phone, and they found a translation application on it, according to Sandusky police Chief Jared Oliver.

        Brito-Gonzalez was arrested based upon statements he made as well as witness statements, however officers were unable to positively identify him at the time due to his not having any identification documents.

        He was ordered held at Erie County Jail under a no-bond order. Officers were later able to identify him through the use of an FBI fingerprint database, Oliver said.

        As of late Friday, Brito-Gonzalez is still incarcerated in Erie County Jail under a no-bond order. In addition to his charges from the attempted robbery, US Border Patrol is actively involved in this case as well.

        This incident serves as a reminder for every law-abiding American that some military-aged migrants who were unvetted and flooded this nation are escalating their rampage across the country.

        Let’s not forget.

        And Biden’s migrant invasion continues to spiral out of control. 

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

        The migrant crisis the White House helped create is a public safety risk – already killing Americans. Yet, the White House ignores. 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 20:25

      • The Hidden Cost Of Progressivism, Part I
        The Hidden Cost Of Progressivism, Part I

        Authored by David Parker via The Epoch Times,

        With the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers created a nation of maximum individual freedom, maximum individual responsibility, limited government, and classical liberalism. Having fled anti-democratic European aristocracy, privileged class structure, and limited opportunity, American colonists did not want government in their lives. The Founding Fathers believed that Adam Smith was correct when he said individuals independently pursuing their self-interest to survive naturally organize society. Without government planning, it was the invisible hand of nature.

        In 1933, America flipped that vision. To progressives, freedom now meant freedom with government. President Franklin Roosevelt turned government from a neutral third party, whose sole purpose is to protect life, liberty, and property, to government as an active third party, whose sole purpose is to provide life, liberty, and property. This is the nation we have today, where all citizens (to some degree) are dependent on government.

        That reversal comes with a cost: the hidden cost of progressivism.

        Every individual or family earning $50,000 per year is, today, paying a hidden tax of at least $28,100 per year over and above federal and state income tax.

        Examples:

        1. Government has so regulated the market for health care that the market no longer exists. American health insurance today is not insurance; it’s prepaid health care—that’s why it costs two to three times what it should, two to three times what it costs anywhere else in the world. With health insurance in the United States automatically paying for most procedures, citizens no longer bargain over price. To nothing else in life are they so indifferent. Citizens in New Jersey, for instance, are indifferent to the fact that the price of health insurance in Pennsylvania is three times less. In complete violation of interstate commerce, progressive federal law forbids citizens from purchasing health insurance across state lines. Before Medicare, the cost of health insurance was $200 per month (in 2022 dollars), $50 per month for a young person—the price of auto insurance, property insurance on a $1 million home, or life insurance. Today, it’s $600 per month, provided your employer contributes an additional $800 to $1,000. The employer doesn’t care; it’s a tax write-off. Eliminate government from health care, and the price of health insurance will drop by 66 percent. Ask your employer to give you what he’s paying on your behalf. It’s your money. $800 per month times 12 is $9,600 per year. Hidden tax one.

        2. Social Security takes 15 percent of your income. You pay 7.5 percent, and your employer pays 7.5 percent, but it’s money your employer would otherwise have given you. Fifteen percent, however, is more than is necessary. Properly invested, 10 percent is sufficient. That 5 percent differential on $50,000 is $2,500 per year. Hidden tax two. (That 10 percent of $50,000, $5,000, when invested at 5 percent annual interest compounded monthly, in 40 years is worth $658,194. In 50 years, $1,147,283.)

        3. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said unequivocally that there would be no increase in taxes for the War on Poverty. A gullible nation now knows that, to date, that “war” has cost $23 trillion; that the poverty rate, 15 percent in 1964, on average, remained 15 percent; and that today, the war is paid for by borrowing. Roughly $900 billion per year (15 percent of the federal budget) divided by 150 million taxpayers is $6,000 per person. Hidden tax three.

        4. Until 1890, schools were private. Parents who couldn’t afford to send their children were provided the means—from property taxes. Thank you, Thomas Jefferson. But then progressives amalgamated them into today’s government-administered unified school districts—except that once a huge enterprise becomes a government project, it’s open to rent-seeking and politicization. This allowed political pressure in the 1970s to force public schools to try to create equal outcomes for all students—which they found was impossible without lowering standards, which is why middle-class parents pulled their children and sent them to private schools at a cost of $20,000 to $40,000 per year per child. If just one child per family attends private school at $20,000 per year ($10,000 per parent), over and above the property taxes the family already pays (even if they are tenants), that’s hidden tax four.

        Hidden Taxes Per Year

        So if we add up the above hidden taxes, it looks like this: $9,600 plus $2,500 plus $6,000 plus $10,000 equals $28,100.

        Actually, there’s much more. Any serious constraint on business causes businesses to raise prices, a hidden tax. Domestic farm subsidies and tariffs on foreign goods raise prices. A hidden tax.

        Solution: Reverse all federal legislation since 1933.

        Social Security, Medicare, everything—except legislation that reinforces civil rights and national defense. Remove government from the economy, and the federal income tax rate will drop to 15 percent.

        Let citizens keep that $28,100 per year! Universal basic income.

        In a Jeffersonian democracy, where no citizen is denied the vote, it’s understood that citizens can and do think for themselves.

        We’re not living in Plato’s Republic, an island of progressivism, where the nation’s most capable, its aristocracy, are in power. Dictatorship. In Plato’s Republic, the masses didn’t vote.

        Arguments for Doing Nothing

        The wealthy do not object to high income taxes; they’re not paying! Let the middle class continue to pay!

        Large corporations do not object to regulation and monitoring by government. They can afford the millions of dollars in legal fees to comply—Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank—then buy up the smaller firms that cannot. Monopoly. Let them continue to do that! The corporations that survive create the efficient corporate state: Bismarck, Mussolini, Hitler, China. National socialism!

        For U.S. prosperity, all that’s necessary is that the United States has less regulation than elsewhere in the world. That would give the United States an enormous competitive advantage. Let governments worldwide tax and regulate business, forcing them to increase prices, and prices in the United States will be lower. U.S. manufacturing and exports will rise.

        Let the United States offer more social, political, and economic freedom than elsewhere in the world, and it will continue to attract the world’s most independent and entrepreneurial talent – what enabled the United States to go to the moon in 1969 (German scientists), what today keeps the United States at the forefront of high technology, information technology, and quantum computing (71 percent of those in Silicon Valley are foreign-born). With American public schools being the lowest achieving in the industrialized world, with foreign students outscoring American students on the SAT and enrolling in U.S. universities, let smart immigrants continue to arrive.

        The U.S. has nothing to worry about…

        *  *  *

        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
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 19:50

      • The Exodus Continues: Blue Regions Still Bleeding As Residents Escape Democrat Policies
        The Exodus Continues: Blue Regions Still Bleeding As Residents Escape Democrat Policies

        Can Democrats take a hint?  The answer is obviously no, but with millions of people flooding out of Democrat controlled places and relocating to more conservative regions one might think they would finally get the message.

        Blue cities and states across the US have been experiencing a mass exodus of legal residents since before the pandemic event; many of them business owners taking their money (and job opportunities) with them.  The hardest hit states in the country include New York, Illinois and California, with cities like NYC, LA, Chicago and San Francisco seeing some of the most aggressive population shift.  In states like California the standard operating procedure has been to lie about the situation, using the surge of illegal immigrants to hide population loss in the census.   

        There are a multitude of reasons for the great American migration:  The pandemic lockdowns made many people realize Democrats are inclined towards authoritarian policies and they left because they wanted freedom. Sanctuary status is allowing illegals to flood into blue areas, straining welfare programs and inflating housing costs.  The bureaucracy of leftist cities creates a concrete barrier to success for most small to medium business owners, and even larger companies and chains are ready to exit because of high taxes and over-regulation.  Finally, soft prosecution laws in blue states and cities have led to a clear spike in criminal activity which Democrats are also trying to deny.

        It’s estimated by Zillow’s chief economist that establishing a residency in California would require around $1 million or more in starting money.  The state has the second highest cost of living in the nation, as well as the worst reported job growth in the nation in 2023.  Property prices are exploding higher, but with fewer and fewer buyers.  This is probably why California has been dead last on the list of most desirable states to move to for the past few years running.   

        No one wants to be left holding the bag in a state or city where it’s becoming impossible to leave.  For people with the money, relocation is a no-brainer.  

        Another factor which is going mostly ignored by the establishment media is the rising trend of political disassociation.  The left has become so extreme in their views and behavior that the rest of the populace doesn’t want to deal with them anymore.  Conservatives and independents are rushing for the exits to get as far away from these people as possible.

        Contrary to popular fears among conservatives, the exodus has not pushed voting numbers towards progressive politicians or policies in the slightest.  In fact, Idaho has reported a considerable influx of conservative voters moving in after escaping blue states.  Similar reports are coming out of Texas and Florida.  There is no blue tide.  There is no California takeover – Red states are only turning more red.

        Are progressives moving out of the cities, too?  Yes, to the suburbs and to outlying towns within driving distances of their original homes.  It’s getting to the point where even leftists are admitting their own cities are not livable. The latest U-Haul data helps to explain the developments more clearly.

        The exodus is now having visible effects on Democrat havens that can no longer be hidden.  Crime activity is so suffocating that many corporate chains are leaving, only to be threatened by city politicians with legal reprisals if they shut down.  If Democrats can’t trick people into staying, they plan to force people to stay.     

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 19:15

      • CDC Study Doesn't 'Debunk' Link Between COVID-19 Vaccines & Sudden-Deaths
        CDC Study Doesn’t ‘Debunk’ Link Between COVID-19 Vaccines & Sudden-Deaths

        Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

        A new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study does not disprove a link between COVID-19 vaccines and sudden deaths among young people, contrary to claims.

         

        The study, published by the CDC’s quasi-journal on April 11, analyzed death certificates from Oregon for people aged 16 to 30 who died between June 2021 and December 2022.

        Among people who died with evidence of vaccination, three died within 100 days of a shot, Drs. Juventila Liko and Paul Cieslak with the Oregon Health Authority found.

        None of those three deaths could be attributed to messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination, or shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, according to the doctors. Two of the deaths were attributed to underlying conditions while the cause of death for the third was “undetermined.”

        “These data do not support an association between receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and sudden cardiac death among previously healthy young persons,” the doctors wrote.

        The authors failed to note that a much larger, peer-reviewed study from South Korea confirmed vaccine-induced myocarditis caused eight sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs), all among people younger than 45. Myocarditis is a form of heart inflammation.

        The new study “is at odds with a higher quality and peer-reviewed journal article published in the European Heart Journal,” Dr. David McCune, who was not involved with either paper, told The Epoch Times via email. “The study, from Korea, found a small but significant group of patients who had SCD and autopsy evidence consistent with vaccine-induced myocarditis.”

        Multiple media outlets published stories on the new study, but none mentioned the South Korean article.

        The stories also included false or misleading claims.

        U.S. News and World Report’s story said that it was an “incorrect idea that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to death in young people.”

        NBC’s article said that the study “debunks widespread misinformation that the mRNA shots were connected to sudden cardiac death in young athletes.”

        NBC reporter Berkeley Lovelace Jr. also wrote that “there is no evidence that COVID vaccines cause fatal cardiac arrest or other deadly heart problems in teens and young adults, a CDC report finds.”

        “I don’t think that is close to an accurate assessment of the CDC paper or the overall level of knowledge we have about vaccine risk,” Dr. McCune said.

        The reporters who wrote the articles for U.S. News and World Report, NBC, The Hill, and Medpage Today did not respond to requests for comment.

        Other papers that support a link between deaths among young people and COVID-19 vaccination include a study that analyzed post-vaccination deaths in Qatar and determined there was a “high probability” that eight sudden cardiac deaths, including one person aged 11 to 20, were caused by the vaccination. Some death certificates have also described COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis as a cause of death for sudden deaths, including the certificate for an American college student who died suddenly after receiving a Pfizer shot.

        Authorities in the United States acknowledge that the COVID-19 vaccines can cause myocarditis but maintain no deaths have been caused by vaccine-induced myocarditis. They have refused to release autopsies conducted on people who died after COVID-19 vaccination. Several long-term studies have identified heart scarring in people who suffered myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination. Some experts say the scarring may be permanent and could eventually lead to death.

        Dr. Ofer Levy, an adviser to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told NBC that no vaccine has ever been conclusively linked to sudden cardiac death and that the new study “adds to evidence that people don’t drop dead from getting their mRNA COVID vaccines.” Dr. Levy did not respond when asked whether he was aware of the South Korean paper and other literature.

        NBC also quoted Dr. Leslie Cooper in promoting the study while failing to note that Dr. Cooper is a consultant for Moderna.

        Authors Respond

        Asked why they didn’t mention literature that presents evidence of sudden cardiac death among previously healthy young people after vaccination, the authors told The Epoch Times in an email that they had. The studies they included are an Israeli paper that does not mention sudden death; a letter that noted sudden deaths among athletes, regardless of vaccination status, since the vaccines were rolled out; an analysis of 911 calls from Israel; and a case definition for myocarditis that says it can be a cause of sudden death. None of the papers cite autopsy data or other strong evidence that has emerged.

        The authors also linked to a 2021 CDC statement and a 2021 CDC presentation, neither of which mention sudden death.

        The authors did not say whether they were unaware of the South Korean study or chose not to include it.

        The CDC should “not have published their study without acknowledging the international studies that have identified post-mRNA vax-related cardiac death in young people,” Dr. Tracy Hoeg, who was not involved in the research, wrote on the social media platform X.

        In the paper, the authors also cited an earlier CDC study that found people who entered a health system were at higher risk of cardiac complications after COVID-19 infection versus after COVID-19 vaccination. The relevance isn’t clear since the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infection, and some other studies have found that the risk of myocarditis is higher after vaccination among young people.

        Asked why they didn’t cite any of those other studies, the authors referred back to the papers they did cite and said they “also clearly expressed the limitations in the research.”

        Limitations of the paper include the small population size, which would make it “less likely” for Oregon to record “a rare event such as sudden cardiac death among adolescents and young adults,” the authors wrote in the study.

        “Nevertheless, it is clear that the risk, if any, of cardiac death linked to COVID-19 vaccination is very low, while the risk of dying from COVID-19 is real,” Dr. Cieslak said in a press release issued by the Oregon Health Authority. “We continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for all persons 6 months of age and older to prevent COVID-19 and complications, including death.”

        The authority didn’t list any data that show the currently available vaccines prevent COVID-19 complications such as death. U.S. regulators cleared them in 2023 without clinical trial efficacy data. Only animal testing data was available for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax shots. Moderna presented antibody data from 50 humans. Observational studies have since provided mixed effectiveness data against infection and hospitalization.

        CDC Journal

        The CDC published the study in its journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which only publishes papers after officials shape them to align with the agency’s messaging. The CDC has been relentlessly promotive of the COVID-19 vaccines since they were rolled out.

        Previous releases of documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that CDC officials engage in multiple rounds of editing of papers published in the journal.

        The authors of the new paper acknowledged that the paper was edited prior to publication.

        “CDC made no edits that altered the conclusions of the study,” they said.

        The CDC journal’s editor-in-chief did not respond to a query.

        The Epoch Times has filed FOIA requests to ascertain which edits were made, and by whom.

        The authors also defended the choice to submit the paper to MMWR, rather than a traditional journal.

        “Many times there is a large amount of observational data that is critical for time-sensitive reporting to inform public health practitioners and clinicians. These sorts of time-sensitive publications that might impact the actions of state and county public health leaders have long been published in the CDC’s MMWR,” they said. “In fact, there are numerous examples of CDC’s MMWR being the first source of information during many important historical events, including the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, the discovery of Legionnaires disease, the initial cases of H1N1 in 2009.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 18:40

      • Afghan Migrant On Terror List Released By Immigration Judge, Free To Roam USA
        Afghan Migrant On Terror List Released By Immigration Judge, Free To Roam USA

        An Afghan man and illegal immigrant who’s on the FBI terror watchlist has been twice apprehended in the United States only to be released by a federal apparatus that continues to make a mockery of the very notion of “border security.”  

        Mohammad Kharwin, 48, was first arrested in Southern California in March 2023 after he’d illegally entered the United States from Mexico, according to NBC News, which was first to report the story. Border police suspected Kharwin was on the watchlist, because one unspecified attribute matched his entry on the list.

        Masses of migrants camped in San Ysidro, California in 2023. Mohammed Kharwin was initially processed in the same vicinity. (7SanDiego)

        However, for lack of additional corroborating data, he was processed and released, just like hordes of other illegal migrants before and since. He was instructed to periodically call an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, but was free to apply for asylum and permission to work in the United States. He was also free to board domestic flights.  

        This February, the FBI alerted ICE that they suspected Kharwin had links to a terrorist group and could pose a danger. That prompted ICE to track him down in San Antonio and arrest him on Feb. 28. 

        Buckle in, because the story’s about to get a lot worse. On March 28, Kharwin had an immigration hearing in Pearsall, Texas. The ICE prosecutors told the judge that Kharwin was a flight risk who should be detained without bond. However, they didn’t tell the judge that he posed a potential risk to national security, and declined to show the judge information revealing why the FBI is concerned about him. 

        Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House in February over his border performance (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

        Kept in the dark, the unnamed immigration judge ordered that Kharwin be released, but demanded an above-average-for-illegal-immigrants $12,000 bond. Kharwin immediately paid it and off he went, without any court-mandated restrictions on his travel within the country. He is supposed to appear for another hearing next spring. ICE hasn’t appealed the ruling and, in NBC‘s reporting, there’s no indication authorities are seeking him. 

        According to the watchlist, the FBI believes Kharwin is a member of an Afghanistan group called Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), which has been designated by the United States as a terror group. 

        According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, HIG is a “virulently anti-Western insurgent group” that sought to overturn the Western-backed Afghan government before its fall in 2021. 

        HIG was responsible for attacks in Afghanistan that killed at least nine American soldiers and civilians between 2013 and 2015. The group is not seen as a top threat in terms of attacks inside the U.S.

        Believe it or not, there are some 1.8 million names on the FBI’s terror watchlist, and, as has been observed in the colossal rolling clusterf**k at Guantanamo Bay, the US government sometimes misidentifies people — with positively godawful results. That said, the FBI could well be correct about Kharwin, and the handling of his March immigration hearing is certainly a cause for concern. 

        Migrants near Eagle Pass, Texas await processing in December 2023 (John Moore/Getty Images via Fox10)

        There have been similar cases where watchlisted men have been processed and released. In February, we detailed the case of a man who allegedly is/was a member of the Somali terror group al-Shabaab. He was also caught in southern California in March 2023 and set free to roam the country.  

        In 2023 the Border Patrol caught 172 suspects from the terror watchlist attempting to enter the US illegally. According to former DHS officials, the constant deluge of illegal migrants through the southern border has made it easier for bad actors to enter the country. According to NBC‘s analysis of government data, about 0.02% of encountered illegal immigrants are on the terror watchlist — making them needles in a Biden-enlarged haystack. 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 18:05

      • 'Surprising' Intensity Of Houthi Attacks Push French Warship To Exit Red Sea
        ‘Surprising’ Intensity Of Houthi Attacks Push French Warship To Exit Red Sea

        Via The Cradle

        France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace has turned tail from the Red Sea after running out of missiles and munitions repelling attacks from the Yemeni armed forces, according to its commander, Jerome Henry.

        “We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Henry told French news outlet Le Figaro in an exclusive interview published on 11 April.

        “We had to carry out at least half a dozen assistances following [Yemeni] strikes,” he added. The commander of the Alsace also revealed that, after a 71-day deployment, all combat equipment was depleted.

        “From the Aster missile to the 7.62 machine gun of the helicopter, including the 12.7mm, 20mm, or 76mm cannon, we dealt with three ballistic missiles and half a dozen drones,” Henry adds.

        According to the French commander, the Franco–Italian Aster missile – each carrying a price tag of up to $2 million – “was pushed to its limits” by the Yemeni armed forces, as the Alsace had to use it “on targets that we did not necessarily imagine at the start.”

        Henry added that Sanaa has markedly increased its use of ballistic missiles after relying mainly on suicide drones at the start of Yemen’s pro-Palestine operations in the Red Sea and stressed that the French Navy has not faced such a tough battle since NATO collectively launched its 2011 war on Libya to depose the late ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

        “I was there too. It wasn’t the same thing. It has been even longer since we have engaged with this level of weaponry and violence. The threat to the boat was much greater in the Red Sea,” Henry notes.

        The Alsace entered the Red Sea in late January, a few weeks after the US and the UK launched an illegal war on Yemen to protect Israeli shipping interests. The frigate was deployed as part of the EU naval operation Aspides – Greek for shield.

        With a mandate initially set for one year, Aspides saw the deployment of several EU warships and airborne early warning systems to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and surrounding waters. According to authorities in Brussels, the mission is exclusively defensive, and its forces are not taking part in US-led attacks against Yemen.

        Aspides came together after several NATO members proved hesitant or outright refused to join the floundering Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), which a top US commander called one of the largest battles the navy has fought since the end of World War II.

        “We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution,” US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking said earlier this month, acknowledging the futility of Washington’s military strategy against the Arab world’s poorest country.

        According to Yemeni sources who spoke with The Cradle, US officials recently offered Sanaa “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the ongoing war on Gaza.

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        “[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” The Cradle columnist Khalil Nasrallah cited the sources as saying.

        The offer also includes “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.

        Nevertheless, Yemeni officials have maintained that their operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean will continue until Israel stops the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. “From the coast of the Red Sea or from outside it, we can achieve the goals we want in defense of our country and support of Palestine … We still have many military surprises, and there are military operations that we are keeping secret as part of a specific media strategy,” Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, announced on April 3.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 17:30

      • USAF Conducts B-52 Bomber Exercise With 'Unarmed' Nuclear Cruise Missiles
        USAF Conducts B-52 Bomber Exercise With ‘Unarmed’ Nuclear Cruise Missiles

        Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists, posted on X that the United States Air Force conducted a “nuclear exercise with B-52 bombers” at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota this past week. This exercise coincides with a week of soaring tensions in the Middle East. 

        Airmen from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB and the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB (located in Louisiana) participated in Exercise Prairie Vigilance at the air base in North Dakota between April 6 and 12. 

        Prairie Vigilance is considered a “routine training mission that enhances the safety, security, and reliability of the bomber leg of the US nuclear triad,” the service wrote in a press release published on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service website. 

        The service continued, “Exercises like Prairie Vigilance enable crews to maintain a high state of readiness and proficiency, while validating the always-ready, global strike capability,” adding, “Team Minot Airmen focus on the safe and secure handling of assets comprising the nuclear triad in order to stay proficient in a variety of key operational skills.” 

        Kristensen said this is the third such exercise in six months. He posted images of unarmed nuclear AGM-86B cruise missiles being rolled out to the staging area to be loaded on at least one Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. 

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        The exercise with unarmed nuclear cruise missiles comes as the White House warned on Friday about the Iranians launching an imminent attack on Israel. 

        Late Friday evening, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark told CNBC that a “direct strike on Israel” by the Iranians could force the Israeli Air Force to target “nuclear assets” in the country. 

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        Meanwhile, the F-35A Lightning II stealth jet became operationally certified to be equipped with B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bombs last month. Impeccable timing… 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 16:55

      • How Did Satoshi Think Of Bitcoin?
        How Did Satoshi Think Of Bitcoin?

        Authored by Unchained CSO Dhruv Bansal via BitcoinMagazine.com,

        Bitcoin is often compared to the internet in the 1990s, but I believe the better analogy is to the telegraph in the 1840s.

        The telegraph was the first technology to transmit encoded data at near-light speed over long distances. It marked the birth of the telecommunications industry. The internet, though it is bigger in scale, richer in content, and manyto-many instead of one-to-one, is fundamentally still a telecommunications technology.

        Both the telegraph and the internet rely upon business models in which companies deploy capital to build a physical network and then charge users to send messages through this network. AT&T’s network has historically transmitted telegrams, telephone calls, TCP/IP packets, text messages, and now TikToks.

        The transformation of society through telecom has led to greater freedoms but also greater centralization. The internet has increased the reach of millions of content creators and small businesses, but has also strengthened the grasp of companies, governments and other institutions well-positioned enough to monitor and manipulate online activity.

        But bitcoin is not the end of any transformation – it’s the beginning of one. Like telecommunications, bitcoin will change both human society and daily life. Predicting the full scope of this change today is akin to imagining the internet while living in the era of the telegraph.

        This series attempts to imagine this future by starting with the past. This initial article traces the history of digital currencies before bitcoin. Only by understanding where prior projects fell short can we perceive what makes bitcoin succeed—and how it suggests a methodology for building the decentralized systems of the future.

        OUTLINE

        I. Decentralized systems are markets

        II. Decentralized markets require decentralized goods

        III. How can decentralized systems price computations?

        IV. Satoshi’s monetary policy goals led to bitcoin

        V. Conclusion

        A central claim of this article is that bitcoin can be thought of as an adaptation of Dai’s b-money project that eliminates the freedom to create money. Just weeks after this article was originally published, new emails surfaced in which Satoshi claimed to be unfamiliar with b-money, yet admitted that bitcoin starts “from exactly that point.” In light of this new evidence, we believe this central claim, while not historically accurate, is still a meaningful and helpful way to think about the origin of bitcoin. 

        Unchained is the Official Collaborative Custody Partner of Bitcoin Magazine. Click here to learn more about Unchained’s bitcoin financial services and receive exclusive discounts on Unchained vault, Signature and IRA.

        HOW DID SATOSHI THINK OF BITCOIN?

        Satoshi was brilliant, but bitcoin didn’t come out of nowhere.

        Bitcoin iterated on existing work in cryptography, distributed systems, economics, and political philosophy. The concept of proof-of-work existed long before its use in money and prior cypherpunks such as Nick Szabo, Wei Dai, & Hal Finney anticipated and influenced the design of bitcoin with projects such as bit gold, b-money, and RPOW. Consider that, by 2008, when Satoshi wrote the bitcoin white paper,[2] many of the ideas important to bitcoin had already been proposed and/or implemented:

        • Digital currencies should be P2P networks

        • Proof-of-work is the basis of money creation

        • Money is created through an auction

        • Public key cryptography is used to define ownership & transfer of coins

        • Transactions are batched into blocks

        • Blocks are chained together through proof-of-work

        • All blocks are stored by all participants

        Bitcoin leverages all these concepts, but Satoshi didn’t originate any of them. To better understand Satoshi’s contribution, we should determine which principles of bitcoin are missing from the list.

        Some obvious candidates are the finite supply of bitcoin, Nakamoto consensus, and the difficulty adjustment algorithm. But what led Satoshi to these ideas in the first place?

        This article explores the history of digital currencies and makes the case that Satoshi’s focus on sound monetary policy is what led bitcoin to surmount challenges that defeated prior projects such as bit gold and b-money.

        I. DECENTRALIZED SYSTEMS ARE MARKETS 

        Bitcoin is often described as a decentralized or distributed system. Unfortunately, the words “decentralized” and “distributed” are frequently confused. When applied to digital systems, both terms refer to ways a monolithic application can be decomposed into a network of communicating pieces.

        For our purposes, the major difference between decentralized and distributed systems is not the topology of their network diagrams, but the way they enforce rules. We take some time in the following section to compare distributed and decentralized systems and motivate the idea that robust decentralized systems are markets.

        DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS RELY UPON CENTRAL AUTHORITIES

        In this work, we take “distributed” to mean any system that has been broken up into many parts (often referred to as “nodes”) which must communicate, typically over a network.

        Software engineers have grown adept at building globally distributed systems. The internet is composed of distributed systems collectively containing billions of nodes. We each have a node in our pocket that both participates in and relies upon these systems.

        But almost all the distributed systems we use today are governed by some central authority, typically a system administrator, company, or government that is mutually trusted by all nodes in the system.

        Central authorities ensure all nodes adhere to the system s rules and remove, repair, or punish nodes that fail to do so. They are trusted to provide coordination, resolve conflicts, and allocate shared resources. Over time, central authorities manage changes to the system, upgrading it or adding features, and ensuring that participating nodes comply with the changes.

        The benefits a distributed system gains from relying upon a central authority come with costs. While the system is robust against failures of its nodes, a failure of its central authority may cause it to stop functioning overall. The ability for the central authority to unilaterally make decisions means that subverting or eliminating the central authority is sufficient to control or destroy the entire system.

        Despite these trade-offs, if there is a requirement that a single party or coalition must retain central authority, or if the participants within the system are content with relying upon a central authority, then a traditional distributed system is the best solution. No blockchain, token, or similar decentralized dressing is required.

        In particular, the case of a VC- or government-backed cryptocurrency, with requirements that a single party can monitor or restrict payments and freeze accounts, is the perfect use case for a traditional distributed system.

        DECENTRALIZED SYSTEMS HAVE NO CENTRAL AUTHORITIES 

        We take “decentralized” to have a stronger meaning than “distributed”: decentralized systems are a subset of distributed systems that lack any central authority. A close synonym for “decentralized” is “peer-to-peer” (P2P). 

        Removing central authority confers several advantages. Decentralized systems:

        • Grow quickly because they lack barriers to entry—anyone can grow the system by simply running a new node, and there is no requirement for registration or approval from the central authority.

        • Are robust because there is no central authority whose failure can compromise the functioning of the system. All nodes are the same, so failures are local and the network routes around damage.

        • Are difficult to capture, regulate, tax, or surveil because they lack centralized points of control for governments to subvert.

        These strengths are why Satoshi chose a decentralized, peer-to-peer design for bitcoin:

        “Governments are good at cutting off the heads of… centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.” – Nakamoto, 2008

        But these strengths come with corresponding weaknesses. Decentralized systems can be less efficient as each node must additionally bear responsibilities for coordination previously assumed by the central authority.

        Decentralized systems are also plagued by scammy, adversarial behavior. Despite Satoshi’s nod to Gnutella, anyone who’s used a P2P file sharing program to download a file that turned out to be something gross or malicious understands the reasons that P2P file sharing never became the mainstream model for data transfer online.

        Satoshi didn’t name it explicitly, but email is another decentralized system that has evaded government controls. And email is similarly notorious for spam.

        DECENTRALIZED SYSTEMS ARE GOVERNED THROUGH INCENTIVES

        The root problem, in all of these cases, is that adversarial behavior (seeding bad files, sending spam emails) is not punished, and cooperative behavior (seeding good files, only sending useful emails) is not rewarded. Decentralized systems that rely upon their participants to be good actors fail to scale because they cannot prevent bad actors from also participating.

        Without imposing a central authority, the only way to solve this problem is to use economic incentives. Good actors, by definition, play by the rules because they’re inherently motivated to do so. Bad actors are, by definition, selfish and adversarial, but proper economic incentives can redirect their bad behavior towards the common good. Decentralized systems that scale do so by ensuring that cooperative behavior is profitable and adversarial behavior is costly.

        The best way to implement robust decentralized services is to create markets where all actors, both good and bad, are paid to provide that service. The lack of barriers to entry for buyers and sellers in a decentralized market encourages scale and efficiency. If the market’s protocols can protect participants from fraud, theft, and abuse, then bad actors will find it more profitable to either play by the rules or go attack a different system.

        II. DECENTRALIZED MARKETS REQUIRE DECENTRALIZED GOODS 

        But markets are complex. They must provide buyers and sellers the ability to post bids & asks as well as discover, match and settle orders. They must be fair, provide strong consistency, and maintain availability despite periods of volatility.

        Global markets today are extremely capable and sophisticated, but using traditional goods and payment networks to implement incentives in a decentralized market is a nonstarter. Any coupling between a decentralized system and fiat money, traditional assets, or physical commodities would reintroduce dependencies on the central authorities that control payment processors, banks, & exchanges.

        Decentralized systems cannot transfer cash, look up the balance of a brokerage account, or determine the ownership of property. Traditional goods are completely illegible from within a decentralized system. The inverse is not true—traditional systems can interact with bitcoin as easily as any other actor (once they decide they want to). The boundary between traditional and decentralized systems is not an impassable wall, but a semi-permeable membrane.

        This means that decentralized systems cannot execute payments denominated in any traditional good. They cannot even determine the balances of fiat-dominated accounts or the ownership of real estate or physical goods. The entire traditional economy is completely illegible from within decentralized systems.

        Creating decentralized markets requires trading new kinds of decentralized goods which are legible and transferable within decentralized systems.

        COMPUTATION IS THE FIRST DECENTRALIZED GOOD

        The first example of a “decentralized good” is a special class of computations first proposed in 1993 by Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor.[3]

        Because of deep connections between mathematics, physics, and computer science, these computations cost real-world energy and hardware resources—they cannot be faked. Since real-world resources are scarce, these computations are also scarce.

        The input for these computations can be any kind of data. The resulting output is a digital “proof” that the computations were performed on the given input data. Proofs contain a given “difficulty” which is (statistical) evidence of a given amount of computational work. Most importantly, the relationship between the input data, the proof, and the original computational work performed can be independently verified without appeal to any central authority.

        The idea of passing around some input data along with a digital proof as evidence of real-world computational work performed on that input is now called “proof-of-work”.[4] Proofs-of-work are, to use Nick Szabo’s phrase, “unforgeable costliness”. Because proofs-of-work are verifiable by anyone, they are economic resources that are legible to all participants in a decentralized system. Proofs-of-work turn computations on data into decentralized goods. Dwork & Naor proposed using computations to limit the abuse of a shared resource by forcing participants to provide proofsof-work with a certain minimum difficulty before they can access the resource:

        “In this paper we suggest a computational approach to combatting the proliferation of electronic mail. More generally, we have designed an access control mechanism that can be used whenever it is desirable to restrain, but not prohibit, access to a resource.” – Dwoak & Naor, 1993

        In Dwork & Naor’s proposal, an email system administrator would set a minimum proof-of-work difficulty for delivering email. Users wanting to send email would need to perform a corresponding number of computations with that email as the input data. The resulting proof would be submitted to the server alongside any request to deliver the email.

        Dwork & Naor referred to the difficulty of a proofof-work as a “pricing function” because, by adjusting the difficulty, a “pricing authority” could ensure that the shared resource remained cheap to use for honest, average users but expensive for users seeking to exploit it. In the email delivery market, server administrators are the pricing authorities; they must choose a “price” for email delivery which is low enough for normal usage but too high for spam.

        Though Dwork & Naor framed proofs-of-work as an economic disincentive to combat resource abuse, the nomenclature “pricing function” and “pricing authority” supports a different, marketbased interpretation: users are purchasing access to a resource in exchange for computations at a price set by the resource’s controller.

        In this interpretation, an email delivery network is really a decentralized market trading email delivery for computations. The minimum difficulty of a proof-of-work is the asking price for email delivery denominated in the currency of computations.

        CURRENCY IS THE SECOND DECENTRALIZED GOOD 

        But computations aren’t a good currency.

        The proofs used to “trade” computations are only valid for the input used in those computations. This unbreakable lilnk between a specific proof and a specific input means that the proof-of-work for one input can’t be reused for a different input.

        Proof-of-work was originally proposed as an access control mechanism for limiting spam emails. Users would be expected to provide proofs-of-work alongside any emails they wanted to send. This mechanism can also be thought of as a market where users are purchasing email deliveries with computations at a price chosen by the email service provider.

        This constraint is useful – it can be used to prevent the work done by one buyer in the market from being re-spent by another. For example, HashCash, the first real implementation of the market for email delivery, included metadata such as the current timestamp and the sender’s email address in the input data to its proof-of-work computations. Proofs produced by a given user for a given email can’t be respent for sending a different email.

        But this also means that proof-of-work computations are bespoke goods. They aren’t fungible, they can’t be re-spent,[5] and they don’t solve the coincidence-of-wants problem. These missing monetary properties prevent computations from being currency. Despite the name, there is no incentive for an email delivery provider to want to accumulate HashCash, as there would be for actual cash.

        Adam Back, inventor of HashCash, understood these problems:

        “hashcash is not directly transferable because to make it distributed, each service provider accepts payment only in cash created for them. You could perhaps setup a digicash style mint (with chaumian ecash) and have the bank only mint cash on receipt of hash collisions addressed to it. However this means you’ve got to trust the bank not to mint unlimited amounts of money for it’s own use.” – Adam Back, 1997

        We don’t want to exchange bespoke computations for every individual good or service sold in a decentralized economy. We want a general purpose digital currency that can directly be used to coordinate exchanges of value in any market.

        Building a functioning digital currency while remaining decentralized is a significant challenge. A currency requires fungible units of equal value that can be transferred among users. This requires issuance models, cryptographic definitions of ownership and transfer, a discovery and settlement process for transactions, and a historical ledger. None of this infrastructure is required when proof-of-work is thought of as a mere “access control mechanism”.

        Moreover, decentralized systems are markets, so all these basic functions of a currency must somehow be provided through paying service providers…in the units of the currency that’s being created!

        Like compiling the first compiler, a black start of the electrical grid, or the evolution of life itself, the creators of digital currencies were confronted with a bootstrapping problem: how to define the economic incentives that underlie a functioning currency without having a functioning currency in which to denominate or pay those incentives.

        Computations and currency are the first and second goods in decentralized markets. Proof-of-work alone allows for the exchange of computations but a functioning currency requires more infrastructure. It took 15 years for the cypherpunk community to develop that infrastructure.

        THE FIRST DECENTRALIZED MARKET MUST TRADE COMPUTATIONS FOR CURRENCY

        Progress on this bootstrapping problem comes from properly framing its constraints.

        Decentralized systems must be markets. Markets consist of buyers and sellers exchanging goods. The decentralized market for a digital currency only has two goods that are legible within it:

        1. Computations through proof-of-work

        2. Units of the currency we’re trying to build

        The only market trade possible must therefore be between these two goods. Computations must be sold for units of currency orF equivalentlyF units of currency must be sold for computations. Stating this is easy—the hard part is structuring this market so that simply exchanging currency for computation bootstraps all the capabilities of the currency itself!

        The entire history of digital currencies culminating in Satoshi’s 2008 white paperF was a series of increasingly sophisticated attempts at structuring this market. The following section reviews projects such as Nick Szabo’s bit gold and Wei Dai’s b-money. Understanding how these projects structured their marketsF and why they failed will help us frame why Satoshi and bitcoin succeeded.

        III. HOW CAN DECENTRALIZED SYSTEMS PRICE COMPUTATIONS?

        A major function of markets is price discovery. A market trading computations for currency must therefore discover the price of computation itself, as denominated in units of that currency.

        We don’t typically assign monetary value to computations. We typically value the capacity to perform computations because we value the output of computations, not the computations themselves. If the same output can be performed more efficiently, with fewer computations, that is usually called “progress”.

        Proofs-of-work represent specific computations whose only output is proof that they were performed. Producing the same proof by performing fewer computations and less work wouldn’t be progress—it would be a bug. The computations associated with proofs-of-work are thus a strange and novel good to attempt to value.

        When proofs-of-work are thought of as disincentives against resource abuse, it is not necessary to value them precisely or consistently. All that matters is that the email service provider sets difficulties low enough to be unnoticeable for legitimate users yet high enough to be prohibitive for spammers. There is thus a broad range of acceptable “prices” and each participant acts as their own pricing authority, applying a local pricing function.

        But units of a currency are meant to be fungible, each having the same value. Due to changes in technology over time, two units of currency created with the same proof-of-work difficulty— as measured by the number of corresponding computations—may have radically different realworld costs of production, as measured by the time, energy, and/or capital to perform those computations . When computations are sold for currency, and the underlying cost of production is variable, how can the market ensure a consistent price?

        Nick Szabo clearly identified this pricing problem when describing bit gold:

        “The main problem…is that proof of work schemes depend on computer architecture, not just an abstract mathematics based on an abstract “compute cycle.” …Thus, it might be possible to be a very low cost producer (by several orders of magnitude) and swamp the market with bit gold.” – Szabo, 2005

        A decentralized currency created through proof-of-work will experience supply gluts and crashes as the supply of computations changes over time. To accommodate this volatility, the network must learn to dynamically price computations.

        Early digital currencies attempted to price computations by attempting to collectively measure the “cost of computing”. Wei Dai, for example, proposes the following hand-wavy solution in b-money:

        ‘The number of monetary units created is equal to the cost of the computing effort in terms of a standard basket of commodities. For example if a problem takes 100 hours to solve on the computer that solves it most economically, and it takes 3 standard baskets to purchase 100 hours of computing time on that computer on the open market, then upon the broadcast of the solution to that problem everyone credits the broadcaster’s account by 3 units.” – Dai, 1998

        Unfortunately, Dai does not explain how users in a supposedly decentralized system are supposed to agree upon the definition of a “standard basket”, which computer solves a given problem “most economically”, or the cost of computation on the “open market”. Achieving consensus among all users about a time-varying shared dataset is the essential problem of decentralized systems!

        To be fair to Dai, he realized this:

        “One of the more problematic parts in the b-money protocol is money creation. This part of the protocol requires that all [users] decide and agree on the cost of particular computations. Unfortunately because computing technology tends to advance rapidly and not always publicly, this information may be unavailable, inaccurate, or outdated, all of which would cause serious problems for the protocol.” – Dai, 1998

        Dai would go on to propose a more sophisticated auction-based pricing mechanism which Satoshi would later say was the starting point for his ideas. We will return to this auction scheme below, but first let’s turn to bit gold, and consider Szabo’s insights into the problem.

        USE EXTERNAL MARKETS

        Szabo claims that proofs-of-work should be “securely timestamped”:

        “The proof of work is securely timestamped. This should work in a distributed fashion, with several different timestamp services so that no particular timestamp service need be substantially relied on.” – Szabo, 2005

        Szabo links to a page of resources on secure timestamping protocols but does not describe any specific algorithm for secure timestamping. The phrases “securely” and “distributed fashion” are carrying a lot of weight here, hand-waving through the complexities of relying upon one (or many) “outside the system” services for timestamping.[6]

        The time a unit of digital currency was created is important because it links the computations performed to real-world production cost.

        Regardless of implementation fuzziness, Szabo was right—the time a proof-of-work was created is an important factor in pricing it because it is related to the cost of computation:

        “…However, since bit gold is timestamped, the time created as well as the mathematical difficulty of the work can be automatically proven. From this, it can usually be inferred what the cost of producing during that time period was…” – Szabo, 2005

        “Inferring” the cost of production is important because bit gold has no mechanism to limit the creation of money. Anyone can create bit gold by performing the appropriate computations. Without the ability to regulate issuance, bit gold is akin to a collectible:

        “…Unlike fungible atoms of gold, but as with collector s items, a large supply during a given time period will drive down the value of those particular items. In this respect bit gold acts more like collector s items than like gold…” – Szabo, 2005

        Bit gold requires an additional, external process to create fungible units of currency:

        “…[B]it gold will not be fungible based on a simple function of, for example, the length of the string. Instead, to create fungible units dealers will have to combine different-valued pieces of bit gold into larger units of approximately equal value. This is analogous to what many commodity dealers do today to make commodity markets possible. Trust is still distributed because the estimated values of such bundles can be independently verified by many other parties in a largely or entirely automated fashion.” – Szabo, 2005

        To paraphrase Szabo, “to assay the value of… bit gold, a dealer checks and verifies the difficulty, the input, and the timestamp”. The dealers defining “larger units of approximately equal value” are providing a similar pricing function as Dai’s “standard basket of commodities”. Fungible units are not created in bit gold when proofs-ofwork are produced, only later when those proofs are combined into larger “units of approximately equal value” by dealers in markets outside the network.

        To his credit, Szabo recognizes this flaw:

        “…The potential for initially hidden supply gluts due to hidden innovations in machine architecture is a potential flaw in bit gold, or at least an imperfection which the initial auctions and ex post exchanges of bit gold will have to address.” – Szabo, 2005

        Again, despite not having arrived at (what we now know as) the solution, Szabo was pointing us at it: because the cost of computation changes over time, the network must respond to changes in the supply of computation by adjusting the price of money.

        USE INTERNAL MARKETS

        Szabo’s dealers would have been an external market that defined the price of (bundles of) bit gold after its creation. Is it possible to implement this market within the system instead of outside it?

        Let’s return to Wei Dai and b-money. As mentioned earlier, Dai proposed an alternative auction-based model for the creation of bmoney. Satoshi’s design for bitcoin improves directly on bmoney’s auction model[7]:

        “So I propose an alternative money creation subprotocol, in which [users]… instead decide and agree on the amount of b-money to be created each period, with the cost of creating that money determined by an auction. Each money creation period is divided up into four phases, as follows: 

        Planning. The [users] compute and negotiate with each other to determine an optimal increase in the money supply for the next period. Whether or not the [network] can reach a consensus, they each broadcast their money creation quota and any macroeconomic calculations done to support the figures.

        Bidding. Anyone who wants to create b-money broadcasts a bid in the form of where x is the amount of b-money he wants to create, and y is an unsolved problem from a predetermined problem class. Each problem in this class should have a nominal cost (in MIPS-years say) which is publicly agreed on.

        Computation. After seeing the bids, the ones who placed bids in the bidding phase may now solve the problems in their bids and broadcast the solutions. Money creation.

        Money creation. Each [user] accepts the highest bids (among those who actually broadcasted solutions) in terms of nominal cost per unit of bmoney created and credits the bidders accounts accordingly.” Dai, 1998

        B-money makes significant strides towards the correct market structure for a digital currency. It attempts to eliminate Szabo’s external dealers and allow users to engage in price discovery by directly bidding against each other.

        But implementing Dai’s proposal as written would be challenging:

        • In the “Planning” phase, users bear the burden of negotiating the “optimal increase in the money supply for the next period”. How “optimal” should be defined, how users should negotiate with each other, and how the results of such negotiations are shared is not described.

        • Regardless of what was planned, the “Bidding” phase allows anyone to submit a “bid” to create b-money. The bids include both an amount of b-money to be created as well as a corresponding amount of proofof-work so each bid is a price, the number of computations for which a given bidder is willing to perform in order to buy a given amount of b-money.

        • Once bids are submitted, the “computation” phase consists of bidders performing the proof-of-work they bid and broadcasting solutions. No mechanisms for matching bidders to solutions is provided. More problematically, it’s not clear how users should know that all bids have been submitted – when does the “Bidding” phase end and the “computation” phase begin?

        • These problems recur in the “Money ]reation” phase. Because of the nature of proof-of-work, users can verify the proofs they receive in solutions are real. But how can users collectively agree on the set of “highest bids”? What if different users pick different such sets, either due to preference or network latency?

        Decentralized systems struggle to track data and make choices consistently, yet b-money requires tracking bids from many users and making consensus choices among them. This complexity prevented b-money from ever being implemented.

        The root of this complexity is Dai’s belief that the “optimal” rate at which b-money is created should fluctuate over time based on the “macroeconomic calculations” of its users. Like bit gold, b-money has no mechanism to limit the creation of money. Anyone can create units of b-money by broadcasting a bid and then doing the corresponding proof-of-work. 

        Both Szabo and Dai proposed using a market exchanging digital currency for computations yet neither bit gold nor b-money defined a monetary policy to regulate the supply of currency within this market.

        Visit Unchained.BitcoinMagazine.com to access educational content focused on collaborative custody and financial services as well as tools to upgrade your bitcoin security.

        IV. SATOSHI’S MONETARY POLICY GOALS LED TO BITCOIN

        In contrast, a sound monetary policy was one of Satoshi’s primary goals for the bitcoin project. In the very first mailing list post where bitcoin was announced, Satoshi wrote:

        “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” – Satoshi, 2009

        Satoshi would go on to describe other problems with fiat currencies such as risky fractional reserve banking, a lack of privacy, rampant theft & fraud, and the inability to make micropayments. But Satoshi started with the issue of debasement by central banks—with a concern about monetary policy. 

        Satoshi wanted bitcoin to ultimately reach a finite circulating supply that cannot be diluted over time. The “optimal” rate of bitcoin creation, for Satoshi, should thus eventually be zero. 

        This monetary policy goal, more than any other characteristic they personally (or collectively!) possessed, was the reason Satoshi “discovered” bitcoin, the blockchain, Nakamoto consensus, etc. —and not someone else. It’s the short answer to the question posed in the title of this article: Satoshi thought of bitcoin because they were focused on creating a digital currency with a finite supply.

        A finite supply of bitcoin is not only a monetary policy goal or a meme for bitcoiners to rally around. It’s the essential technical simplification that allowed Satoshi to build a functional digital currency while Dai’s b-money remained just a fascinating web post. 

        Bitcoin is b-money with an additional requirement of a predetermined monetary policy. Like many technical simplifications, constraining monetary policy enables progress by reducing scope. Let’s see how each of the phases of b-money creation is simplified by imposing this constraint.

        ALL 21M BITCOIN ALREADY EXIST

        In b-money, each “money creation period” included a “Planning” phase, in which users were expected to share their “macroeconomic calculations” justifying the amount of b-money they wanted to create at that time. Satoshi’s monetary policy goals of a finite supply and zero tail emission were incompatible with the freedom granted by b-money to individual users to create money. The first step on the journey from bmoney to bitcoin was therefore to eliminate this freedom. Individual bitcoin users cannot create bitcoin. Only the bitcoin network can create bitcoin, and it did so exactly once, in 2009 when Satoshi launched the bitcoin project.

        Satoshi was able to replace the recurring “Planning” phases of b-money into a single, predetermined schedule on which the 21M bitcoin created in 2009 would be released into circulation. Users voluntarily endorse Satoshi’s monetary policy by downloading and running the Bitcoin Core software in which this monetary policy is hard-coded. 

        This changes the semantics of bitcoin’s market for computations. The bitcoin being paid to miners is not newly issued; it’s newly released into circulation from an existing supply. 

        This framing is crucially different from the naive claim that “bitcoin miners create bitcoin”. Bitcoin miners are not creating bitcoin, they’re buying it. Bitcoin isn’t valuable because “bitcoin are made from energy”—bitcoin’s value is demonstrated by being sold for energy. 

        Let’s repeat it one more time: bitcoin isn’t created through proof-of-work, bitcoin is created through consensus.

        Satoshi’s design eliminates the requirement for ongoing “Planning” phases from b-money by doing all the planning up front. This allowed Satoshi to hard-code a sound monetary policy but also simplified the implementation of bitcoin.

        BITCOIN IS PRICED THROUGH CONSENSUS

        This freedom granted to users to create money results in a corresponding burden for the bmoney network. During the “Bidding” phase the b-money network must collect and share money creation “bids” from many different users. 

        Eliminating the freedom to create money relieves the bitcoin network of this burden. Since all 21M bitcoin already exist, the network doesn’t need to collect bids from users to create money, it merely has to sell bitcoin on Satoshi’s predetermined schedule. 

        The bitcoin network thus offers a consensus asking price for the bitcoin it is selling in each block. This single price is calculated by each node independently using its copy of the blockchain. If nodes have consensus on the same blockchain (a point we will return to later) they will all offer an identical asking price at each block.[8]

        The first half of the consensus price calculation determines how many bitcoin to sell. This is fixed by Satoshi’s predetermined release schedule. All bitcoin nodes in the network calculate the same amount for a given block:

        The second half of the consensus asking price is the number of computations the current subsidy is being sold for. Again, all bitcoin nodes in the network calculate the same value (we will revisit this difficulty calculation in the next section):

        Together, the network subsidy and difficulty define the current asking of bitcoin as denominated in computations. Because the blockchain is in consensus, this price is a consensus price.

        Users in b-money also were presumed to have a consensus “blockchain” containing the history of all transactions. But Dai never thought of the simple solution of a single consensus asking price for the creation of new b-money, determined solely by the data in that blockchain.

        Instead, Dai assumed that money creation must go on forever. Individual users would therefore need to be empowered to affect monetary policy – just as in fiat currencies. This perceived requirement led Dai to design a bidding system which prevented b-money from being implemented.

        This added complexity was removed by Satoshi’s requirement of a predetermined monetary policy.

        TIME CLOSES ALL SPREADS

        In the “Computation” phase of b-money, individual users would perform the computations they’d committed to in their prior bids. In bitcoin, the entire network is the seller – but who is the buyer?

        In the email delivery market, the buyers were individuals wanting to send emails. The pricing authority, the email service provider, would set a price that was considered cheap for individuals but expensive for spammers. But if the number of legitimate users increased, the price could still remain the same because the computing power of individual users would have remained the same. 

        In b-money, each user who contributed a bid for money creation was supposed to subsequently perform the corresponding number of computations themselves. Each user was acting as their own pricing authority based on their knowledge of their own computing capabilities. 

        The bitcoin network offers a single asking price in computations for the current bitcoin subsidy. But no individual miner who finds a block has performed this number of computations.[9] The individual miner’s winning block is proof that all miners collectively performed the required number of computations. The buyer of bitcoin is thus the global bitcoin mining industry. 

        Having arrived at a consensus asking price, the bitcoin network will not change that price until more blocks are produced. These blocks must contain proofs-of-work at the current asking price. The mining industry therefore has no choice if it wants to “execute a trade” but to pay the current asking price in computations. 

        The only variable the mining industry can control is how long it will take to produce the next block. Just as the bitcoin network offers a single asking price, the mining industry thus offers a single bid—the time it takes to produce the next block meeting the network’s current asking price.

        To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they’re generated too fast, the difficulty increases. – Nakamoto, 2008

        Satoshi is modestly describing the difficulty adjustment algorithm, often cited as one of the most original ideas in bitcoin’s implementation. This is true, but instead of focusing on the inventiveness of the solution, let’s instead focus on why solving the problem was so important to Satoshi in the first place. 

        Projects such as bit gold and b-money didn’t need to constrain the rate in time of money creation because they didn’t have a fixed supply or a predetermined monetary policy. Periods of faster or slower money creation could be compensated for through other means, e.g. external dealers putting bit gold tokens into larger or smaller bundlers or b-money users changing their bids. 

        But Satoshi’s monetary policy goals required bitcoin to have a predetermined rate at which bitcoin was to be released for circulation. Constraining the (statistical) rate at which blocks are produced over time is natural in bitcoin because the rate of block production is the rate at which the initial supply of bitcoin is being sold. Selling 21M bitcoin over 140 years is a different proposition than allowing it to be sold in 3 months. 

        Moreover, bitcoin can actually implement this constraint because the blockchain is Szabo’s “secure timestamping protocol.” Satoshi describes bitcoin as first and foremost a “distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis,” and early implementations of the bitcoin source code use the world “timechain” rather than “blockchain” to describe the shared data structure that implements bitcoin’s proof-of-work market.[10]

        Unlike bit gold or b-money, tokens in bitcoin do not experience supply gluts. The bitcoin network uses the difficulty adjustment to change the price of money in response to changes in the supply of computations.

        Bitcoin’s difficulty readjustment algorithm leverages this capability. The consensus blockchain is used by participants to enumerate the historical bids made by the mining industry and readjust the difficulty in order to move closer to the target block time.

        A STANDING ORDER CREATES CONSENSUS 

        The chain of simplifications caused by demanding strong monetary policy extends to the “Money creation” phase of b-money. 

        User-submitted bids in b-money suffer from “nothing at stake” problem. There is no mechanism to prevent users from submitting bids with a huge amount of b-money for very little work. This requires the network to both track which bids have been completed and only accept the “highest bids…in terms of nominal cost per unit of b-money created” in order to avoid such nuisance bids. Each b-money participant must track an entire order book worth of bids, match bids with their subsequent computations, and only settle such completed orders with the highest prices. 

        This problem is an instance of the more general problem of consensus in decentralized systems, also known as the “Byzantine generals” or sometimes the “double-spend” problem in the context of digital currencies. Sharing an identical sequence of data among all participants is challenging inside an adversarial, decentralized network. Existing solutions to this problem – socalled “Byzantine-fault tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithms”—require previous coordination among participants or a supermajority (>67%) of participants to not behave adversarially.

        Bitcoin doesn’t have to manage a large order book of bids because the bitcoin network offers a single consensus asking price. This means bitcoin nodes can accept the first (valid) block they see that meets the network’s current asking price— nuisance bids can easily be ignored and are a waste of a miner’s resources. 

        Consensus pricing of computations allows the matching of buy/sell orders in bitcoin to be done eagerly, on a first-come, first-served basis. Unlike b-money, this eager order matching means that bitcoin’s market has no phases—it operates continuously, with a new consensus price being calculated after each individual order is matched (block is found). To avoid forks caused by network latency or adversarial behavior, nodes must also follow the heaviest chain rule. This greedy order settling rule ensures that only the highest bids are accepted by the network.

        This combination eager-greedy algorithm, where nodes accept the first valid block they see and also follow the heaviest chain, is a novel BFT algorithm which rapidly converges on consensus about the sequence of blocks. Satoshi spends 25% of the bitcoin white paper demonstrating this claim.

        We established in previous sections that bitcoin’s consensus asking price itself depends on the blockchain being in consensus. But it turns out that the existence of a single consensus asking price is what allows the market for computations to eagerly match orders, which is what leads to consensus in the first place! 

        Moreover, this new “Nakamoto consensus” only requires 50% of participants to not be adversarial, a significant improvement on the prior state of the art. A cypherpunk like Satoshi made this theoretical computer science breakthrough, instead of a traditional academic or industry researcher, because of their narrow focus on implementing sound money, rather than a generic consensus algorithm for distributed computing.

        IV. CONCLUSION

        B-money was a powerful framework for building a digital currency but one that was incomplete because it lacked a monetary policy. Constraining b-money with a predetermined release schedule for bitcoins reduced scope and simplified implementation by eliminating the requirement to track and choose among user-submitted money creation bids. Preserving the temporal pace of Satoshi’s release schedule led to the difficulty adjustment algorithm and enabled Nakamoto consensus, widely recognized as one of the most innovative aspects of bitcoin’s implementation.

        There is a lot more to bitcoin’s design than the aspects discussed so far. We have focused this article on the “primary” market within bitcoin, the market which distributes the initial bitcoin supply into circulation. 

        The next article in this series will explore the market for bitcoin transaction settlement and how it relates to the market for distributing the bitcoin supply. This relationship will suggest a methodology for how to build future markets for decentralized services on top of bitcoin.

        *  *  *

        To continue your Bitcoin education, click here to download the full report: “How to Position for the Bitcoin Boom” by Tuur Demeester, prepared for Unchained

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 16:20

      • Russia Now Says It Expects 'Unconditional Capitulation Of Zelensky Regime' Before Peace
        Russia Now Says It Expects ‘Unconditional Capitulation Of Zelensky Regime’ Before Peace

        Ukrainian cities and especially the country’s energy infrastructure have been getting pounded by intensified Russian missile and airstrikes over the past several days and weeks, leading to widespread power outages across the country.

        Russia’s defense ministry said Friday, “Russian troops delivered 48 precision strikes at Ukrainian energy and military-industrial sites, army and mercenaries’ deployment areas over the past week in the special military operation in Ukraine.”

        This included a Thursday morning attack which destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants in the Kyiv region. “The goal of the strike were achieved. All the targets were destroyed,” Moscow said. Ukrainian authorities are urging those with power to preserve and save their energy usage as much as possible.

        Via TASS

        President Putin this month said this is a necessary response to Ukraine’s own cross-border attacks on Russia’s energy sector, which has been devastating of late, resulting in a significant drop in Russia’s gasoline production.

        But lost in the global geopolitical headlines, which have been largely driven by the Israel-Gaza war and a showdown over the coming expected Iranian attack on Israel, was the shock statement by Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations this week.

        During Thursday’s UN Security Council meeting, Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said that Moscow now expects the “unconditional capitulation” of the Zelensky government.

        Ambassador Nebenzya told the body:

        “This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelensky and his closest circle.

        In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion.

        Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime.

        He emphasized in conclusion to these provocative remarks, “I advise you all to prepare for this in advance.”

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        This firm statement appears part of Russia’s continuing reaction to the planned Switzerland-hosted international Ukraine peace conference, which the Swiss government formally announced as set for June 15-16 at the lakeside Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne.

        As we underscored previously, while over 100 nations are to be invited, the one country that can determine the final outcome of the war has not been invited: Russia. Its foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has characterized the conference as a “road to nowhere” and a sign that the West is not sincere about a willingness to pursue real peace negotiations.

        “That this is a road to nowhere, to put it mildly, is obvious to any normal political observer. Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin once again made our position clear and understandable during the meeting with Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko,” Lavrov explained.

        Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, left, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, AP file

        And given that Russia’s ambassador to the UN just declared that the end of the Ukraine war will be conditioned on nothing less than Ukraine’s total surrender, the prospect for peace negotiations is now further away than ever. And all the while Europe is still scrambling to find more weapons to ship to Zelensky’s military.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 15:45

      • "Nonsensical": Another Federal Judge Rejects All Of Hunter Biden's Claims For Dismissal
        “Nonsensical”: Another Federal Judge Rejects All Of Hunter Biden’s Claims For Dismissal

        Authored by Jonathan Turley,

        While some legal analysts continue to boost Hunter Biden’s legal claims, the reviews in actual courts are far less glowing. Recently, we discussed a federal judge rejecting all eight motions of Hunter Biden to dismiss his tax charges in a stinging opinion citing a conspicuous lack of actual evidence to support their claims. Now, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika has also rejected those claims in the gun case in Delaware, calling Hunter’s arguments “nonsensical.”

        Legal experts like MSNBC’s Andew Weissmann have slammed the gun charges as “an abuse.”

        Hunter Biden’s counsel has argued selective prosecution and a bar on charges (based on the defunct notorious plea deal) in both cases.

        While these arguments were given great credence on some networks, they were stomped on by actual judges applying the law to the case.

        Abby Lowell and Hunter’s defense team have insisted that he is the victim of selective prosecution, but Special Counsel David Weiss has eviscerated those claims.

        In a recent filing, Weiss dismissed many of Hunter’s claims as “patently false” and noted that he virtually flaunted his violations and engaged in obvious efforts to evade taxes and hide his crimes.

        Weiss further noted that other defendants did not write “a memoir in which they made countless statements proving their crimes and drawing further attention to their criminal conduct.”

        It was a devastating take-down of Hunter’s claims, but it did not address the conspicuous omission of charges brought against Menendez, including FARA charges.

        It also does not address the fact that the Justice Department not only allowed the statute of limitations to run on major crimes, but sought to finalize an obscene plea agreement with no jail time for Hunter. It only fell apart when a judge decided to ask a couple of cursory questions of the prosecutor, who admitted that he had never seen an agreement this generous for a defendant.

        Weiss noted in his filing that they filed new charges only after Hunter’s legal counsel refused to change the agreement and insisted that it remained fully enforceable.

        Judge Noreika is equally unimpressed by the arguments of the Biden team.

        She almost mockingly noted that “Defendant’s articulated protected class is apparently family members of politically-important persons.”

        She later added:

        “Defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here. Regardless of whether Congressional Republicans attempted to influence the Executive Branch, there is no evidence that they were successful in doing so and, in any event, the Executive Branch prosecuting Defendant was at all relevant times (and still is) headed by Defendant’s father.”

        The court also rejected Hunter Biden’s effort to subpoena Trump, former attorney general Bill Barr, and two other senior officials who served in the Trump Justice Department.

        Again, she noted that it was the Biden administration that decided to prosecute Hunter Biden on the firearms offenses.

        Here is the decision: Hunter Biden Gun Decision

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 15:10

      • The U.S. Is Facing Record Drug Shortages
        The U.S. Is Facing Record Drug Shortages

        And just like that, the supply chain crisis we saw for pharmaceuticals during Covid has returned. ABC reported this week that drug shortages in the United States have reached an “all-time high”. 

        In the first quarter of 2024, the U.S. faced 323 active medication shortages, surpassing the previous record of 320 in 2014, as reported by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the Utah Drug Information Service, the report says. 

        The American Cancer Society highlighted a particularly alarming shortage of chemotherapy drugs, which has led to severe impacts on patient care. Hospitals and clinics have reported completely running out, with doctors having to ration or prioritize who gets the limited supplies first.

        Dr. Paul Abramowitz, CEO of ASHP told ABC: “All drug classes are vulnerable to shortage. Some of the most worrying shortages involve generic sterile injectable medications, including cancer chemotherapy drugs and emergency medications stored in hospital crash carts and procedural areas.”

        He continued: “Much work remains to be done at the federal level to fix the root causes of drug shortages. ASHP will continue to engage with policymakers regularly as we guide efforts to draft and pass new legislation to address drug shortages and continue to strongly advocate on behalf of our members for solutions that work.”

        Abramowitz noted ongoing national shortages of ADHD medications, including Adderall, which began in late 2022 due to manufacturing delays and has since become demand-driven, according to the FDA. A Senate Homeland Security Committee report in March 2023 highlighted that drug shortages have been a persistent issue in the U.S. for over a decade, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to delayed or unavailable treatments. 

        During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, experts testified that these shortages also impose financial burdens on patients as they resort to more expensive alternatives. The ASHP is collaborating with federal agencies to address these shortages, recommending increased transparency and diversity in supply chains, though it expressed concerns about potential financial penalties on hospitals unable to maintain large stocks of medications.

        The FDA told ABC: “The FDA can utilize different tools during a shortage to assist manufactures with increasing supply including expediting review of a supplement to add additional supply of active ingredients or adding additional capacity.”

        It continued: “Unfortunately, we are not able to share specific actions, as they are considered commercial confidential information.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 14:35

      • Woman Who Went Viral For Hugging Trump At Chick-Fil-A Explains Why Black Voters Support Him
        Woman Who Went Viral For Hugging Trump At Chick-Fil-A Explains Why Black Voters Support Him

        Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

        A woman who recently went viral for hugging former President Donald Trump at a Chick-fil-A in Georgia and telling him not to worry about dishonest media coverage has revealed why she thinks black voters are increasingly backing the former president in the upcoming election.

        President Trump met with supporters at the restaurant in Atlanta earlier this week, with a video capturing the moment that Michaelah Montgomery, a political consultant and founder of Conserve the Culture, expressed her support for the former president.

        “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump, we support you,” she says in the video, with President Trump giving her a smile and a hug in response.

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        Later, as the video of the encounter went viral, Ms. Montgomery sat for an interview on Fox News, in which she explained why black voters are increasingly flocking to the former president.

        “They feel like he’s honest. They feel like this is somebody who, while we might not agree with how he says things, how he goes about things, at least he’s telling us what it is,” Montgomery said.

        “We don’t feel like this is a snake in the grass waiting for his chance to bite us,” she continued. “This is somebody who’s telling us this is what my plan is. Here’s how I plan to execute it.”

        “They just feel like he’s more relatable,” Ms. Montgomery added. “They really feel like this is somebody who’s talking to them and not just saying what they want to hear.”

        President Trump took to Truth Social to express his appreciation for Ms. Montgomery’s remarks.

        “Thank you! Together, we will Make America Great Again!” the former president wrote.

        Ms. Montgomery’s remarks come on the heels of a series of polls indicating that black voters have sharply boosted their support for President Trump in the current election cycle.

        Black Voters Breaking for Trump

        Black Americans, who have often been entrenched Democrat voters, have both anecdotally and statistically been breaking away from supporting President Joe Biden in recent months and appear to be increasingly throwing their weight behind President Trump.

        A recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed a staggering jump from the 4 percent of black voters who said in October 2020 that they would vote for then-candidate Trump, compared to a whopping 23 percent who said in February 2024 they plan to vote for him this November.

        The stunning 19-percent increase in black voter support for President Trump comes as a majority (57 percent) said they see the country under President Biden heading in the wrong direction.

        Recent polling by The Economist shows that, while white voter support for the former president has remained steady, racial-minority groups (long a staple of Democrat backing) have been turning away from the incumbent.

        The Economist found the strongest support for President Trump among the youngest (18-24) black voters, with 21 percent of such women and 33 percent of such men saying they plan to vote for him.

        And while 35 percent of black voters who identify as conservative voted for President Trump in 2020, the former president has increased this support to 46 percent of this cohort expressing their support for him.

        This comes as support for President Trump among Latino voters has also surged in recent weeks, according to a recent Axios/Ipsos poll.

        When Latinos who intend to vote in the November presidential election were asked who they plan to vote for, 31 percent said President Biden and 28 percent said President Trump. That’s a difference of just 3 percentage points.

        However, given the poll’s 3.6 percent margin of error, this means that it’s technically possible that President Trump could actually be leading his main rival among Latino voters by up to 0.6 percentage points.

        The poll also showed that President Trump is ahead of the incumbent among Latinos on the their top three most worrying issues: inflation, crime, and immigration.

        Why Are Black Voters Breaking for Trump?

        Three main factors appear to be spurring black voters to shift toward President Trump, according to a number of interviewees who spoke to The Epoch Times: the economy, the criminal justice system, and the influence of other black people expressing their support in a public way.

        Mark Fisher, co-founder of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) group in Rhode Island, told The Epoch Times in an interview in December that he publicly declared his support for the former president because he felt compelled to “clear a path” for other pro-Trump black voters who may be reluctant to discuss their preferences openly.

        Marv Neal, a 52-year-old black man who hosts a weekly radio show on Boston’s “Urban Heat” radio station, told The Epoch Times in December that he hadn’t yet decided who he would vote for in 2024, but added that he’s decidedly Trump-curious.

        “Just because you’re a Democrat doesn’t mean you’re going to get my vote,” he said.

        Mr. Neal said he initially didn’t support President Trump’s tough stance on immigration but, over time, he’s come to realize that more strict border security preventing illegal immigrants from pouring into the country benefits American citizens.

        In her interview on Fox News, Ms. Montgomery said that members of the black community often face pressure not to support the former president.

        “I really appreciate that we were able to not only let him know that regardless of what social media says … I know they’re trying to make us think we’re supposed to hate you, but we don’t,” Ms. Montgomery said, recalling her interaction with President Trump.

        “And additionally, it was a learning experience for my students because they were able to see and experience firsthand how the media can warp that perception of an opinion or a person.”

        The Biden campaign did not return a request for comment on this story.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 14:00

      • How Biden's Inflation Reduction Act Failed To Reduced Electricity Costs In Pictures
        How Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Failed To Reduced Electricity Costs In Pictures

        Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

        Let’s check in on the not exactly impressive energy and inflation results of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)…

        Data from the BLS, chart by Mish

        Biden’s energy policy has been an inflationary disaster. And make no mistake, the IRA was nothing but energy policy, more precisely, climate policy.

        The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate Bill

        Bloomberg flashback, August 15, 2022: The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Climate Bill. Just Don’t Call It One.

        “It does seem kind of wacky and counterintuitive for the most consequential climate legislation ever to be called the ‘Inflation Reduction Act,’” says Angela Bradbery, a professor of public interest communications at the University of Florida’s journalism school. “For the public, it’s probably more confusing than anything.”

        Congress once passed bills with simpler and more intuitive names, such as the Clean Air Act. But today’s political and media landscape demands that legislation be packaged to steer public debate in a direction the sponsors can better manage. 

        “Words matter. Names matter,” says Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. “Inflation and the price of gas are top of mind concerns for most Americans today, so calling the bill the Inflation Reduction Act was a stroke of rhetorical genius.”

        Since the IRA’s surprise unveiling on July 27, analysts have debated how much its contents pertain to inflation. “The IRA speaks to the high energy costs” Americans are struggling with, says Stokes.

        Hoot of the Day: Rhetorical Genius

        In retrospect, the name is such a disaster that Biden even admits so.

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        Green New Deal by Another Name

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        Biden’s Green-Energy Price Shock

        The Wall Street Journal comments on Biden’s Green-Energy Price Shock

        Do White House officials pay electric bills? They strangely keep saying the President’s climate agenda is reducing electric-power rates even as the cost of running your dishwasher is sky-rocketing, as illuminated by the Labor Department’s consumer-price index.

        By our calculation, electricity prices have increased 13 times faster under Mr. Biden than across the previous seven years. His policies aren’t entirely to blame. But most of it is a result of the left’s climate agenda, and the price increases will get worse.

        Federal regulations, renewable subsidies and state green-energy mandates are forcing fossil-fuel and nuclear plants to retire prematurely. Solar and wind need backup from so-called peaker gas plants, usually at a hefty premium. During power shortages, spot prices can hit $10,000 per megawatt hour compared to $30 to $60 on a normal basis.

        State net-metering programs also subsidize people with solar panels for excess power they remit to the grid. People without solar then pay more for the grid’s fixed costs, which are also growing as more renewables are added. In California an average customer without solar pays 10% to 20% more to subsidize solar.

        How Much Did the IRA Cost?

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        It’s much worse than Moore suggests.

        Inflation Reduction Act Cost

        The following chart is courtesy of Penn Wharton.

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        A year ago I commented The Inflation Reduction Act Price Jumps From $385 Billion to Over $1 Trillion

        The true costs begin to emerge. 

        The key word in that sentence is “begin”. Expect more revisions to this newly revised $1 trillion+ cost estimate. 

        Nothing in the bill will reduce inflation. It was a known lie right from the start.

        Bear in mind, the $1 trillion and counting estimate does not factor in higher energy costs for consumers and businesses.

        So let me ask again: How Much Did the IRA Cost?

        It’s Been a Bloody Month for Bond Market Bulls

        If you are a bond market bull, it’s been a tough month. Let’s review what happened, why, and what’s ahead.

        US Treasury Yields from the New York Fed as of 2024-04-10

        Earlier today I noted It’s Been a Bloody Month for Bond Market Bulls

        Summation

        The inflationary pressures include demographics, the IRA, energy policy, regulations, tariffs, child tax credits unless the Senate kills that, and another unconstitutional push by Biden for student debt cancellation.

        And there’s much more. Click on the above link for details.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 04/13/2024 – 12:50

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      Apr 13

      Today’s News 13th April 2024

      • The Political Left Has Proven Beyond A Doubt That They Are Authoritarians
        The Political Left Has Proven Beyond A Doubt That They Are Authoritarians

        Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

        Nearly 20 years ago when I started my work in the independent media the common mantra among my peers was noting the existence of the “false left/right paradigm” – The idea that Democrats and Republicans were essentially the same and were working towards the same exact authoritarian goals. This was before the Ron Paul movement and the libertarian/patriot shift within conservative circles when Neocons (fake conservatives) dominated all Republican discourse.

        In the 16 years since there has been some interesting developments at the state level, with a return to true conservative and constitutional principles. Conservative ideals were on the verge of death in the early 2000s, but thanks to Ron Paul and others there has been a resurgence. The false left/right paradigm still applies in many ways and we have to remain vigilant, but the most blatant RINO frauds are quickly losing favor.

        Nihilists (and paid federal provocateurs) will constantly claim we aren’t making any progress, but consider this: Decades ago conservatives used to clamor to defend people like John McCain, Lindsay Graham or Mitt Romney, now they despise such fakes (McCain was hated by most conservatives well before he died). Times are changing; this is a fact, and we need to acknowledge the positive move forward.

        This is not to say that Americans should rely on politics to fix our national problems, but it would be a lie to claim that there are no political representatives on our side. A common argument against right leaning movements is that conservative ideals are “poorly defined” and that we “don’t stand for anything.” This is simply not true.  In fact, it’s leftists that are constantly changing their positions like they have schizophrenia. Conservatives have been far more consistent in comparison.

        The guidelines are relatively easy to understand – Conservatives and liberty activists support a return to constitutional governance, the protection of the Bill of Rights, free markets, meritocracy, the right to choose associations, truth in media, secure borders, the protection of children from exploitation, keeping America out of foreign entanglements, moral and accountable leadership, etc. The degree to which leaders can adhere to these parameters determines how much trust they earn, and trust is the only currency that matters these days.

        Do we disagree on certain nuances of these issues? Of course. We aren’t like leftists following a central hive mind, always afraid of being canceled by the mob; we argue. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as we unify on basic tenets and principles.

        Democrats (and leftists in general) on the other hand have gone in the complete opposite direction. If there was ever a time when the average leftist and conservative could find common ground, that time was LONG gone. Many leftists used to be pro-individual rights; today they argue incessantly against personal liberty as if it’s dangerous to society. They used to be anti-war; now they froth at the mouth over countries like Russia and press for WWIII without any rational thought. Their methods have become violent, vicious, egregious in execution as they adopt an “ends justify the means” approach.

        The political left does not care about what is right. They do not care about what is true. They only care about “winning.”

        It is this leftist infatuation with the dark side that is driving the US to the edge of civil war. Would a candidate like Trump be taken as seriously under normal political conditions? It’s hard to say – He wasn’t taken very seriously in 2012. However, when Democrats started to go full bore authoritarian suddenly Trump became very appealing to conservative voters.

        Why? Because he represents a big middle finger to the communists, a bull in the china shop. If you want to piss off authoritarian Democrats trying to control what you say and what you think, you put Trump in their faces for another 4 years. Does this fix our underlying national problems? No, not in the slightest. In fact, I still believe Trump distracts patriots from what really needs to be done. I’m convinced that, at this stage, only war will resolve the issue. Voting for Trump is a good way to enrage the woke cry-bullies, and I wouldn’t fault anyone for wanting that, but any real return to honor and order would have to be implemented by the public, not the government.

        The deeper problem is one of unavoidable cultural division – Conservatives and patriots cannot live side-by-side with rabid leftists, nor can we accept a leftist controlled government. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they intend to destroy every aspect of western culture and institute a regime of oppression.

        So much has happened recently that I fear many Americans will become overwhelmed and forget the recent trespasses of leftists.  In case you had any doubts at all or know people that still defend them, here are just a handful of examples of the worst authoritarian crimes committed by Democrats in the past four years alone…

        Weaponizing The Legal System Using Selective Prosecution

        When Democrats talk about “equity” in criminal justice, what they are referring to is the unbalanced application of law depending on the ethnicity or political beliefs of the people being charged. The most blatant example being the kangaroo court for the Jan 6th event and their attempt to lock up conservative protesters as “insurrectionists.”

        Not a single death occurred due to protesters, property damage was minimal and capitol police INCITED the riot by firing rubber bullets and CS gas into the otherwise peaceful crowd. Yet, the protesters were painted by Dems and the media as monsters trying to “destroy democracy.”

        Compare this to the Democrat response to the BLM and Antifa riots across the US since 2016 in which dozens were killed, thousands of police injured, billions in property damage and multiple government buildings attacked. These people tried to hold the country hostage, yet, the vast majority of those that were actually arrested were released and never charged by Democrat District Attorneys and prosecutors. The media even portrayed them as heroes.

        If Jan 6th had been a far-left protest, there would have been no commission and no one would be in jail for 10-20 years today. There are numerous examples of selective prosecution targeting patriots and the message is clear – “If you defy us in any way, we have no problem misusing the legal system to crush you.”

        Pandemic Hysteria And Medical Tyranny

        Did some Republicans initially support the covid lockdowns? Yes. When it became clear that covid was a non-threat did they end the lockdowns in their own states? Yes, surprisingly most of them did.

        Half the states in the US (all red states) blocked attempts to continue the pandemic lockdowns. These same states also passed legislation to disrupt any future attempts at lockdowns or vaccine passports. And, all the governors and legislators involved were accused by Democrats and the media of “killing Americans” because of their defense of freedom.

        In reality, these states along with conservatives across the country defeated a draconian agenda that almost brought the US to the brink of full spectrum medical tyranny. Democrats and globalists tried to use covid as an opportunity to institute sweeping anti-liberty mandates without checks and balances. Some of rules they wanted to put in place included:

        • Forced vaccination.

        • No employment for the unvaccinated.

        • No access to public spaces for the unvaccinated.

        • No access to normal medical treatment for the unvaccinated.

        • House arrest for the unvaccinated.

        • Fines for the unvaccinated.

        • Jail time for people speaking against the mandates or vaccines.

        • Government tracking of the unvaccinated.

        • Taking children away from the unvaccinated.

        • Secret vaccination of children at public schools without knowledge of parents.

        • Mass online censorship of anyone presenting information contrary to the government narrative.

        Some Democrats including Biden even threatened to go “door-to-door” to vaccinate individuals, though the official position was that they would instead seek to “make life so hard” for the unvaxxed that anyone in refusal would eventually be forced to comply. Luckily their plans failed.  The CDC published a bunch of unverified stats claiming most Americans were vaccinated, no one took the boosters and the agenda fizzled into the background.  That said, it’s important that we never forget what happened.

        The true nature of the political left was exposed from 2020-2023, and the difference between conservatives and leftists was made undeniably clear – Red states were made free. Blue states tried to keep authoritarianism in place. Democrats embraced medical tyranny, conservatives did not. Conservatives left blue states (and blue cities) in droves because they were oppressive, red states gained millions of people and turned a deeper shade of red.  This is reality.

        Targeting Children For Indoctrination And Exploitation

        There’s no surer sign of authoritarianism than a group that recruits children as foot soldiers using political indoctrination under the noses of parents. Democrats and the woke movement have taken the mask off completely when it comes to America’s youth.

        The widespread used of woke symbols such a pride flags in public schools and libraries. The use of drag queen performances (often sexual) as a means to normalize baseless gender fluid theories, mental illness and sexual aberration. State government funding of sexualized content including graphic lessons and books for young kids. The list goes on and on.

        I can’t think of anything more insidious and evil as the leftist attempt to hijack American children as a weapon for their political coup. And make no mistake, the woke movement is not a movement for equality, it’s a communist and collectivist insurgency. They see children as tools, not as people.

        Democrats are going so far as to pass laws allowing children to engage in sex change procedures including hormone blockers and surgeries without parental consent. This is a monstrous policy that needs to be snuffed out immediately. Children are not capable of consent.

        Again, all this is being done in the name of winning. What is moral or ethical never crosses their minds.

        Mass Censorship And The Demonization Of “Radical Speech”

        Who nominated the Democrats to become the arbiters of acceptable speech? Well, they nominated themselves, and the protections of the 1st Amendment are being quietly degraded every day we allow them to continue acting as if they are the thought police.

        The new term being thrown around in 2024 is “radical speech”, meaning any speech that runs contrary to “diversity, equity and inclusion” requirements, or any speech that contradicts the preeminence of the official narrative. Understand that “radical speech” is an arbitrary label; one has to consider what the legitimate consequences are and what the intent is.

        For a Democrat, any speech that is detrimental to their goal of extorting public support for their policies suddenly becomes “radical.” The label is designed to elicit images of terrorism and fascism, as if mere words are magical and can compel the public to do great evil without them realizing it. This is childish fantasy based on projection. It’s leftists (collectivists) that believe words have magical powers, and so they put great emphasis on controlling speech in general.

        I would partially agree, only in the fact that lies do have power to evoke emotional responses, but the only way to combat lies is with the truth. Anyone who says that the best way to combat lies is to use mass censorship is a liar. Democrats lean heavily on mass censorship, as we have seen with nearly every Big Tech social media platform and corporate news platform in the past few years.

        The bottom line is this – When someone tells you exactly who they are, believe them. When a group of people show through a host of actions that they are authoritarians, they should not be allowed anywhere near power. It’s time to rethink our ongoing political relationship here in America and consider whether or not we should continue to live with a political movement that has made it so abundantly clear that they are hostile to freedom.

        *  *  *

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        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 23:40

      • BJP Dominates Election Polls But Loses Southern India
        BJP Dominates Election Polls But Loses Southern India

        According to an opinion poll carried out in March in all of India’s 543 constituencies by India TV and CNX, Narendra Modi’s BJP and its allies are projected to win almost three quarters or 399 seats in India’s lower house Lok Sabha in this year’s national election which starts on April 19. Right now, the party’s National Democratic Alliance has 346 seats in the assembly, or 64 percent.

        As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, a landslide victory of the BJP had been predicted previously.

        However, due to the loss of strategic allies and the party’s general weakness in the region, Modi’s results look less than perfect in India’s South, where constituents continue to vote for opposition parties like the Indian National Congress and its allies of the I.N.D.I.A. coalition. 

        Infographic: BJP Dominates Election Polls But Loses Southern India | Statista

        You will find more infographics at Statista

        Bloomberg Opinion points out that while the rejection of Modi in the South won’t matter this time around as the current prime minister has captured much of the populous North and Center, many of India’s progressive cities and regions are in this part of the country. Southern constituents are important for the country as a whole due to the region’s strong industries and flourishing economy but currently lack a sufficient voice in national politics, which has already led to friction with India’s leaders.

        In Tamil Nadu, popular voting choices include Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the socialist leading party expected to win 18 seats (46 percent). Congress itself is projected to take another eight seats (21 percent) in the state, while unaffiliated All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which disassociated from the BJP last year, could win four (10 percent). In neighboring Kerala, the mostly-Congress aligned United Democratic Front (UDF) is expected to take 10 seats (50 percent) while another seven (35 percent) could fall to the communist-dominated Left Democratic Front (LDF), which has ruled the state legislature since 2016. In Telangana, Congress’ voting intentions would amount up to nine seats (53 percent).

        Other Southern states where the BJP is expected to fare worse than in India overall are Odisha and Andrah Pradesh. Here, more unaligned parties are expected to win big, including Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) in Andrah Pradesh as well as Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, where it also heads the state legislature. States in other regions where the BJP has a weaker showing are Punjab, where the Aam Aadmi Party is expected to win six seats (46 percent) and West Bengal, home to the newly unaligned All India Trinamool Congress, expected to take 19 or 45 percent of seats.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 23:20

      • Landmark Study Reveals 'Transgender' Kids Actually Have Other Mental Health Diagnoses
        Landmark Study Reveals ‘Transgender’ Kids Actually Have Other Mental Health Diagnoses

        Authored by Sara Parshaall Perry via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

        It’s been a red-letter week for destroying the gender narrative. And the trans juggernaut just hit another speed bump.

        Transitioning children not only harms them physically and psychologically, but it also causes medical conflicts. (Sangiao Photography/Shutterstock)

        Fresh off the heels of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announcing that it would not allow transgender-identified men to compete in women’s athletic events in any of its association’s 239 small private schools, a landmark study was released on Wednesday that defies the hysterical warning that if gender dysphoric adolescents don’t receive “gender-affirming care,” they will kill themselves.

        The new study from British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass confirms what we’ve always known: Children presenting with sudden onset gender dysphoria are actually suffering from other mental health diagnoses—not true gender dysphoria. Her research debunks the gender ideologues’ frequent talking point: that the imposition of medical “gender-affirming care” on mentally ill children is not only necessary, but life-saving.

        Cass’ research instead reveals that children who think they are transgender disproportionately have mental health issues stemming from a difficult family situation or domestic abuse. They are also more likely to be neurodiverse and have a co-morbid autism spectrum disorder.

        Cass reveals that “gender affirming” medical interventions would not remedy any of these psychological issues. Effectively using such interventions would mean turning a blind eye to the real underlying psychological distress with which gender-confused children often struggle.

        Cass’ groundbreaking report reveals that mental health therapy is the best approach for gender-dysphoric children, rather than rushing to put them on hormones or puberty blockers or performing mutilating and irreversible surgeries.

        Her report also warns that if children are permitted to make choices to physically and socially conform with their gender of choice, rather than receiving the necessary treatment for their underlying mental health issues, they will experience significant negative psychological repercussions.

        Yes, you read that right. Securing medical “gender affirming” care creates the negative psychological repercussions gender identitarians warn us about. And the failure to receive it does not.

        At last, the narrative about adolescent gender dysphoria has started to crumble.

        Conservatives and gender critics have long warned against rushing to chemically castrate and mutilate gender-confused kids, advocating instead for the European approach of “watchful waiting” and mental health counseling. It seems they were right all along.

        Cass’ report on gender dysphoria was the second damning study to be released in 10 days. It was launched soon after another study that breaches the once seemingly impenetrable dam of gender identity built by the White House, cultural elites, celebrities, and politicized medical groups.

        A Dutch study of 2,700 children revealed that a significant majority of gender-confused children grow out of that feeling by the time they are full grown adults. This newly published research tracked adolescents for over 15 years and found that gender confusion in children drastically decreased over time, supporting the argument that when children believe they are transgender, it is often nothing more than a passing sensation—and not indisputable fact.

        Both Cass’ study and the recent Dutch study argue against transitioning kids who report gender dysphoria. Together, they advise for holistic treatment of these adolescents, treatment which addresses the complex psychological reasons a child may think he or she was born in the wrong body.

        Gender-confused children have been lied to, and the adults who have lied to them must be held accountable. The flood of litigation challenging these pernicious practices is only just beginning.

        Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

        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
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 23:00

      • Harvard To Once Again Require SATs For Admissions
        Harvard To Once Again Require SATs For Admissions

        Harvard is joining the ranks of other universities in recognizing the obvious: SATs are a great way to measure aptitude. And now that Harvard is busy grappling with other issues like plagiarism among its top ranks, it has decided to quietly shuffle SAT requirements back to where they were pre-Covid. 

        Harvard will reintroduce standardized testing requirements for admissions starting with the Class of 2029, deviating from its prior commitment to remain test-optional through the Class of 2030.

        This change, prompted by criticism as peers like Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown resumed mandatory testing, will affect applicants for fall and winter 2024, who must submit SAT or ACT scores unless exceptions apply. In specific cases where students can’t access these tests, Harvard will accept scores from Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams instead, according to the Harvard Crimson.

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

        Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Hopi E. Hoekstra said:  “…standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond. More information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range. With this change, we hope to strengthen our ability to identify these promising students.”

        Uh, yeah. That’s why it was a requirement to begin with. But we digress…

        The Crimson wrote that despite a majority of undergraduates submitting standardized test scores over the past four years, the exact figure has not been disclosed.

        Recently, Harvard officials, including Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons, were non-committal about reinstating testing requirements, noting ongoing policy reviews. However, a study from the Harvard-affiliated Opportunity Insights indicated that SAT scores are a better predictor of college success than high school GPA. Experts also suggest that requiring standardized tests could enhance racial and socioeconomic diversity at universities like Harvard.

        Harvard economist David J. Deming commented that test scores provide the “fairest admissions policy for disadvantaged applicants.”

        “Not everyone can hire an expensive college coach to help them craft a personal essay. But everyone has the chance to ace the SAT or the ACT,” he continued.

        Recall, we wrote just days ago that $500 tutors were back en vogue now that SATs were being reinstated. It was earlier this year when we noted that SATs were once again being reconsidered by colleges who had reduced or eliminated their requirement due to (pick one: diversity, racism, climate change, equity, gender affirmation). 

        As a result of the comeback, Bloomberg noted that tutors, sometimes costing $500 per hour, are all of a sudden back in vogue. They wrote that demand for SAT tutoring and prep centers is surging as several top colleges reintroduce mandatory SATs, and students adapt to the SAT’s new digital format.

        Kaplan reported a significant enrollment increase, attributed to digital testing and the reinstatement of testing requirements by institutions and three Ivy League schools—Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown—have reinstated mandatory SATs, alongside MIT and the University of Texas at Austin. This shift has left many students scrambling for preparation before early application deadlines.

        Companies like The Princeton Review have also seen a spike in interest for prep services.

        We noted earlier this year in a piece from American Greatness, that according to Axios, multiple colleges used the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to weaken the importance of SAT and ACT test scores in most student applications. But in recent weeks, several schools have reversed course; Yale is considering repealing its prior policy of making SAT/ACT requirements optional, with Dartmouth already reinstating the requirements earlier this month. MIT reversed a similar policy back in 2022.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 22:40

      • Can The US And Iraq Move Beyond Military Ties?
        Can The US And Iraq Move Beyond Military Ties?

        Authored by James Durso via ResponsibleStatecraft.org,

        Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani is in Washington next week with both sides hoping to expand their economic relationship…

        Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in the erroneous belief that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and was allied with al-Qaida, the terror group responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

        The U.S. created an occupation authority, but failed to restore order and helped spawn the insurgency that bedeviled it by dismissing the entire Iraqi military and the most experienced civil servants. Coalition troops fought a losing battle, regained their footing with the 2007 troop surge, and finally departed in 2011. U.S. troops returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State and they remain there to this day, though ISIS was largely eliminated by 2019.

        In January 2020, Iraq’s parliament voted on a nonbinding measure to remove the U.S. troops from Iraq, but the Americans remain at the request of the Iraqi government. However, in response to the parliament’s 2020 vote, Iraq and the International Coalition changed the mission of the troops from a combat mission to one of advisory and training.

        Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, will meet U.S. President Joe Biden on April 15, primarily to discuss the U.S. troop presence.

        Though the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission is reviewing the troop presence issue, will the U.S. side stall fearing it may have to agree to a smaller presence and constrained operations?

        Possibly, so Sudani may want a public commitment from Biden to force the march to a constructive, timely decision.

        Aside from the troops issue, Sudani wants to strengthen Baghdad’s ties with Washington, which he considers Iraq’s top bilateral relationship, and to add an economic dimension to Iraq’s ties with America.

        When Americans think of Iraq in economic terms it’s all about the oil, but in November 2023 ExxonMobil, America’s biggest oil company, exited Iraq with nothing to show for a decade-long effort.

        The departure will lower the expectation of other U.S. companies, but Sudani wants to revitalize economic ties, and he will be accompanied by many of the country’s top businessmen.

        U.S.-Iraq trade has room for growth.

        In 2022, the U.S. exported $897 million in goods, the top product being automobiles. Iraq, in turn, exported $10.3 billion in goods, most of it crude oil.

        A key economic objective of Iraq is the $17 billion Development Road, an overland road and rail link from the Persian Gulf to Europe via Turkey, that will host free-trade zones along its length.

        Biden and Sudani should consider the shape of the future U.S.-Iraq relationship, which has to now been governed by military considerations, and has become the best example of The Meddler’s Trap, “a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. …A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect.”

        Iraq is the only real democracy in the Arab world, and many young Iraqis want a separation of religion and state, something that should resonate with Americans and, Iraqis hope, cause the U.S. to deal with Iraq as Iraq, not a platform for operations against Syria and Iran, or to support Washington’s Kurdish clients.

        Washington damaged itself in Iraq by killing Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020. Baghdad had moved the PMF, once a militia, into the government in 2016 (no doubt with American encouragement), so the killing of Muhandis, then a government official, increased popular support the PMF.

        What are some clouds on the horizon for the U.S. and Iraq?

        Corruption. Pervasive corruption in Iraq has slowed economic development and subjected Iraqi citizens to ineffective governance. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International ranked Iraq 154 of 180, a slight improvement from 2022 when it ranked 157 of 180.

        Iraq was previously described by TI as: “Among the worst countries on corruption and governance indicators, with corruption risks exacerbated by lack of experience in the public administration, weak capacity to absorb the influx of aid money, sectarian issues and lack of political will for anti-corruption efforts.”

        Sudani has not ignored corruption, calling it one of the country’s greatest challenges and “no less serious than the threat of terrorism.”

        Elizabeth Tsurkov. Tsurkov is a Russian-Israeli academic who was kidnapped in 2023 by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-influenced Iraqi militia. Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University in the U.S., entered Iraq with her Russian passport and did not disclose that she was an Israeli citizen and Israeli Defense Forces veteran. (A 2022 Iraqi law criminalized any relations with Israel.)

        Tsurkov’s family wants the Biden administration to designate Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism for failing to secure her release. Sudani’s office announced an investigation into the matter and the issue may arise when Sudani meets Biden, though the best outcome for Iraq and the U.S. is a Russia-brokered deal between Israel and Iran.

        If Biden designates Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism that will irreparably damage the relationship and open the door for China.

        China. The U.S. is Iraq’s top relationship, but not its only relationship. China will respond to the ostracism of Baghdad by extending invitations to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, the latter of which can fund infrastructure projects through the New Development Bank. PetroChina replaced ExxonMobil in West Qurna 1, one of Iraq’s biggest oil fields, and is ideally positioned for further expansion. And Iraq was the “leading beneficiary” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2021.

        Sudani has said Iraq should not be a cockpit of conflict for the U.S. and Iran, but when Iran is concerned it, in Washington, is always 1979.

        Though Sudani has many challenges to face, Biden has more: he must reorient his government away from its colonial mentality in West Asia, recognize that Baghdad must reach a modus vivendi with Tehran that may not be to Washington’s pleasure, and not smooth the way for Beijing’s greater penetration of West Asia.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 22:20

      • Google Begins Blocking News From California Outlets Over State Bill
        Google Begins Blocking News From California Outlets Over State Bill

        Google has temporarily blocked access to California-based news outlets for some state residents, as the search giant escalates its battle with the state over a landmark bill which would force tech giants to pay online publishers for their content.

        In doing so, the company has revived a political tactic used repeatedly by the tech industry to try and derail similar legislation in places like Canada and Australia which require online platforms to pay outlets for articles featured on their websites, Politico reports.

        “We have long said that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism,” said Google’s VP for global news partnership, Jaffer Zaidi, in a Friday blog post. According to Zaidi, the bill could “result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers.”

        Sacramento is hosting the latest round of a global fight over the journalism industry’s future in the digital age, and California’s battle has taken on additional resonance because the state is home to tech titans. Advocates for such legislation argue companies like Google and Meta have helped decimate already flagging newsroom revenues through their control over digital advertising, and outlets deserve compensation for content that users may see on their platforms for free.

        The companies counter that these laws could stifle vital sources of information — and they’ve fought back by attempting to preview what they say that would look like. -Politico

        In Canada, Google similarly threatened to block content before reaching a deal with the government last November, three weeks before the ‘Online News Act’ came into effect. The company agreed to make annual payments to news outlets in the range of $100 million.

        Meta, meanwhile, has completely removed news content from its social feed in Canada, and has threatened to do the same in California – where the company has lobbied heavily against the measures currently under consideration in the state legislature. The company has spent over $1 million to run an ad campaign decrying the bill as a “link tax,” a phrase Zaidi used in his blog post.

        According to state Sen. Ben Allen (D), “Newspaper publishers and the journalists provide a really important service as a part of [Google’s] broader business model, and meanwhile they’re going bankrupt and you guys have record profits.“

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 22:00

      • Did Lockdowns Set A Global Revolt In Motion?
        Did Lockdowns Set A Global Revolt In Motion?

        Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

        My first article on the coming backlash – admittedly wildly optimistic – went to print April 24, 2020.

        After 6 weeks of lockdown, I confidently predicted a political revolt, a movement against masks, a population-wide revulsion against the elites, a demand to reject “social distancing” and streaming-only life, plus widespread disgust at everything and everyone involved.

        I was off by four years. I wrongly assumed back then that society was still functioning and that our elites would be responsive to the obvious flop of the whole lockdown scheme. I assumed that people were smarter than they proved to be. I also did not anticipate just how devastating the effects of lockdown would be: in terms of learning loss, economic chaos, cultural shock, and the population-wide demoralization and loss of trust.

        The forces that set in motion those grim days were far more deep than I knew at the time. They involved a willing complicity from tech, media, pharma, and the administrative state at all levels of society.

        There is every evidence that it was planned to be exactly what it became; not just a foolish deployment of public health powers but a “great reset” of our lives. The newfound powers of the ruling class were not given up so easily, and it took far longer for people to shake off the trauma than I had anticipated.

        Is that backlash finally here? If so, it’s about time.

        New literature is emerging to document it all.

        The new book “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy” is a viciously partisan, histrionic, and gravely inaccurate account that gets nearly everything wrong but one: vast swaths of the public are fed up, not with democracy but its opposite of ruling class hegemony.

        The revolt is not racial and not geographically determined. It’s not even about left and right, categories that are mostly a distraction. it’s class-based in large part but more precisely about the rulers vs. the ruled.

        With more precision, new voices are emerging among people who detect a “vibe change” in the population.

        One is Elizabeth Nickson’s article “Strongholds Falling; Populists Seize the Culture.”

        She argues, quoting Bret Weinstein, that:

        “The lessons of [C]ovid are profound. The most important lesson of Covid is that without knowing the game, we outfoxed them and their narrative collapsed …. The revolution is happening all over the socials, especially in videos. And the disgust is palpable.”

        A second article is “Vibe Shift” by Santiago Pliego:

        “The Vibe Shift I’m talking about is the speaking of previously unspeakable truths, the noticing of previously suppressed facts. I’m talking about the give you feel when the walls of Propaganda and Bureaucracy start to move as you push; the very visible dust kicked up in the air as Experts and Fact Checkers scramble to hold on to decaying institutions; the cautious but electric rush of energy when dictatorial edifices designed to stifle innovation, enterprise, and thought are exposed or toppled. Fundamentally, the Vibe Shift is a return to—a championing of—Reality, a rejection of the bureaucratic, the cowardly, the guilt-driven; a return to greatness, courage, and joyous ambition.”

        We truly want to believe this is true. And this much is certainly correct: the battle lines are incredibly clear these days. The media that uncritically echo the deep-state line are known: Slate, Wired, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, New Republic, New Yorker, and so on, to say nothing of the New York Times. What used to be politically partisan venues with certain predictable biases are now more readily described as ruling-class mouthpieces, forever instructing you precisely how to think while demonizing disagreement.

        After all, all of these venues, in addition to the obvious case of the science journals, are still defending the lockdowns and everything that followed. Rather than express regret for their bad models and immoral means of control, they have continued to insist that they did the right thing, regardless of the civilization-wide carnage everywhere in evidence, while ignoring the relationship between the policies they championed and the terrible results.

        Instead of allowing their mistakes to change their own outlook, they have adapted their own worldview to allow for snap lockdowns anytime they deem them necessary. In holding this view, they have forged a view of politics that it is embarrassingly acquiescent to the powerful.

        The liberalism that once questioned authority and demanded free speech seems extinct. This transmogrified and captured liberalism now demands compliance with authority and calls for further restrictions on free speech. Now anyone who makes a basic demand for normal freedom—to speak or choose one’s own medical treatment or to decline to wear a mask—can reliably anticipate being denounced as “right-wing” even when it makes absolutely no sense.

        The smears, cancellations, and denunciations are out of control, and so unbearably predictable.

        It’s enough to make one’s head spin. As for the pandemic protocols themselves, there have been no apologies but only more insistence that they were imposed with the best of intentions and mostly correct. The World Health Organization wants more power, and so does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though the evidence of the failure of pharma pours in daily, major media venues pretend that all is well, and thereby out themselves as mouthpieces for the ruling regime.

        The issue is that major and unbearably obvious failures have never been admitted. Institutions and individuals who only double down on preposterous lies that everyone knows are lies only end up discrediting themselves.

        That’s a pretty good summary of where we are today, with vast swaths of elite culture facing an unprecedented loss of trust. Elites have chosen the lie over truth and cover-up over transparency.

        This is becoming operationalized in declining traffic for legacy media, which is shedding costly staff as fast as possible. The social media venues that cooperated closely with government during the lockdowns are losing cultural sway while uncensored ones like Elon Musk’s X are gaining attention. Disney is reeling from its partisanship, while states are passing new laws against WHO policies and interventions.

        Sometimes this whole revolt can be quite entertaining.

        When the CDC or WHO posts an update on X, when they allow comments, it is followed by thousands of reader comments of denunciation and poking fun, with flurries of comments to the effect of “I will not comply.”

        DEI is being systematically defunded by major corporations while financial institutions are turning on it. Indeed, the culture in general has come to regard DEI as a sure indication of incompetence. Meanwhile, the outer reaches of the “great reset” such as the hope that EVs would replace internal combustion have come to naught as the EV market has collapsed, along with consumer demand for fake meat to say nothing of bug eating.

        As for politics, yes, it does seem like the backlash has empowered populist movements all over the world. We see them in the farmers’ revolt in Europe, the street protests in Brazil against a sketchy election, the widespread discontent in Canada over government policies, and even in migration trends out of US blue states toward red ones. Already, the administrative state in D.C. is working to secure itself against a possible unfriendly president in the form of Donald Trump or RFK, Jr.

        So, yes, there are many signs of revolt. These are all very encouraging.

        What does all this mean in practice? How does this end? How precisely does a revolt take shape in an industrialized democracy? What is the mostly likely pathway for long-term social change?

        These are legitimate questions.

        For hundreds of years, our best political philosophers have opined that no system can function in a sustainable way in which a huge majority is coercively governed by a tiny elite with a class interest in serving themselves at public expense.

        That seems correct. In the days of the Occupy Wall Street movement of 15 years ago, the street protesters spoke of the 1 percent vs. the 99 percent. They were speaking of those with the money inside the traders’ buildings as opposed to the people on the streets and everywhere else.

        Even if that movement misidentified the full nature of the problem, the intuition into which it tapped spoke to a truth. Such a disproportionate distribution of power and wealth is dangerously unsustainable. Revolution of some sort threatens. The mystery right now is what form this takes. It’s unknown because we’ve never been here before.

        There is no real historical record of a highly developed society ostensibly living under a civilized code of law that experiences an upheaval of the type that would be required to unseat the rulers of all the commanding heights. We’ve seen political reform movements that take place from the top down but not really anything that approximates a genuine bottom-up revolution of the sort that is shaping up right now.

        We know, or think we know, how it all transpires in a tinpot dictatorship or a socialist society of the old Soviet bloc. The government loses all legitimacy, the military flips loyalties, there is a popular revolt that boils over, and the leaders of the government flee. Or they simply lose their jobs and take up new positions in civilian life. These revolutions can be violent or peaceful but the end result is the same. One regime replaces another.

        It’s hard to know how this translates to a society that is heavily modernized and seen as non-totalitarian and even existing under the rule of law, more or less. How does revolution occur in this case? How does the regime come around to adapting itself to a public revolt against governance as we know it in the US, UK, and Europe?

        Yes, there is the vote, if we can trust that. But even here, there are the candidates, which are that for a reason. They specialize in politics, which does not necessarily mean doing the right thing or reflecting the aspirations of the voters behind them. They are responsive to their donors first, as we have long discovered. Public opinion can matter but there is no mechanism that guarantees a smoothly responsive pathway from popular attitudes to political outcomes.

        There is also the pathway of industrial change, a migration of resources out of legacy venues to new ones. Indeed, in the marketplace of ideas, the amplifiers of regime propaganda are failing but we also observe the response: widened censorship. What’s happening in Brazil with the full criminalization of free speech can easily happen in the US.

        In social media, were it not for Elon’s takeover of Twitter, it’s hard to know where we would be. We have no large platform in which to influence the culture more broadly. And yet the attacks on that platform and other enterprises owned by Musk are growing. This is emblematic of a much more robust upheaval taking place, one that suggests change is on the way.

        But how long does such a paradigm shift take? Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is a bracing account of how one orthodoxy migrates to another not by the ebb and flow of proof and evidence but through dramatic paradigm shifts. An abundance of anomalies can wholly discredit a current praxis but that doesn’t make it go away. Ego and institutional inertia perpetuate the problem until its most prominent exponents retire and die and a new elite replaces them with different ideas.

        In this model, we can expect that a failed innovation in science, politics, or technology could last as long as 70 years before finally being displaced, which is roughly how long the Soviet experiment lasted. That’s a depressing thought. If this is true, we still have another 60 plus years of rule by the management professionals who enacted lockdowns, closures, shot mandates, population propaganda, and censorship.

        And yet, people say that history is moving faster now than in the past. If a future of freedom is ours just lying in wait, we need that future here sooner rather than later, before it is too late to do anything about it.

        The slogan became popular about ten years ago: the revolution will be decentralized with the creation of robust parallel institutions. There is no other path.

        The intellectual parlor game is over. This is a real-life struggle for freedom itself. It’s resist and rebuild or doom.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 21:40

      • Buying Votes: Biden Cancels Student Debt For 277,000 Borrowers Ahead Of Presidential Elections
        Buying Votes: Biden Cancels Student Debt For 277,000 Borrowers Ahead Of Presidential Elections

        On Friday, President Joe Biden announced that he would cancel the federal student debt of more than 277,000 Americans, equating to about $7.4 billion. This would bring the total of what is considered classical vote buying ahead of the November presidential elections to more than $153 billion, or forgiving the debt of 4.3 million people.

        The majority of the 277,000 Americans who were forgiven federal student debt were enrolled in the government’s income-driven repayment plan, known as SAVE, which promises borrowers to forgive their debts after ten years of loan repayments. 

        The White House touted: 

        Since President Biden took office, his administration has approved over $54 billion in debt cancellation for 1.3 million borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans, including the new SAVE Plan. This builds on additional actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to cancel debt for nearly 900,000 public service workers, 1.3 million borrowers cheated by their schools or borrowers covered by related court settlements, and nearly 550,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability, including many veterans.

        Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced new student loan plans that would begin canceling federal student debt up to $20,000 in interest for millions of borrowers and total loan forgiveness for millions more. Those who qualify for the government’s income-driven repayment plan would have the full balance of their unpaid interest forgiven, benefiting at least 25 million Americans. 

        “This latest round of debt cancellation comes on the heels of President Biden announcing new plans that, if implemented, would cancel student debt for over 30 million Americans when combined with actions the Administration has taken over the last three years,” the White House said.

        Meanwhile, a seven-state coalition filed a new lawsuit on Monday challenging the “most generous ever” federal student loan repayment plan.

        In the complaint filed in federal court in Missouri, the seven states argued that SAVE is another unlawful attempt to force taxpayers to shoulder the bill for others. 

        “Just last year, the [U.S.] Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the President to force teachers, truckers, and farmers to pay for the student loan debt of other Americans—to the enormous tune of $430 billion,” the states wrote in the complaint, explaining how the high court’s 6-3 majority explicitly ruled that the president shall not sidestep Congress in making a decision that could have a significant impact on the economy. 

        “Undeterred, the President is at it again, even bragging that the Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me,'” the complaint added.

        The administration’s latest student debt push is a sign of desperation. It comes as Bidenomics has been a gigantic failure and risks causing a sovereign debt crisis. Gold’s push to record highs is figuring this one out. 

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

        Also, inflation has been reaccelerating for months while nationwide gasoline pump prices inch closer to the politically sensitive $4 level. And if the inflation storm wasn’t enough, the nation has been swamped by a White House-facilitated illegal alien invasion as progressive cities burn under failed social justice reforms. 

        What’s worse, the Biden administration’s foreign policy has been an epic disaster as the world moves closer to World War III in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Still, don’t forget about what’s happening in the Pacific. 

        This is why the White House must buy votes… 

        What better way to distract voters about the failures of this administration and the inflation storm crushing the working poor than to distract with socialist policies of ‘free stuff’ – such as canceling student loan debt… 

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 21:20

      • 20 Women Soccer Players Withdraw From League Over Transgender Players
        20 Women Soccer Players Withdraw From League Over Transgender Players

        Authored by Jim Birchall via The Epoch Times,

        Concerns over the physical safety of female-born football (soccer) players competing against transgender athletes have compelled at least 20 players to quit, according to a source from within a Sydney-based league.

        Calling itself the “biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world,” the Flying Bats FC has made international headlines for fielding 5 self-identifying transgender players, with at least nine transgender players in the wider NorthWest Association.

        Critics have said the Bat’s domination of the four-week pre-season Beryl Ackroyd Cup, which followed an undefeated season in 2023 that produced scorelines disproportionate to other teams’ results, was a direct result of the inclusion of male-born transgender players.

        According to the feminist and pro-woman online news source, Reduxx, president of St. Patrick’s Football Club Frank Parisi said a March discussion over the Flying Bats FC’s ease of victories had prompted an informal meeting with stakeholders of the Northwest Sydney Football Association to address “concerns around how implausible it has become for any team to win against the Flying Bats as well as physical safety concerns.”

        Incensed by the Flying Bats’ domination, other clubs asked the league’s governing body Football NSW to force them into playing in a mixed-sex league.

        One club official told the Daily Telegraph, “Our girls are here to play for fun and expect to play in the female competition. They did not sign up for a mixed competition. It was so disheartening for them to see the huge difference in ability—they’re killing it.”

        The involvement of transgender athletes in sports is a current hot-button issue, as policymakers grapple with how to balance the effects on women’s players, versus the “rights” of female-identifying players born as biological men.

        Advocates argue that transgender individuals should be able to participate in sports according to their gender identity, while opponents raise concerns about fairness and competitive advantage.

        One of the key points of contention is the impact of testosterone levels on athletic performance.

        Testosterone affects muscle mass, strength, and endurance, and transgender males who have undergone hormone therapy to transition may still have higher testosterone levels than cisgender females, providing a competitive advantage in women’s sports.

        Pro-transgender inclusion campaigners argue for allowing individuals to compete according to their gender identity, regardless of hormone levels. They argue that excluding transgender athletes from women’s sports is discriminatory and goes against principles of inclusion and equality.

        Teams Could be Punished for Forfeiting Matches

        Despite the arguments for and against inclusion, anecdotal evidence has emerged of severe injuries being sustained by female players playing against the Flying Bats.

        In audio of the Northwest Sydney Football Association meeting leaked to social media, Frank Parisi detailed an incident whereby a female player’s leg was broken during a game;

        “A couple of year ago, one of the Flying Bats players broke one of our players’ legs in a game. It was a clumsy tackle from behind. Our player had her leg broken in two places and she’s no longer playing football. It was a direct result of a real bad, tall player… he didn’t get a red card.

        “Accidents happen, but this could have been avoided,” Mr. Parisi said.

        “One of our players rushed over to try to help her, she was screaming in so much pain. At that time, she made a derogatory remark to the Bats’ player, which we apologised for. [She was] suspended (for 8 weeks). The Bats player, nothing happened to [him].”

        Trans activist and former YouTuber Riley Dennis was also involved in football in NSW and came under criticism while playing for the Inter Lions FC in NSW Women’s Premier League 2 for injuring a female player who required hospital attention.

        Mr. Parisi said at the meeting, 24 women had recently withdrawn from his club’s team.

        “There’s a massive impact. I’m a very small club, we’ve only got seven teams … and now I’ve lost both my women’s teams, and it was a direct result of members of the Flying Bats who were male playing in a female competition.”

        Complicating affairs is a directive from Football NSW and Football Australia that allows players “to participate in football on the basis of the gender with which they identify.”

        The clause is consistent with the Australian Human Rights Commission’s guidelines on transgender athlete participation.

        Speaking with the Daily Mail, North West Sydney Football (NWSF) CEO Matthew Geracitano said he had heard a team that chooses not to play against the Flying Bats could potentially be censured for an “act of discrimination.”

        “In response to a direct question from a member Club, NWSF reminded stakeholders that NWSF’s Grievance and Disciplinary Regulations apply sanctions for teams who forfeit games in any competition and that these regulations have been in place for many years.”

        Read more here…

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 21:00

      • Hummer Reportedly Kills EV Base 2 Trim Level As Demand Cools 
        Hummer Reportedly Kills EV Base 2 Trim Level As Demand Cools 

        In the latest setback, General Motors has ditched the base trim level for the Hummer EVs, according to a new report from the autoblog GM Authority. The legacy automaker has delayed and slowed its EV initiative in recent months as the industry continues to slide. 

        GM Authority has learned that there will be no “base” 2 trim level for the Hummer EV, as was originally announced. As background, the 2 trim was supposed to arrive for the 2024 model year for both the Hummer EV Pickup and Hummer EV SUV, but it seems as though the automaker changed its plans. Moving forward, there will be no 2 model for the 2025 model year.

        For GM guys and gals who were promised Hummer EVs with base trims and lower prices (starting around  $79,995 and offer 250 miles of range), the report from GM Authority does not bode well for EV price affordability. 

        This also comes as GM delayed the launch of its Toledo EV Propulsion Systems plant in Ohio by nine months. It will start operating in late 2024. GM said it will “retime the launch of Electric Drive Unit at the plant to Q4 2024 in order to better align with Orion Assembly’s planned production schedule.”

        Furthermore, GM has announced production delays of EV trucks at its Orion assembly until late 2025, including the Chevy Silverado RST and GMC Sierra Denali EVs. 

        Consumer appetite for EVs is rapidly cooling. And legacy automakers have felt the brunt of the slowdown. 

        Last week, Ford Motor said it was postponing production of a new three-row SUV as it pushes the delivery date from late 2025 to 2026 and will focus on hybrid options across its entire North American lineup. 

        Even Tesla Motors, the leader in the EV space, is experiencing a slowdown in sales. 

        “Tesla is going from the golden era to a really challenging era,” said Mark Fields, a former CEO of Ford Motor. 

        As legacy automakers face waning demand and mounting delays in debuting EV SUVs and trucks, Tesla’s Cybertruck is in massive demand, and production is being ramped up. 

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 20:40

      • School District Takes Next Step In Ditching Seattle Gifted Program
        School District Takes Next Step In Ditching Seattle Gifted Program

        Authored by Jason Rantz via mynorthwest.com (emphasis ours),

        Privileged progressives, donning their white knight armor, are in the next phase of a plan to end Seattle Public Schools’ gifted students program — known locally as its Highly Capable Cohort (HCC). They complained the HCC was too white.

        (Photo courtesy of KIRO 7)

        HCC separates academically gifted students from others via different classrooms or entirely different schools. But in 2020, white Seattle school board directors voted to terminate the HCC over the objections of parents. HCC will be completely phased out by the 2027-28 school year. 

        Outraged more by the success of white and Asian students than by the untapped potential of black and Hispanic pupils, progressives would rather drag achievers down than elevate everyone. These self-proclaimed saviors boast on social media about tackling inequities, oblivious to the harm they inflict. Indeed, the program to replace the HCC, and be implemented in every classroom, ensures that gifted students will be unchallenged, struggling students will escape the attention they deserve and teachers will be overwhelmed. In other words, everyone will be equitably harmed.

        More from Jason Rantz: Seattle English students told it’s ‘white supremacy’ to love reading, writing

        Why did Seattle Public Schools gifted program end?

        Critics argued the students in HCC did not reflect the diversity of the community. The move was prompted by Black Lives Matter activism.

        In 2018, three years after Seattle Public Schools (SPS) hired an “equity specialist” to address so-called racial inequities, the students HCC served 13% multiracial, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic and 1.6% black. (By 2023, it was 20% multiracial, 16% Asian, 8.2% Hispanic and 3.4% black.) Critics argue that because the HCC didn’t match the district’s diversity, the program was irredeemably racist and needed to be dismantled.

        But parents, including those who are black, Asian and Hispanic, argued against closing them down. They argued that SPS should work harder to identify minority students who are eligible for HCC, rather then kill the program entirely.

        One father pleaded that the Seattle School Board “consider the disservice you would be doing to the minorities that are already in the HCC program.” He argued that the gifted program “does more for Black children, particularly Black boys, than it does for their peers.”

        But the extremist Seattle School Board was unmoved.

        Then-director Chandra Hampson accused black parents supporting the HCC as being “tokenized” by white Seattle parents. 

        What is replacing the gifted highly capable cohort program?

        The “whole-classroom model” is replacing HCC and be implemented in each classroom starting in the 2024-25 school year. It’s unworkable.

        Read the rest here…

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 20:20

      • The Freedom That Once Was The Internet
        The Freedom That Once Was The Internet

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

        It’s time to declare as regards the internet of old: Requiescat in Pace.

        In this photo illustration an internet page is displayed on a computer screen in London, England, on April 13, 2006. (Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

        It’s dead. We might as well face it.

        Nearly every large application and website in existence, meaning most of what people use on what we call the internet, constituting an estimated 95 percent of the main portals of information, is now compromised by some power somewhere, making them no longer part of the free world and no longer part of the army of truth.

        If that shocks you, you haven’t used Google or Facebook recently. They are both heavily rigged not to get you the information you want but rather to push out to you information that someone somewhere wants you to have. And the situation is getting worse, not better. This is despite impending court challenges that are hoping for a restoration of free speech. If there were a serious threat that this would happen, wouldn’t we see the censored venues improve and not worsen?

        The situation is heartbreaking and gives rise to melancholic reflections on the promise and betrayal.

        My fear is that hardly anyone remembers a time when the internet held out the highest hope in modern history for the emancipation of humanity from the control of the powerful. I had a model in my own head of a mass migration out of the controlled and regulated physical world and into a digital realm that was so large, so potentially infinite in scope, containing so many nodes and so many content providers, that states would be hopeless in the face of it.

        Yes, I was the paradigmatic case of the techno-utopian who got bitten by the bug of progress in about 1996. I was sitting there at my desk, newly aware of these things called websites, and managing one myself. I put up a few old issues of a newsletter. A few days later, I needed to look at that newsletter. I saw it sitting across the room. At that moment, I suddenly realized that it would actually be easier just to look at it online.

        Now, you might laugh when you hear that story. But keep in mind that at that point in history, most people had no idea of the extent of the power of this tool. I did not. I knew that I could post things and they would appear on a screen. But it wasn’t until that moment that it suddenly dawned on me. By posting anything online, I could liberate any bit of information from the physical world, in which only I could have access so long as I was sitting there, and give that same piece of information to millions and billions of people, possibly forever.

        I did a deep intake of air in a state of shock and amazement. I immediately knew what my task was. I was determined to get every valuable piece of content in my possession and scan and post in every possible format. I was surrounded by out-of-print items of every sort. I got to work, piece by piece, putting it all up there for the world. I knew it would likely take me the rest of my career to do this but it was joyful work, work that would free the world. I would do my part.

        It was two years later when a friend wrote me: “I have the name of a new search engine you absolutely have to try.”

        “What’s wrong with AltaVista?” I asked.

        “Nothing but this one is far better. It’s called Google.”

        Sure enough, it was better. We all adopted Google as a friend. And it was for a very long time. It only improved day by day, and eventually solve the problem of email spam that was the biggest threat to software functioning at the time.

        In those days, those of us playing with all these new tools felt like insiders and revolutionaries. We learned to code. We ate and slept HTML, and later learned to separate content and presentation with style sheets. We learned to manage servers and then build online databases to economize on processes to avoid tangles. We played with image formats and sizes. We learned about maximizing speed and search engine access. Every day, we learned a new trick and deployed it.

        Goodness, those were heady times. We wore thumb drives from strings around our necks and were constantly plugged in, as builders of the new world.

        We felt like we were part of a community, a global one, with the same ideals. Information naturally wanted to be free, we theorized and we believed, and it was up to us to make that happen. Nothing could stop us, not even governments. With unbreakable encryption not even backdoors to servers could do the trick. I ended up writing two full books on the thesis that the more we digitize everything, the freer we would become.

        Truth is that everything around us seemed to confirm this view. Social media came along as did video services and free video calling plus every form of instant message to connect us instantly with anyone on the planet. When translation tools became available, even language barriers were breaking down.

        My scanning and publishing projects had gone on hyperdrive. I put in several thousand books plus old journals plus diaries plus newsletters and magazines. And I cooperated with teams around the world to make them into digital books and then print books and searchable databases. The universe of information we were creating scaled and scaled and there seemed to be no limit to the abundance of connectivity and information that would pass through these magical tubes that were connecting the planet from one end to the other, regardless of nation states.

        Was it always an illusion? Probably. The point is that the internet at its height was built by people (like me) who believed in it and worked toward achieving the ideal.

        The ideal became gradually compromised over time. Copyright claims wrecked the idea of putting all knowledge online, as the Google Books program quickly discovered. Patent claims stopped the development of new tools, and did their part to consolidate the industry. Gradually what led to institutional power on the internet was not use or innovation but war chests of claims of “intellectual property.”

        Such claims were inherently at war with what the internet wanted to be. I joined a band of brothers and sisters who were going to get rid of such old-fashioned rules and replace them with new ones, including file sharing apps and open declarations of Creative Commons licensing. Indeed, we had everything solved, a perfect way forward.

        We forget one thing: the long historical trajectory of powerful states and their powerful corporate allies to work together to consolidate control and exploit the rest of humanity. As it turned out, there was no technical solution to that problem, no code, no app, no legal trick, no innovation, and not even a mass movement. The cartels got busy to regain control.

        I’m going to date this new period of consolidation from about 2012 onward. It’s hard to say exactly when it all took shape but it was at some point during the Obama years. The antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft was the warning shot: play ball with the state or we will break you up. That threat is still with us.

        Looking back, it’s clear that some people in government and corporate boardrooms simply declared: this new freedom that people think they have cannot work for stabilizing our power. We have to bring it to an end. The new world will operate more like the old.

        The victory of Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 terrified elites the world over, and these seemed to be backed by growing populist movements far and wide. It was at this point that powerful interests simply decided that internet freedom had not worked for their interests. They decided to declare it to be over.

        There were three steps in this process.

        First, consolidate the industries, so that we only have to deal with a few rather than many: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and a few others. Have them buy up any and all innovative competitors and either rope them into their operations or shut them down completely.

        Second, erect high regulations in the industry to make sure that these main players are permanent and not challenged anymore by punks in a garage somewhere.

        Third, embed regime-sympathetic managers and investors at these institutions and gradually turn them from serving the public to serving the regime.

        The lockdown games of 2020 and following were their chance to deploy their new machine of censorship and control to see just how well they worked to propagandize the population. As it turns out, they worked pretty well. And that leaves only one last step: criminalize all speech that contradicts that which is approved.

        That is happening in Brazil. The United States is next. China is the model of control.

        Fortunately and for now, the work of many of us from the past survives in various forms but for how long? It is clear where we are headed. The power elite want the internet to work exactly like media of old: three channels saying all the same thing forever.

        Will they get away with it? So far it is working. Of the internet dreams of old, we can say: The dream was betrayed at multiple levels and in ways is worthy of great novels.

        To gain full control of the internet as a means of managing the public mind, however, is going to take far more than consolidation and surreptitious infiltration. To complete the task will require a level of population coercion on a scale we’ve never seen in history. Possible? Doubtful.

        As for the dream of achieving freedom itself, we will always say: “Per aspera ad astra.”

        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
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 19:40

      • Biden Punishes Drillers With 15-Fold Increase In Permitting Costs, Plans To Block Arctic Oil Extraction
        Biden Punishes Drillers With 15-Fold Increase In Permitting Costs, Plans To Block Arctic Oil Extraction

        One week after the Biden administration slapped new regulations on key power grid components, the Washington Post reports that US oil and gas companies will face a 15-fold increase in costs to drill on federal land, under a new rule released on Friday.

        Workers operate a drilling rig while plugging an abandoned oil well north of Shelby, Mont. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post) (Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez/For The Washington Post)

        Under it, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will require drillers to pay $150,000 per lease on federal lands, up from $10,000 – the first comprehensive update to the federal oil and gas leasing program in over three decades.

        Fossil fuel companies will also be required to pay higher royalties to the government on oil and gas extracted from federal lands – jumping from 12.5% of revenue to 16.67%.

        That’s not all…

        The rule comes as the Biden administration readies a sweeping plan to limit future oil drilling across roughly 13 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope, which the US set aside a century ago as an emergency supply.

        That initiative, set to be finalized in the coming days per Bloomberg, comes as both oil executives and Alaska lawmakers have sounded the alarm over the plan – saying that it could thwart oil and gas development throughout the reserve, even on existing leases.

        The Interior Department said in a preamble the regulation wouldn’t affect existing leases. But the proposed rule text doesn’t offer similar, explicit assurance. Instead, it proposes to give the government broad authority to limit or bar access to existing leases, “regardless of any existing authorization.” Oil leasing and infrastructure development would be presumed not to be permitted unless specific information clearly demonstrates the work can be done with “no or minimal adverse effects” on the habitat.

        “This would be bad for America’s energy security,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said on X, adding “It would openly defy federal law while ignoring rising energy prices and growing global volatility. “

        “It would yet again sanction Alaska instead of nations like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela,” she added.

        https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe Biden administration has argued that the changes are necessary to protect ‘sensitive landscapes’ that provide habitat for polar bears, migratory birds and caribou.

        “We must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in announcing the measure last year, Bloomberg continues.

        How very inflationary…

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 19:20

      • "I Cannot Afford To Live": Americans Get Emotional As The US Economy Goes Off The Rails
        “I Cannot Afford To Live”: Americans Get Emotional As The US Economy Goes Off The Rails

        Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

        As we approach what is likely to be the most chaotic presidential election in U.S. history, troubling signs are starting to erupt for the U.S. economy.  In fact, CNN is actually admitting that “the long-predicted storm clouds in the economy may actually be forming”.  I can’t remember the last time that I saw a CNN article with a headline like that.  But at this point, it is becoming extremely difficult for the mainstream media to avoid the truth.  Inflation is getting worse at the same time that many key sectors of our economy are slowing down.  If you thought that the last couple of years were rough for the economy, just wait until you see what is coming next.  Tremendous turmoil is on the horizon, and the American people are becoming increasingly emotional about our rapidly growing economic problems.

        On Wednesday, we learned that prices jumped even more than expected during the month of March…

        Inflation jumped in March as prices for consumer staples such as gasoline edged higher and those for housing remained stubbornly high, suggesting inflation may be a bit stickier than it seemed just a few months ago, economists said.

        The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 3.5% in March from a year ago, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday. That’s up from 3.2% in February.

        Lots of pundits on television are telling us that this is really bad news for Joe Biden.

        But if prices were only rising at a 3.5 percent annual rate, that would be outstanding news.

        In fact, if prices were only rising at a 3.5 percent annual rate I would not be concerned about inflation at all.

        Of course by now everyone realizes that the way inflation is calculated has been changed repeatedly over the years and so the numbers that the government gives us are essentially meaningless at this point.

        In order to get a realistic idea of how much prices are rising, we need to look at specific categories.

        For example, Fox Business is reporting that the cost of energy “is up 36.9% from where it was in Jan. 2021″…

        Tuesday’s inflation numbers punctuate what has been a dreadful three years for energy consumers. The overall cost of energy in March is up 36.9% from where it was in Jan. 2021, according to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

        Of course energy prices are going to go a lot higher than they are right now.

        Just wait until Iran and Israel start lobbing missiles at one another.

        Housing has become insanely expensive as well.

        In fact, the average monthly mortgage payment on a newly purchased home has approximately doubled since Joe Biden entered the White House.

        So how in the world can they possibly tell us with a straight face that inflation is in the low single digits if that is the case?

        Home insurance rates are going into the stratosphere as well.

        One 71-year-old retiree in South Dakota says that his home insurance payment went up by 110 percent in just one year…

        Ken Brown is worried he is going to be forced out of his house if his home insurance premium continues to go up.

        The 71-year-old retiree who lives near Rapid City, South Dakota, has seen his annual cover with American Family skyrocket almost 110 percent in the last year – from $1,665 to $3,490.

        Ken is on a fixed retirement income, while his wife Valeria, 68, is still working to help cover the insurance bill – and a whole host of other rising costs.

        Let’s be honest with ourselves.

        The truth is that we are in the midst of the worst inflation crisis that any of us have ever seen.

        Don’t let them gaslight you.

        The price of food is also going nuts.  At one location in California, a 40 piece order of Chicken McNuggets and two orders of large fries will now set you back more than 25 dollars…

        A viral social media video about a $25 McDonald’s “deal” recently sparked an online debate about California’s minimum-wage increase.

        A TikTok user who posts videos under the username @shannon_montipaya shared the video on March 27. She was in the drive-thru of a Southern California McDonald’s location when she saw a sign for a 40-piece Chicken McNugget meal deal, which also included two large orders of fries.

        The price of the meal bundle was $25.39 — including sales tax, it would come to roughly $27. In the video, the social media user lamented that the meal didn’t even include a drink.

        “OK, so it’s $25.39 for 40-piece nuggets and two large fries,” she said. “You couldn’t even throw in the Sprite?

        With everything that is going on, I can certainly understand why Americans are getting so emotional about inflation.

        Recently, one TikTok user racked up 5 million views when he posted a rant in which he boldly declared that “I cannot afford to live”…

        Last week, a TikTok user posted an angry rant about the cost of living that’s since been viewed 5 million times on the platform, with tens of thousands of comments and shares.

        “I make over three times the federal minimum wage and I cannot afford to live,” he shouts into the camera. “It is embarrassing to come out and say that it is a struggle to survive right now but I know so many people are struggling.”

        Later, he concludes: “The American Dream is dead.”

        Many of you can identify with that.

        I have heard from so many readers that are deeply struggling in this economy.

        Unfortunately, there are signs that things are about to get even worse.

        For example, small business optimism in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 11 years…

        The failure of Bidenomics has crushed confidence among US small businesses to the lowest level in more than a decade, as the future path of inflation remains a significant concern. Readers must remember small businesses are vital to the economy, contributing 44% of the country’s economic activity and creating two-thirds of net new jobs.

        The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported Tuesday that its small-business optimism index declined .9 points to 88.5, the lowest level since the second half of 2012 – or about when the US economy climbed out of the worst financial crisis ever.

        And I was deeply saddened to learn that 99 Cents Only is moving toward liquidating all of their stores…

        99 Cents Only shops will begin shuttering its hundreds of locations on Friday as the company moves toward total liquidation.

        “99 Cents Only Stores, together with its financial and legal advisors, engaged in an extensive analysis of all available and credible alternatives to identify a solution that would allow the business to continue,” the company said in a press release.

        “Following months of actively pursuing these alternatives, the company ultimately determined that an orderly wind-down was necessary and the best way to maximize the value of 99 Cents Only Stores’ assets.”

        Prior to the announcement, 99 Cents Only was operating 371 stores in the United States.

        Of course we also recently learned that Dollar Tree and Family Dollar will be closing about 1000 stores.

        All over America, stores that were once thriving will soon be boarded up.

        This is what the future of our economy looks like, and many Americans are preparing for rougher times by purchasing large quantities of gold…

        Gold has turned into money for Costco, where yellow metal sales begun last year have turned into a cash cow for the big-box retailer.

        In fact, sales are so brisk that analysts at Wells Fargo expect revenue “may now be running at” $100 million to $200 million a month, a rapid acceleration since bullion hit the warehouse club late in the summer of 2023.

        Just like me, so many of you can feel what is coming.

        A tipping point has arrived, and the outlook for the months ahead is very bleak.

        The U.S. economy is going off the rails, and the worse things get the more frustrated the American people are going to become.

        *  *  *

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

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 19:00

      • Gun Control Activist David Hogg "Gets Wrecked" By Chinese Immigrant Who Escaped Communism
        Gun Control Activist David Hogg “Gets Wrecked” By Chinese Immigrant Who Escaped Communism

        Earlier this week, elite liberal-leaning Ivy school Dartmouth College hosted a debate about gun control between radical leftist David Hogg and Libertarian vice presidential candidate Jeremy “Spike” Cohen. Late in the discussion, a Chinese immigrant who escaped the brutal hell of communism told Hogg in front of everyone in the auditorium about what happens when tyrannical governments ban guns. Hog was caught entirely off guard and left speechless, as he had no script with progressive talking points to combat what was said. 

        “Hi, my name is Lily Tang Williams,” the woman said in the video posted on X. 

        “Welcome to my ‘Live Free or Die’ state. Actually, I am a Chinese immigrant who survived communism, and under Mao, you know, 40 million people were starving to death after he sold communism to them and 20 million people died… murdered during his Cultural Revolution. So, my question to you, David, is can you guarantee me, a gun owner tonight, our government in the US, in DC, will never become a tyrannical government? Can you guarantee that to me?” she asked… 

        Hogg replied, “There is no way I can guarantee that any government will not be tyrannical.” 

        Williams then said, “Well, then, the debate on gun control is over because I will never give up my guns.” 

        Listen here. 

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

        She told the unseasoned youngster, who is supported by radical leftist elites who want to ban guns nationwide, to do a little bit of homework and visit communist China. And not to forget about the millions of people who died during Mao’s Cultural Revolution and Communist dictatorship. 

        Williams, who is also running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire, reposted this image from Spike on X. 

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

        Williams, who has lived through real communism, has warned Americans before about the dangers of the radical left’s agenda of pushing socialism. 

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

        “That’s why I’m here to warn you: The Mao’s Cultural Revolution, in a similar style, is happening today on American soil,” Williams said on a panel held at The Heritage Foundation in December 2021. 

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

        If it’s not apparent yet, progressives have a weird obsession with recruiting and supporting children to push their dirty work, such as Greta on climate change and Hogg on banning guns. 

        Meanwhile, Hogg’s activist group, Leaders We Deserve, has lately been under fire by conservative media outlets for barely spending money on actual candidates while racking up bills on travel and other expenses.  

        The problem with gun control activists is that they have very little to say that’s sensible when off-script.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 18:40

      • Denver Cuts Taxpayer Services, Diverts $90 Million To Support Illegal Immigrants
        Denver Cuts Taxpayer Services, Diverts $90 Million To Support Illegal Immigrants

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

        Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced a major shift Wednesday in the city’s response to the illegal immigrant crisis, extending support to six months but with only about 1,000 spaces.

        Illegal immigrants rest at a makeshift shelter, in Denver on Jan. 6, 2023. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced a major shift on April 10, 2024, in the city’s response to the migrant crisis, extending support to six months but with only 1,000 spaces. (Thomas Peipert/AP Photo)

        The city’s nearly $90 million budget plan identifies how it will fund immigrant housing and aid for the remainder of 2024. The mayor’s pivot comes after the city failed to get federal aid. Denver has served more than 40,000 immigrants since late 2022, according to a press release.

        “After more than a year of facing this crisis together, Denver finally has a sustainable plan for treating our newcomers with dignity while avoiding the worst cuts to city services,” Mr. Johnston said in a statement. “So many times, we were told that we couldn’t be compassionate while still being fiscally responsible. Today is proof that our hardest challenges are still solvable and that together, we are the ones who will solve them.”

        Denver and other Democratic-led cities had asked the Biden administration for aid to assist with the influx of migrants into their communities. 

        President Joe Biden asked Congress for $1.4 billion in funding for the effort as part of his budget. Congress refused and instead cut the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program from $800 million to $650 million.

        “Whether we’d like the federal government to do it or not, that was no longer a choice for us,” Mr. Johnston said.

        City officials claim the new approach will allow for surges of immigrants while focusing on helping them become independent. The move is a departure from the city’s previous strategy of weeks- to months-long shelter stays.

        The illegal immigrant will be housed in apartments for up to six months. They will also receive job and skill training, opportunities for skills certifications, unpaid job experience, food assistance, and help with filing asylum applications.

        The “Denver Asylum Seeker Program” will act as a buffer and offer intensive preparation while immigrants wait six months for their work permits after applying for asylum.

        “In Denver, we believe that the way to solve these problems is not by turning our back on our American values, but by turning to our American values,” Mr. Johnston said.

        Earlier this year,  Mr. Johnston asked all city departments to find creative ways to cut costs by 10 to 15 percent, according to KDVR-TV. That was when Denver was housing 5,000 illegal immigrants a day at a projected cost of $180 million.

        The number of illegal immigrants has since decreased, allowing for a reduced total package of $45.9 million in budget cuts.

        The new plan, which includes an earlier plan for $44 million, brings the program’s budget to a total of $89.9 million for the full year. The city has already spent $25 million of the budget during the first quarter.

        Breakdown of Budget Spending Plan

        • Program administration: $3 million
        • Housing: $51.7
        • Supportive services, including case management and workforce training: $9.7 million
        • Transportation: $6 million
        • One-time capital costs: $9.5 million
        • Contingency: $10 million

        The funds are coming from $9.5 million in capital fund cuts, $8.2 million in services and supplies cuts, $6.7 million in general fund reallocation, and $1.5 million in technology projects.

        The largest reduction comes from not filling approximately 160 job vacancies at $19.9 million.

        Services and supplies cuts include reducing marketing funds, official functions, conference travel, and “moving administrative pieces,” KDVR reported.

        The city also said it hopes to have some funds remaining at the end of the year to roll over to 2025.

        City Shelters

        Denver is currently housing about 800 immigrants in its shelters. This group would be first in line for the new program, and the city expects to reach the 1,000 program cap in the coming days.

        The new program was made possible in part by people offering up their apartments, rental assistance that doesn’t require U.S. citizenships, and through partnerships with nonprofits that provide debit cards for food to cook at home.

        “We are going to share this playbook with all cities around the country. We think we have now cracked the code on how to help people,” Mr. Johnston said.

        The city said it would continue to run a congregate shelter, with stays capped at one to three days—shorter than previous shelter allowances, which ranged from two to six weeks.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 18:20

      • Brazil Reinstating Visa Requirements, Including Submitting Bank Statements, For U.S. Travelers
        Brazil Reinstating Visa Requirements, Including Submitting Bank Statements, For U.S. Travelers

        Brazil is reinstating its visa requirement for US tourists, previously lifted in 2019. Although e-visas were briefly available, the system was abolished. The processing time for visas averages five working days, but officials advise applying two months in advance.

        Starting April 10, 2025, travelers from the US, Canada, and Australia must obtain a visa to visit Brazil, a requirement that includes submitting financial proofs like bank statements or pay stubs, the NY Post wrote this week.

        Those earning under $2,000 will need a sponsor to visit, the report says, per the Brazilian government.

        The e-visa application process can be completed online, eliminating the need for in-person consulate visits, the Post writes. According to the US Consulate in Brazil, the visa costs $80.90, is valid for 10 years, and permits stays of up to 90 days annually.

        As part of the process, Americans must submit a letter detailing their trip’s purpose and duration, accommodation information, proof of US citizenship, and return tickets.

        The visa process is more complex for Brazilians entering the US, the report notes. Brazilians must attend an in-person appointment and demonstrate financial stability and the visa fee is $185.

        TravelPulse reports that from January to September 2023, nearly 483,000 Americans visited Brazil, making them the second-largest group after Argentinians. Meanwhile, the European Union has postponed its pre-travel program for Americans until 2025 due to various delays.

        As part of that program, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System will soon be mandatory for visa-exempt travelers from 60 countries, including the US, UK, and Canada, to enter 30 European nations like Spain and France.

        Similar to Brazil, applicants will need to provide passport details, personal information, and trip plans, and pay an $8 fee. ETIAS visas, valid for three years or until the passport expires, allow multiple short-term visits, generally up to 90 days within a 180-day period.

        The only question we have is whether or not this will finally cut down on lines at customs…

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 18:00

      • Japan's Kishida Slams China In Address To Congress
        Japan’s Kishida Slams China In Address To Congress

        Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

        Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered an address to Congress on Thursday and declared China the “greatest strategic challenge” facing the world.

        “Close coordination between Japan and the US is required more than ever to ensure that deterrence that our alliance provides remains credible and resilient,” Kishida said, according to The South China Morning Post.

        Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Getty Images

        “China’s current external stance and military actions present the unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge, not only to the peace and security of Japan, but to the peace and stability of the international community at large,” he added.

        Kishida also praised the US for its role in leading the Western proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. “The Ukraine of today may be the East Asia of tomorrow,” he said. “The leadership of the United States is indispensable. Without US support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow?”

        A day earlier, President Biden hosted Kishida at the White House, and the two leaders announced new steps to bolster the US-Japan alliance, including an upgrade to military command and control structures to facilitate more military cooperation.

        “We announce our intention to bilaterally upgrade our respective command and control frameworks to enable seamless integration of operations and capabilities and allow for greater interoperability and planning between US and Japanese forces in peacetime and during contingencies,” Biden and Kishida said in a joint statement.

        They also announced plans to increase joint weapons production and the potential inclusion of Japan in the AUKUS military pact, which focuses on military technology sharing. “Recognizing Japan’s strengths and the close bilateral defense partnerships with the AUKUS countries, AUKUS partners – Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – are considering cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar II advanced capability projects,” the statement said.

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

        Japan is a key part of the US’s preparations for a future war with China since it hosts over 50,000 troops, the largest foreign US military presence. Besides bolstering its own military footprint in Japan, the US is also encouraging Tokyo to build up its military, which breaks from Japan’s post-World War II constitution that renounces war and says armed forces with war potential should never be maintained. Kishida has announced several steps to significantly strengthen Japan’s military, including raising the military budget by 56%.

        Tyler Durden
        Fri, 04/12/2024 – 17:40

      • Iran Readies Over 100 Cruise Missiles For Possible Strike Against Israel: US Officials
        Iran Readies Over 100 Cruise Missiles For Possible Strike Against Israel: US Officials

        Update(1740): Multiple European airlines have canceled all flights to and from Iran, and flight trackers also indicate that skies above Israel are clear of civilian aviation.

        Speculation is at a frenzy over the ‘when & where’ of the coming Iranian retaliation attack. “Anonymous US officials” have been feeding alarming headlines to media outlets all day – and among them the following:

        Iran has readied a large number of missiles for a possible strike, according to three U.S. officials. Two of the officials said that Iran has readied more than 100 cruise missiles for a possible strike. Iran has also readied a sizeable number of drones that could be used in an attack on Israel, according to one official.

        The officials said that Iran has been readying the missiles and drones over the last week.

        The Pentagon has continued to move US naval assets closer to Israel, in apparent preparation to assist in repelling any potential attack.

        Some have speculated that Hezbollah’s stepped up attacks on northern Israel in the last hours are meant as a prelude to bigger Iranian attack…

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

        * * *

        Update(1317ET): Israeli hospitals have been put on a high state of alert by the home command, awaiting an ‘imminent’ Iranian retaliation attack. Iran has also reportedly put the United States on notice…

        Three U.S. Officials told Axios : Iran has sent a message to the U.S. through several Arab countries, that if they interfere in Iran’s response against Israel, U.S. bases in the region will be struck.

        Meanwhile, Russia just chose quite the wrong moment to conduct a test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from its Kapustin Yar airbase in southern Russia. The rocket was reportedly seen soaring high in the atmosphere from parts of northern Iraq and Iran, triggering concerns it was Iran beginning its attack.

        Below are some breaking headlines:

        • ALERT US sends reinforcements to Middle East amid fears of Iran attack: official
        • A large number of Iron Dome missiles were launched in the Upper Galilee after a salvo of 50 missiles was launched from Lebanon
        • Israel’s Channel 12 reports Home Front Command has sent hospitals a message in the last hour asking hospital managers to ensure staff availability.
        • The White House has Confirmed a change in U.S. Force and Alert Posture across the Middle East, but has Refused to go into further details.

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

        Hezbollah appears to have ramped up its missile salvos over northern Israel:

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

        There are also new reports that the US Navy has parked an advanced missile ship just off Israel’s coast, readying to assist with a possible response.

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

        * * *

        Update(1116ET): At a moment US intelligence has indicated that Iran could strike Israeli soil in the next 24 to 48 hours, a top US general was spotted at an airbase in central Israel on Friday. US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at Hatzor Airbase “a short while ago,” according to Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian.

        The two defense officials discussed “readiness for an Iranian attack against the State of Israel, which may lead to regional escalation,” an official statement of the visit by Gallant’s said. Given it could be “bombs away” at any moment, is it a good idea for America’s top regional general to be hanging out at one of the very bases which could be directly targeted?

        Via Times of Israel

        “Our enemies think that they can pull apart Israel and the United States, but the opposite is true, they are bringing us together and strengthening our ties. We stand shoulder to shoulder,” Gallant’s statement continued.

        “I am certain that the world sees the true face of Iran, the terrorist body that incites terror attacks across the Middle East, and funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and additional forces [proxies], and now also threatens the State of Israel,” the Israeli defense chief added. “We are prepared to defend ourselves on the ground and in the air, in close cooperation with our partners, and we will know how to respond.”

        It goes without saying that if top US military officials are currently on the ground and find themselves in the attack path when Iranian missiles are launched, it could be a direct trigger for massive regional war, given Washington wouldn’t hesitate to respond in a big way against Tehran in that scenario.

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

        * * *

        Iran is expected to attack Israel by week’s end, or at least within the coming days. However, the degree of telegraphing has almost taken the teeth out of the threat and what Iran hopes to accomplish in its retaliation.

        “Iran is calibrating its plans for a major retaliatory strike against Israel to send a message — but not spark a regional war that compels Washington to respond, the U.S. assesses,” Politico reports of what’s expected. “Biden administration officials judge that Iran is planning a larger-than-usual aerial attack on Israel in the coming days, one that will likely feature a mix of missiles and drone strikes, said two U.S. officials who were granted anonymity to detail sensitive intelligence assessments.”

        US Embassy in Israel, Getty Images

        The Pentagon has apparently moved naval assets closer to Israel in expectation of Iranian strikes (or else major attacks from their proxies like Hezbollah or the Houthis), including the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier which is patrolling the Red Sea. Israel’s Channel 14 also reports, “The US military deployed a missile ship with advanced defense capabilities near the shores of Israel.”

        The US has said it is ready to coordinate a response with Israel if it is hit; however, the defense consensus is that Iran is unlikely to send missiles and drones directly from its soil. CBS has newly cited two US officials who say that “a major Iranian attack against Israel was expected as soon as Friday, possibly to include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles aimed at military targets inside the country.”

        But so far the past days have been a constant avalanche of speculation as an attack remains ‘imminent’. The US State Department is taking action, issuing a security warning to all government employees and their families for the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Travel restrictions have been placed on their movements, after the embassy has been on edge ever since Israel’s unprecedented April 1st attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

        “Out of an abundance of caution, U.S. government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, … Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva areas until further notice,” US Embassy security alert, issued Thursday says.

        “The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem reminds U.S. citizens of the continued need for caution and increased personal security awareness as security incidents often take place without warning,” the alert continued. “The security environment remains complex and can change quickly depending on the political situation and recent events.”

        Several other countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens, while bracing for a possible bigger war in the Middle East, including Russia and India of late. The UK and France have reportedly called on their citizens to leave immediately, citing an inevitable attack from Iran.

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        Meanwhile the speculation continues as to the timing, with The Wall Street Journal on Friday reporting that “Israel is preparing for a direct attack from Iran on southern or northern Israel as soon as Friday or Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

        However, even US intelligence doesn’t have a crystal ball. The WSJ follows with this caveat: “A person briefed by the Iranian leadership, however, said that while plans to attack are being discussed, no final decision has been made.”

        Starting Thursday, Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), arrived in Israel amid reports that the US and Israel could respond jointly to any imminent Iranian attack on Israel. Alarmingly, Ynet reports Friday that “The IDF and Mossad approved plans for an attack on Iran in the event that Israel would come under attack from Iranian territory. Additionally, the coordination between the U.S. and Israeli militaries, has increased.”

        Below are the morning’s geopolitical headlines via Newsquawk:

        * * *

        MIDDLE EAST – EUROPEAN MORNING

        • “The (Israeli) army and the Mossad approved plans to target the heart of Iran if Israel (is) bombed from inside Iranian territory”, via Al Jazeera citing Yedioth Ahronoth.
        • Hamas sources: “The organization’s leadership informed the mediators that it is not interested in further discussions about the deal, as long as there is no progress in its demands…”, according to journalist Kais citing Hezbollah-affiliated press.
        • “US official to Al-Arabiya: We will participate in the response if Iran escalates with an appropriate response”, according to Al Arabiya

        MIDDLE EAST

        • Israel is prepared for an Iranian strike from its territory in the next 48 hours, according to WSJ. Israeli army said Iran is preparing its proxies in the region to attack them, according to Al Arabiya.
        • Israeli Defence Minister Gallant told US Defense Secretary Austin that a direct Iranian attack on Israeli territory would compel Israel to respond in an appropriate way against Iran, according to Axios.
        • Iran reportedly signalled to Washington it will respond to Israel’s attack on its Syrian embassy in a way that aims to avoid major escalation and it will not act hastily, according to Reuters citing Iranian sources. Furthermore, a source familiar with US intelligence was not aware of the message conveyed but said Iran has been very clear its response would be controlled and non-escalatory, and planned to use regional proxies to launch a number of attacks on Israel.
        • US President Biden’s administration officials judge that Iran is planning a larger-than-usual aerial attack on Israel in the coming days which will likely feature a mix of missiles and drone strikes, according to two US officials cited by Politico.
        • US official said the US expects an attack by Iran against Israel which they think will be calibrated to be bigger than usual but not so big it would draw the US into war, while US officials have also been in touch with regional partners to discuss efforts to manage and ultimately reduce further risks of escalation.
        • US said it had restricted its employees in Israel and their family members from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva areas amid Iran’s threats of retaliation against Israel.
        • US State Department senior official said a robust conversation with Iraq is likely to lead to a second US-Iraq joint security cooperation dialogue later this year.

        OTHER

        • US President Biden warned that any attack on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea would invoke their mutual defence treaty.
        • China’s top legislator Zhao Leji and North Korean counterpart discussed promoting exchange and cooperation in all fields, according to KCNA.
        • Four drones shot down overnight near Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk in a town in near proximity to an oil refinery

          Tyler Durden
          Fri, 04/12/2024 – 17:40

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        Apr 12

        Today’s News 12th April 2024

        • How Turkish Sanctions Against Israel Will Impact Bilateral Trade
          How Turkish Sanctions Against Israel Will Impact Bilateral Trade

          Via Middle East Eye

          Turkey’s decision to halt the export of 54 products to Israel in response to its war on Gaza isn’t likely to have far-reaching results, since both countries’ economies are complementary in nature rather than central to each other.

          The Turkish trade ministry announced earlier this week that Ankara would continue to implement the restrictions as long as Israel denies uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip, citing UN Security Council decisions and an International Court of Justice (ICJ) preliminary judgment against Israel’s conduct in the coastal enclave. The export restrictions encompass items such as aluminium wire, steel, cement, construction materials, granite, chemicals, pesticides, engine oils, jet fuel and bricks.

          Israel’s Haifa commercial shipping port in the Mediterranean Sea, NurPhoto

          Before the war, Turkish-Israeli ties had been steadier than they had been for years. After years of tensions over Palestine, the two normalized relations in 2022. Yet, while Turkey and Israel quarreled over the past decade, and even stopped cooperating with each other, trade had never been interrupted. In fact, it flourished over time.

          The Turkish public has been outraged at Israel’s actions in Gaza, where reportedly more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in six months. Lists of ships carrying goods to Israel circulated on social media as Israel’s onslaught grew. People also highlighted companies close to the Turkish government that continued commercial relations with Israel during the war.

          Even though there is no evidence to back claims that Turkey sold weapons to Israel, the controversy was stoked by a small quantity of hunting gear or hunting equipment parts being found among the exports. They were broadly classified by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) as “weaponry”. 

          In response to this domestic pressure and serious setbacks for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in local elections last month, the government decided to act against Israel.

          Ties have been cut on the Israeli side, too. In October, several Israeli supermarket chains halted imports from Turkey in response to Ankara’s critical stance on the Gaza war. Israeli food company Strauss in December changed the packaging for one of its most well-known products, Elite Turkish coffee, adding an Israeli flag and patriotic slogans.

          An important market

          But is the trade between the two countries vital? Many say no, but Israel is nonetheless an important export market for Ankara. Turkey’s exports to Israel were worth $5.4bn in 2023, or 2.1 percent of its total exports, according to official data.

          Although bilateral trade has dropped by 33 percent since the October 7 Hamas-led attack, it has nonetheless continued and exports to Israel have increased each month in 2024 so far. Both countries have had a free trade deal in place since 1996 and there have been no tariffs on certain products since 2000, which has enabled major increases in bilateral trade, largely favouring Turkey.

          From 2009 to 2023, trade between the two countries nearly tripled. By the end of that period, Turkey had become the fifth-largest supplier of imported goods to Israel, while Israel ranked as Turkey’s tenth-largest export market, based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

          Turkey exported steel, automotive industry products, chemicals, ready-made clothing and apparel, electricity and electronics, cement, glass, ceramics and soil products, furniture, paper, and forestry to Israel, according to a report published by the Turkey Exporters Assembly covering the period between 2011 and 2020.

          “The economies are complementary but not intertwined,” Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told Middle East Eye. “Turkey can find also substitutes to what it imports from Israel, and anyhow, of the bilateral trade, three-quarters are Turkish exports to Israel and only one-quarter is Israeli exports to Turkey.”

          Trade with Israel has traditionally been highly advantageous for Turkey, which enjoyed a trade surplus of $3.9bn last year. Israel serves as a significant market for Turkish steel, purchasing 726,000 tonnes last year. This figure constitutes over 20 percent of Turkey’s total steel exports. The ban is expected to significantly affect these exports.

          In terms of dependence on imports, Israel heavily relies on Turkish cement, with imports from Turkey making up 29 percent of Israel’s total cement imports last year. Additionally, Turkish imports represent about 11 percent of Israel’s total plastic and rubber products, and around 10 percent in textiles.

          Sources familiar with the construction industry told Israeli news outlet Mako that the new restrictions were expected to increase the prices of apartments and rent in the country if they are implemented. “In terms of long-term repercussions, the fact the Turkey halts construction materials when these are needed to repair damaged houses in the south and north of Israel because of rockets and other damage will likely taint relations also in the future,” Lindenstrauss said.

          “Also, while anyhow there were question marks regarding a possible gas pipeline between Israel and Turkey, these export restrictions in a time of war will be a big warning sign not to proceed with the pipeline idea.”

          Impact on Palestine

          Turkey’s decision to restrict exports to Israel likely has an impact on Palestine as well. “Israel has complete control over the border crossings as Palestinian imports arrive at Haifa or Ashdod seaports, and the goods are then transported to Palestinian territories via trucks,” Rashad Yousef, director of policies and planning at the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy, told Anadolu Agency.

          Yousef added that Palestinian-Turkish trade volume in 2022 exceeded $900m, representing a 12 percent increase over 2021. He also said that the main Turkish exports to Palestine are iron, wood, vegetable oil, tobacco, food products and items from the plastic industries.

          “If we exclude Israel, Turkiye is the largest source of goods and products in the Palestinian market,” Yousef said. However, there are ways to continue to trade with Israel by rerouting trade through third countries, as the Ukraine war has proved following western sanctions on Russia.

          Israeli importers are mulling bringing in Turkish goods via Slovenian ports Koper or Ljubljana, according to an Israeli report. “But still, the economic relations were what kept the relations going even in times of political crisis, so it is regrettable we have reached this point,” adds Lindenstrauss. 

          “And despite it having been a painful step, I don’t see it in itself changing Israel’s policy – the pressures from the White House are much more significant.”

          Tyler Durden
          Fri, 04/12/2024 – 02:00

        • Ukraine's Drone Strikes Against Russian Oil Refineries Complicate Biden's Re-Election Bid
          Ukraine’s Drone Strikes Against Russian Oil Refineries Complicate Biden’s Re-Election Bid

          Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

          CNN published a detailed piece on Tuesday about how “Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones are trying to disrupt Russia’s energy industry. So far, it’s working”. Although an unnamed source close to the program told them that “The flights are determined in advance with our allies, and the aircraft follow the flight plan to enable us to strike targets with meters of precision”, there are reasons to believe that the US is against these sorts of attacks. Not least among them is what CNN itself reported in that same piece.

          According to them, “Ukrainian strikes on refineries have caused global oil prices to rise, with Brent crude up nearly 13% this year, leaving politicians in the United States worried about their potential economic impact in an important election year.” They also cited an expert who claimed, “That was the deal with Ukraine: We will give you money, we will give you weapons, but stay away from the export facility, stay away from Russian energy, because we don’t want a massive energy crisis.”

          That individual added in reference to the Congressional deadlock on Ukraine aid that “If they’re not getting the weapons and money that they were promised, what is their incentive to abide by that deal with Washington?” This aligns with what Zelensky himself hinted in an interview with the Washington Post late last month when he revealed that “The reaction of the US was not positive on [us attacking Russian oil refineries]…(but) We used our drones. Nobody can say to us you can’t.”

          Secretary of State Blinken echoed that sentiment in a joint press conference with his French counterpart on Tuesday when he said in response to a question about these oil refinery strikes that “we have neither supported nor enabled strikes by Ukraine outside of its territory.” He was asked about this after a Ukrainian drone strike targeted Russia’s third-largest refinery in the Republic of Tatarstan, which is located in the country’s heartland a full 800 miles away from the front lines.

          When reflecting on Blinken’s statement, CNN’s report, and Zelensky’s earlier words, it certainly appears to be the case that the US doesn’t want Ukraine striking Russian oil refineries out of fear that the massive energy crisis that this could catalyze would capsize Biden’s re-election bid.

          If that’s indeed its position, then it raises the question of which allies are determining the flight paths of these drones and why Zelensky would risk Trump returning to power when he’s much less pro-Ukrainian than Biden is.

          It might very well be the case that there are divisions emerging within NATO over these strikes exactly as RT editorialized when drawing attention to how Blinken’s French counterpart seemed to support the latest attacks in his response to the question that they were asked during Tuesday’s press conference. France might therefore be providing this sort of assistance, which could also be complemented by the UK’s and other countries’ complementary contributions, whether on their own or as part of a joint effort.

          As for why Zelensky would want to rankle Biden and risk Trump’s return, he might have a “god complex” after being promoted so heavily as a Churchillian leader over the past two years, which could have become part of his identity despite the media souring on him since last summer. In his mind, Biden will do his bidding in somehow getting the Republicans to approve more Ukraine aid under pain of him unleashing a massive energy crisis by taking out more of Russia’s refining and export capabilities.

          Biden would have already gotten the Republicans to do this if he was able to so it’s delusional for Zelensky to imagine that holding his re-election bid hostage will make a positive difference. If anything, wider awareness his thuggish tactics among the Republicans could further solidify their resistance to approving more Ukraine aid since Zelensky isn’t just holding Biden’s re-election bid hostage, but the entire American economy as well and therefore also threatening the US’ objective national interests.

          Should he authorize a series of strikes that catalyzes the massive energy crisis that the Biden Administration fears, then the most hawkish anti-Russian deep state faction that’s responsible for artificially perpetuating this conflict might lose the influence that it exerts over policymakers. Their comparatively less hawkish rivals could replace their dominant role in that scenario and possibly convince the Biden Administration to finally agree to a pragmatic compromise for ending the conflict.

          Zelensky’s decision to hold Biden’s re-election bid hostage by threatening to unleash a massive economic crisis as revenge for the Congressional deadlock on Ukraine aid might be his downfall. He’s not only biting the hand that feeds his regime on the taxpayers’ dime but also threatening the US’ objective national interests.

          The desperation that his forces feel on the battlefield is driving him to “go rogue”, but his patrons might soon tire of this and decide to replace him after his term expires on 21 May.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 23:45

        • Nearly 20% Of Recent San Francisco Home Sales Were Underwater
          Nearly 20% Of Recent San Francisco Home Sales Were Underwater

          Nearly 20% of homes sold in San Francisco during the three months ending Feb. 29 sold at a loss. What’s more, the typical SF homeowner took $155,500 less than they bought it for, which is 400% more in dollar terms than the nationwide median loss of $39,912 over the same period, Redfin reports, citing an internal analysis of county records and MLS data across the US.

          San Francisco home sellers are far more likely than sellers in the rest of the country to lose money because home prices there have dropped dramatically since the pandemic homebuying boom. Still, the Bay Area is home to the most expensive real estate market in the U.S.

          San Francisco’s median sale price peaked at $1.66 million in April 2022, and has since fallen 15% ($250,000) to $1.41 million as of February. The typical person who bought in San Francisco at nearly any point in 2021 or 2022, when the housing market was red hot due to ultra-low mortgage rates, would have taken a loss if they sold during the first few months of this year. –Redfin

          “Home prices have fallen from their peak, especially when it comes to condos,” said real estate agent Christine Chang. “It’s not just because mortgage rates are high. San Francisco has lost some of its appeal post-pandemic. A lot of tech employers and big-name retailers have moved out of the city, and some of my clients have reported they’re leaving the area because they don’t feel as safe as they used to.“

          Meanwhile…

          According to the same report, Detroit came in second in terms of homes selling at a loss (10.8%) during the three months ending February 29, followed by three other Rust Belt and Midwestern metros: Cleveland (8.2%), St. Louis (8.1%) and Chicago (7.9%).

          Sellers in those places are more likely than most to lose money because, like in San Francisco, home prices have fallen quite a bit from their pandemic peak. In Detroit, for instance, the median sale price is down roughly 20% from its pandemic peak.

          Additionally, housing markets in Detroit and Chicago have suffered because they’re typically among the U.S. metros homebuyers are most likely to leave. -Redfin

          Least likely to take a loss?

          Homeowners in New England and Southern California were least likely to sell at a loss – with just 1.2% of homeowners who sold during the same period losing money.

          This is followed by Boston, Anaheim, CA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, and San Diego, where roughly 2% of homes sold for less than the seller originally paid in each of those metros.

          That said, the vast majority of sellers are still profitable on their home sales – even in San Francisco, where 82% of sellers took in more than they paid – with the typical seller banking $482,000 more than their cost basis over the period analyzed. Nationwide, 96% of sellers are postive on their sales, with a median gain of $196,016 thanks to the national media home price sitting just 5% below the all-time high set in mid-2022.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 23:20

        • Biden Admin Finalizes Controversial Rule To Expand Background Checks On Gun Sales
          Biden Admin Finalizes Controversial Rule To Expand Background Checks On Gun Sales

          Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has submitted the final version of a controversial rule to change the definition of what it means to be “Engaged in the Business” of dealing in firearms.

          Weapons seized in federal law enforcement actions are displayed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) field office in Glendale, Calif., on April 18, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

          The U.S. Attorney General says the change, required by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act enacted June 25, 2022, will save lives by requiring anyone who “devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business or predominately earns a profit through the repetitive purchase and sale of firearms” to obtain a Federal Firearms License.

          “Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet at a gun show or at a brick-and-mortar store: if you sell guns predominately to earn a profit, you must be licensed, and you must conduct background checks,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a statement on the ATF website.

          Critics of the change say the rule will effectively end private transactions, possibly including the inheritance of firearms within families.

          According to the ATF statement, President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 14092 on March 14, 2023, which directed Mr. Garland to clarify the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms. The plan immediately drew criticism from gun rights activists.

          “The ATF is using the [Bipartisan Safer Communities Act] BSCA to substantially revise all regulations governing who and what constitutes a ‘dealer’ and how such dealers may conduct business. This proposal advances a radical left-wing agenda that will undermine the Second Amendment and the Constitutional rights of all Americans,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) wrote in a Dec. 7, 2023, letter to ATF Director Steen Dettelbach.

          Mr. Garland signed the new rule on April 10, and it will become effective May 10, 2024.

          According to the 466-page rule, the only requirement for determining whether a person is engaged in the business of selling guns is whether the person is trading to “predominately earn a profit” rather than to earn a “livelihood.”

          Critics claim that under the new rule, the transfer of a single gun between private citizens would require the seller to have an FFL and to perform a check through the National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS). This would effectively end all private firearm sales and could even subject parents to federal prosecution for trying to pass family heirlooms along to their children.

          “Once again, the Biden Administration is weaponizing every tool in their tool box to intimidate, harass, and criminalize gun owners with unlawful executive actions. This Backdoor Universal Registration Check rule is nothing more than a move to criminalize the sale of a single gun without a background check,” Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America wrote in a statement to The Epoch Times.

          But the new rule states that is not the case.

          “Individuals may continue to engage in intrastate private sales without a license, provided that such individuals are not ‘engaged in the business’ and the transactions are otherwise compliant with law,” the rule reads.

          In an ATF press release, Mr. Dettlebach stated that the rule is about closing an avenue by which criminals obtain guns.

          “Today’s final rule is about ensuring compliance with an important area of the existing law where we all know, the data show, and we can clearly see that a whole group of folks are openly flouting the law,” Mr. Dettlebach is quoted as saying. “That leads to not just unfair, but in this case dangerous consequences.”

          But Second Amendment advocates say the new rule is the next step in the Biden Administration’s plan to implement gun control measures through administrative action that it can’t get through the legislative process.

          “The government hopes to ensure that they are fully involved in every firearm transfer, and eventually the records of all those transfers will end up in their records database. Just last month ATF executed an airport executive in Arkansas during a pre-dawn raid because he was ‘engaged in the business’ without one of ATF’s licenses. This could quickly become the new normal, so liberty-loving Americans are right to be concerned,” Mr. Johnston’s statement reads.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 22:55

        • In Latest Humiliation For Biden Admin, Russian Oil Is Trading Above The G7 Price Cap Everywhere
          In Latest Humiliation For Biden Admin, Russian Oil Is Trading Above The G7 Price Cap Everywhere

          Back in late 2022, when “Western democracies” bombastically unveiled theatrical sanctions against Putin, capping the price at which imports of Russian oil were permitted to no higher than $60, we said that this was one of the biggest farces in modern history, not only because it was an optical play that was made entirely for public consumption (as nobody in the west actually wanted to curtail Russian oil exports as the outcome would be a devastating surge of inflation as Biden now realizes), but also because there was no enforcement mechanism to cap the price at $60 and no more.

          We were right, again, and today Bloomberg reports that “Russian oil is trading far in excess of a Group of Seven price cap that’s supposed to deprive Moscow of revenue for its war in Ukraine, suggesting significant non-compliance with the measure”, which anyone with half a working brain would have expected to happen, which of course excludes virtually all “democratic” bureaucrats who implemented this idiotic sanction (which only ended up making the Vitol oil traders billionaires).

          According to data from Argus Media, whose price assessments are followed by some G-7 nations involved in the cap, Russian flagship Urals grade oil is now selling for $75 a barrel at the point it leaves ports in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea. A Treasury official told Bloomberg that US officials are tracking the price increase, which they attribute to broader geopolitical dynamics, as the alternative – admitting they are idiots, would be a bit too introspective.

          As a reminder, the Russian embaro cap requires that any western company involved in transporting Russian oil receives a so-called attestation, a document vouching that the cargo cost $60-a barrel or less. If it doesn’t, they’re not allowed to provide their services. The fact that Argus’s prices are so far above that level creates what Bloomberg called a “dissonance”, but what we would call, a giant slap on the face of the Biden administration which nobody takes seriously any more.

          While Urals has been above $60 almost all year, this month’s surge to well above $70 will stretch the credibility of those attestations for traders wanting to keep using western services. Not like anyone actually thought those attestations had any credibility to begin with since the governments enforcing them were so clearly interested in having everyone ignore them.

          Bloomberg data showed that in March, 23% of the nation’s crude oil shipments had insurance against spills and collisions provided by members of the International Group of P&I Clubs. That means traders would have vouched that the cargoes cost well below where Argus assessed the Urals price to be, which was clearly not the case, and means that at least a quarter of Russian oil shippers are fabricating data. A smaller proportion moved on Greek tankers, all of which had cover from IG clubs, also requiring attestation.

          Hilariously, the idiots in the Biden admin told Bloomberg that the cap is still having its intended effect, reducing the amount of money the Kremlin receives from oil sales by forcing the commodity to either be sold under the cap via western services, or through Russia’s shadow fleet. Which, of course, is absolutely not the case and Putin is currently rolling in the cash from selling oil to the same European nations that are supplying Ukraine with their most modern weapons which Putin then handily blows up and reverse engineers. The US plans to continue the enforcement of the cap by sanctioning vessels operating in the shadow fleet, but will not do so in response to any specific market moves, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and for the reason that it would be extremely embarrassing if his name were to become public.

          A European Commission spokesperson said the bloc is aware of the risk of the price cap being dodged, and is committed to steps that deprive Russia of revenue while simultaneously “supporting global energy market stability.” It’s also constantly reviewing existing measures to enforce the cap and prevent its violation or circumvention, the spokesperson said, adding that such measures require unanimity among member states. In other words, Europe knew from day one that the Russian oil embargo was not going to work, and now, a year and a half later, is blame the lack of “unity” for this farce.

          The bloc’s most recent sanctions package was aimed at tighten the cap’s enforcement, the spokesperson said; clearly the package did not achieve the “desired outcome.”

          Of course, it’s not just Russia that is rolling in dough: by the time Urals cargoes get to India, the grade is trading at $88 a barrel — just $3.80 below than the global benchmark for physical cargoes, Dated Brent, Argus data show. When the nation’s ESPO crude leaves the port of Kozmino in eastern Russia, it is at $84 a barrel. It hasn’t been close to the price cap for about a year.

          Bloomberg concludes that since last October, “the US Treasury has shown it’s prepared to punish companies for breaches of the price cap that happened in the past” however, given its desire to avoid any actions that disrupt the flow of crude — and risk higher prices — the rally in headline Brent futures to around $90 a barrel may temper any push to do so at this time.

          In other words… well, this:

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 22:30

        • GODL! Precious Metal Soars Above $2,400 After Sudden Gap Higher
          GODL! Precious Metal Soars Above $2,400 After Sudden Gap Higher

          Crypto bulls – at least those who didn’t betray their “laser eyes” PFP and sell previously – have had their day in the sun for the past 3 months as bitcoin and most other digital fiat alternatives soared, making it clear why, despite the difficult, it can be so very profitable to HODL, especially with the US is approaching the Minsky Moment of issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, and interest on US debt, now at $1.1 trillion, is set to surpass Social Security spending and become the single largest government outlay before the end of the year.

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

          And now, it’s time for GODL!

          Stupid jokes aside, while bitcoin was rampaging higher, goldbugs stared in disgust, wondering why their non-fiat god had forsaken them… after all, when the collapse of the dollar, and fiat in general, finally arrives gold will be one of the very few currency alternatives still standing. Alas, ETF flows have not provided any respite, because while bitcoin ETFs soaked up most money in the past 3 months, aggregate gold flows continued to shrink.

          And yet, starting in the beginning of March, gold finally broke out from the black hole gravitational attraction of the Bank of International Settlements trading desk, and has soared some $300 dollars in just 6 weeks, its fastest ascent in decades.

          Fast forward to tonight when, with most other assets quiet, gold suddenly surged higher, and after closing at an all time high, the precious metals spiked by another $15 in a matter of seconds, a move which for the otherwise hyperlethargic assets, is the equivalent of turbo boost.

          And while it’s now just a matter of hours if not minutes, before spot rises above $2,400, gold futures are already there: the active, June contract just hit a new all time high of $2,406.9 moments ago around the time Chinese buy orders started rolling in…

          … and contrary to speculation that this is just a fat finger, or a another one-off buy orders, gold future volumes are solid, especially given volumes would have already been very high in the last few days. GCM4 volumes are now 23.5k lots vs. 5-day average of 17.85k lots.

          While it wasn’t clear what sparked the buying frenzy, UBS’ trading desk notes that “gold futures gapped up $10 as they traded through Thursday’s high on what felt like stop losses being triggered; 0.5moz of futures volume were behind the move.“

          What happens next is also unclear, although as we showed moments before the breakout, the current divergence between gold prices and 10Y real rates, suggests that something awful is about to happen…

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

          … a dismal outlook proposed last week by none other than BofA CIO Michael Hartnett, who in his latest Flow Show report noted that investors are looking beyond the “here and now”, realizing that there is no way markets or the economy can sustain 5% nominal and 2% real rates, and are hedging two things: i) the risk that the Fed cuts as CPI accelerates, and ii) and more ominously, the “endgame of Fed Interest Cost Control (“ICC”), Yield Curve Control (YCC) and QE to backstop US government spending.”

          In short, something big is about to break, and if the surge in gold leads to a spike in yields, start the countdown to one of two things: i) QE and/or ii) YCC, because if the bond market sniffs out the endgame that gold is currently smelling, it will be up to Powell to once again prevent a catastrophic financial collapse.

          For those wondering how far gold can rise, we excerpt from the latest note from BofA commodities strategist Michael Widmer (available to professional subscribers), who writes that…

          Gold and silver are among our most preferred commodities, with the yellow metal pushed up by central banks, China investors and, increasingly, Western buyers on a confluence of macro factors, including an end to hiking cycles. Accordingly, we see the yellow metal rally to US$3,000/oz by 2025. Silver benefits from that too, with prices also boosted by stronger industrial demand. This could take prices above US$30/oz within the next 12 months.

          And some charts.

          And here is UBS, predicting that the price of the precious metal could double from here (note also available to pro subs):

          The recent move in gold reminds me of a famous quote: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” Looking at history, gold price can stay in the doldrums for a long time but when it does breakout, the surge is usually fast and furious. In deciding whether to chase or fade the recent gold rally, it might be useful to draw some inspiration from past breakout episodes. Here I define a “breakout” to be when the gold prices move 10% above the previous historical peak.

          Should history repeat itself, it is not too late to participate in the current gold rally. An investor with a two to three-year view could expect to see gold potentially double from here to more than $4,000. The take-profit signal is when real rates turn negative and when there is a full-blown recession. Today with real rate still high and a recession seemingly faraway, it is too early to call the end of the ongoing gold rally. Gold breakout can be seen as an ominous signal, and it is not difficult to imagine a range of geopolitical risk scenarios. As for markets, many things look mispriced today with a two to three-year lookout, ranging from incredibly low credit spreads, elevated equity valuation to subdued volatility. It’s fair to say that the gold market has fired its warning shot.

          Much more in the full report from BofA and UBS available to professional subs in the usual place.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 21:56

        • Texas Nat Gas Prices Turn Negative As Drillers Chase Oil Sales
          Texas Nat Gas Prices Turn Negative As Drillers Chase Oil Sales

          Nat gas prices at the Waha hub in the Permian basin in Texas slumped to a negative price of -$2.00 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) this week as the recent rise in oil prices prompts producers to bring drilled but uncompleted wells online, OilPrice reported.

          As the U.S. benchmark oil price, West Texas Intermediate, hit $85 per barrel—the highest level in nearly six months, Texas producers keep pumping crude, but their wells also produce gas, which basically has nowhere to go.  

          While producers are chasing higher realizations for the crude they pump, they are depressing further an already depressed U.S. natural gas market, which has been oversupplied for months due to a milder winter and lower demand for heating and electricity.  

          Producers in West Texas are hit by the negative price of natural gas at the Waha hub, which means that they have to pay for someone to take that gas. But demand just isn’t there.

          “They’re bringing these drilled, uncompleted wells online because the price of oil is higher,” Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial Securities, told Bloomberg.

          “It’s flooding the market with gas, and you’ve got no demand,” Kissler added.

          Yet, signs have started to emerge that the natural gas glut may have started to hold back drilling in parts of the Permian basin.

          U.S. oil producers are not in a rush to significantly boost crude production despite oil prices hovering at a six-month high, as multi-year low natural gas prices and higher costs are weighing on the industry, analysts and executives told Reuters earlier this month.

          Oil producers in America are also mindful of the investor demands for higher returns, not necessarily higher production.  

          “Natural gas is currently pricing at or below costs of production,” an executive at an exploration and production company said in comments in the latest quarterly Dallas Fed Energy Survey released at the end of March.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 21:40

        • How Ivermectin Trials Were Designed To Fail
          How Ivermectin Trials Were Designed To Fail

          Authored by Yuhong Dong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          The use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 is an ongoing debate. The central conflict is that while many doctors have reported success in using ivermectin, some studies published in major journals suggest it is in fact ineffective.

          (eloresnorwood/Shutterstock)

          Even as the FDA recently has been removing misinformation it posted about ivermectin, the agency has maintained its original position regarding its effectiveness, namely that there isn’t evidence.

          People who trust ivermectin claim the studies showing ineffectiveness are fraudulent, while people who are skeptical of its use for treating COVID-19 view it as an anti-science conspiracy theory.

          As a professional with decades of research experience conducting dozens of clinical trials on antiviral drugs, I decided to dive deep into the studies purporting ivermectin’s ineffectiveness. What I found shocked me.

          Legacy Media Report Ineffectiveness

          Numerous preclinical studies have found that ivermectin has a broad range of effects on COVID-19, spanning from its initial impact on viral infection to the pathological changes the virus causes in our bodies.

          Ivermectin inhibits the entire life cycle of SARS-CoV-2 in our cells from attachment, spreading, and replication (1, 2, 3).

          Moreover, ivermectin is anti-inflammatory and organ-protective, which can potentially protect against severe COVID-related lung damage and acute respiratory distress syndrome, heart-related complications, and blood clots.

          Ivermectin exceeds the approved antiviral effects of other medications, including Paxlovid, molnupiravir and remdesivir, which only target the virus and lack anti-inflammatory and organ-protective effects. Monoclonal antibodies have to be constructed specific to each variant and are very expensive.

          In the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials are commonly used to evaluate the efficacy and safety of drugs once their mechanism is demonstrated. There are two types of clinical trials: observational and interventional.

          Observational studies are often conducted by doctors in clinical, hospital, or community settings to analyze the effects of drugs. The data is collected as observed in clinical practice with minimal interference.

          Many doctors have observed the positive effects of ivermectin on their patients. An observational study conducted in Brazil with over 88,000 patients showed that ivermectin reduced the rates of infection, mortality, and hospitalization by 49 percent, 92 percent, and 100 percent, respectively, compared to nonusers.

          Pharmaceutical companies are required to conduct interventional studies that meet the approval standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are frequently utilized to fulfill these requirements. This type of study is considered the gold standard and involves randomly assigning one group of patients to receive a specific drug while the other group does not receive it, then comparing the outcomes.

          Legally and medically, ivermectin can be prescribed off-label to treat COVID-19 since it has already been approved by the FDA for other diseases.

          Although many doctors have observed the positive effects of ivermectin in treating their patients, the media has specifically highlighted data from a few selected RCTs that have concluded it is ineffective in treating COVID-19.

          However, some critical aspects were overlooked in those RCTs.

          Improper Dosing

          A drug’s therapeutic effects can only be observed when it reaches the appropriate concentration in the body and remains there for a few days, allowing sufficient time to work.

          Improper dosing was a major issue in the RCTs that found ivermectin ineffective.

          Recommended Dosage

          According to Merck’s package insert for ivermectin (brand name Stromectol), a single oral dose of 0.2 mg/kg was officially recommended for treating parasitic diseases. There is no official dose for COVID-19.

          The recommended dosage of ivermectin for treating COVID-19 is based on the clinical experiences of physicians worldwide.

          The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) guidelines recommend taking 0.4 mg/kg of ivermectin daily, immediately after exposure. Once a cumulative dose in excess of 200 mg is reached, the risk of acquiring COVID-19 has been shown to be nearly zero.

          It is common for a drug with multiple indications to have different doses for different diseases.

          Moreover, ivermectin should be given with food, as it has a 2.6-fold higher bioavailability when taken with food rather than on an empty stomach. The Merck package insert (revised May 2022) also supports this and states: “Administration of 30 mg ivermectin following a high-fat meal resulted in an approximate 2.5-fold increase in bioavailability relative to administration of 30 mg ivermectin in the fasted state.”

          FLCCC guidelines also recommend taking ivermectin “with or just following a meal for greater absorption.”

          Yet this important dosing information is not reflected in the commonly used drug prescribing resource known as the Prescribers’ Digital Reference or PDR which states: “Take the number of tablets your doctor has prescribed all at the same time with water on an empty stomach. Do not eat any food within two hours before or after taking the tablets.”

          So if a person takes the dose while fasting, they are getting only 40 percent of the recommended dose. For patients with a higher body weight, the effects of underdosing could be even more significant.

          RCT Studies Used Inappropriate Dosing

          In the most recent PRINCIPLE trial published in March, ivermectin was used at 0.3 mg/kg for only three days. Moreover, it was designed to dose the ivermectin without food: “Participants were advised not to eat two hours before or after taking ivermectin.”

          In another RCT ACTIV-6 published in JAMA in October 2022, ivermectin was dosed in a fasting status, as the protocol stated: “Ivermectin should be taken on an empty stomach with water (30 minutes before a meal or 2 hours after a meal).”

          Ivermectin was reported as dosed at 0.4 mg/kg for three days—a much shorter time period than it should be. However, in the protocol Table 4 in Appendix 16.3.3, the precise dosing was as low as 0.269 mg/kg, and 0.4 mg/kg is actually only the upper dose limit—not the real dose.

          According to the worldwide recognized study guideline ICH Good Clinical Practice, clinical trials must adhere to ethical principles. Failure to do so would be considered study misconduct or fraud and would violate the principle of integrity.

          Another JAMA study published in March 2021 repeated the same mistake in mild COVID-19 patients by suggesting they take 0.3 mg/kg for five days on an empty stomach.

          An RCT study known as TOGETHER, published in March 2022 in the New England Journal of Medicine, underdosed ivermectin with 0.4 mg/kg for only three days and did not mention dosing with food.

          Nevertheless, even at this low dose, the ivermectin still reduced hospitalization rates, death, and the need for mechanical ventilation compared to a placebo.

          Clinical Improvement Despite Underdosing

          It is inappropriate to conclude that ivermectin was ineffective based on these RCT studies with major design flaws.

          Despite the poor study design, ivermectin showed clinical benefits and saved lives.

          In the PRINCIPLE study, self-reported recovery was shorter in the ivermectin group than usual care, with a median decrease of 2.06 days. The statistical analysis showed that it met the predefined superiority criteria.

          Furthermore, the analysis showed that ivermectin effectively reduced COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths. Only 1.6 percent of 2,157 patients in the ivermectin group experienced hospitalizations or deaths, compared to 4.4 percent of 3,256 patients in the usual care group.

          Even a low dose of ivermectin has demonstrated the potential to save lives. However, the authors concluded, “Ivermectin for COVID-19 is unlikely to provide clinically meaningful improvement in recovery, hospital admissions, or longer-term outcomes.”

          Meanwhile, the report’s appendix includes dozens of recorded clinical benefits in patients treated with ivermectin, such as the time it took to alleviate all symptoms, general unwellness, muscle aches, and headaches. The improvement of symptoms was also sustained, and the severity was reduced. Surprisingly, the source PDF was removed from the website during the writing of this article.

          There are additional examples. Although the previously mentioned 2021 JAMA study underdosed patients, treatment with ivermectin reduced recovery time by two days. In the ACTIV-6 study, only one venous blood clot event was reported in 817 ivermectin-treated patients, compared to five events in 774 placebo-treated patients.

          Statistical Failures

          It is important to note that the definition of treatment effects in an RCT can differ from those discussed in real-life observational studies.

          Sometimes, even if the results of a clinical trial demonstrate a clear effect, the conclusion may still be interpreted as ineffective due to the statistical definition of effectiveness.

          Interpreting statistics can be challenging as they usually involve complicated mathematical models and numerical data that can be manipulated to support a specific agenda. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this discussion, let’s presume that all research is carried out conscientiously and without manipulative intent.

          In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with mild to moderate COVID-19 patients, none of the 55 patients in the ivermectin group died, whereas four of 57 in the placebo group died. This resulted in a comparison of zero percent versus 7 percent. Moreover, only 1.8 percent of ivermectin-treated patients needed invasive ventilation compared to 8.8 percent in the placebo group.

          In other words, ivermectin reduced the risk of death by 100 percent and the need for ventilators by 80 percent.

          However, the article did not provide the p-value (probability value) for the death rate comparison or the invasive ventilation of 0.102 (Table 2), which is higher than the 0.05 threshold considered to be a significant statistical difference.

          P-values are commonly used to test and measure a “null hypothesis,” which states that no differences exist in the effects being studied between two groups. A finding is considered statistically significant and warrants publication when the p-value is 0.05 or less.

          The p-values in this study were deemed insignificant because they were more than 0.05. Accordingly, the authors wrote that this difference was statistically insignificant and concluded that ivermectin “had shown only marginal benefit.”

          How could a 100 percent reduction in death or an 80 percent reduction in ventilation be interpreted as “marginal” effects?

          In the I-TECH study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2022, the patients treated with ivermectin had a lower mortality rate of 1.2 percent compared to 4 percent in the comparator group.

          The same conclusion was made as the previous study because the p-value was 0.09 and higher than 0.05.

          If the 7 million patients reported to have died from COVID-19 had been treated with ivermectin, an estimated 4.9 million lives could potentially have been saved based on the 70 percent reduced mortality rate from the I-TECH study; or 4.5 million lives could have been saved based on the 64 percent reduction of mortality in the PRINCIPLE study.

          The life-saving potential of ivermectin has been hindered by the unnecessary statistical threshold. The problem of statistical significance is widespread and frequently causes confusion among scientists.

          A 2016 Nature article raised concerns about the misuse of p-values. A 2019 comment in the same journal stated that “The misuse of statistical significance has done much harm to the scientific community and those who rely on scientific advice.”

          The authors called for abandoning the use of statistical significance to draw conclusions regarding the effectiveness of drugs, such as stating that “drug Y does not work,” and cautioned that such conclusions may result in the dismissal of potentially life-saving drugs.

          The authors also wrote: “Let’s be clear about what must stop; we should never conclude there is ‘no difference’ or ‘no association’ just because a P value is larger than a threshold such as 0.o5.”

          Selection Bias

          Many people, including physicians, may not be aware that interventional studies, particularly RCTs, are are prone to numerous biases, with selection bias being one of the most significant. Excluding potentially eligible individuals due to their anticipated group allocation can lead to selection bias.

          It’s common knowledge that early treatment of COVID-19 is crucial for effective results. The earlier the treatment starts, the more effective it is. These approved antivirals for COVID-19 are used shortly after COVID-19 infection and usually within a few days after symptom onset.

          For example, Paxlovid and molnupiravir registration trials treated patients within only three to five days of symptom onset.

          Early treatment is critical for COVID-19. Efficacy declines rapidly with treatment delay. (c19early.com)

          However, in the PRINCIPLE trial, ivermectin was used for patients within 14 days of symptom onset, while ACTIV-6 treated patients an average of six days after infection.

          Patients with severe kidney disease are normally excluded from phase 3 studies, as they are less likely to respond to antiviral treatment. This approach has been taken by remdesivir (protocol), molnupiravir (protocol), and Paxlovid (protocol). However, such standard exclusion criteria were not taken by the ACTIV-6 or PRINCIPLE study protocols.

          Why was ivermectin treated so unfairly in these clinical trials?

          It is well known that when an RCT is sponsored by Big Pharma, there is often a financial conflict of interest, as the research institutions are usually hired or funded by the pharmaceutical company. In a world where wealth often competes with ethics, how many can resist financial temptation and stay true to moral principles?

          “Hidden agenda bias” occurs when a trial is conducted to demonstrate a desired outcome, rather than to answer a question. In other words, “Don’t do a trial if it won’t show you what you want to find.”

          Proven Without a Profit Motive

          Conducting an RCT to get a drug approved by the FDA requires money. Every drug must be managed by a professional team composed of doctors, database managers, and assistants. Professionals must secure funding, recruit a lead investigator, and find hospitals to conduct the study. An operational team must perform the study, analyze the data, and gain FDA approval.

          Since ivermectin is a generic drug that lacks profitable marketing and a pharmaceutical sponsor, it’s challenging to organize and systematically manage its new application with health authorities, data, and customers.

          Nevertheless, doctors worldwide have been using ivermectin to help patients and have collected valuable data.

          The website c19ivm.org has compiled data on 102 clinical trials proving ivermectin’s consistent effectiveness in treating COVID-19. Studies with negative conclusions about ivermectin are also included, such as the the four RCTs with recognized design flaws.

          Since the beginning of the analysis, ivermectin has consistently shown efficacy. This meta-analysis provides a thorough and transparent real-time analysis of all eligible ivermectin studies.

          The trials were conducted by 1,139 doctors or scientists from 29 countries with 142,307 patients. Out of the total studies, 86 have been peer-reviewed with 128,787 patients, and 49 were randomized controlled trials with 16,847 patients.

          In the studies with comparative groups, ivermectin was shown to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection by 81 percent, mortality by 49 percent, ICU admission by 35 percent, ventilation usage by 29 percent, and hospitalization by 34 percent.

          In comparison to the control groups, the use of ivermectin as a preventive measure before infection reduced the most severe clinical outcomes of COVID-19 by 85 percent. When used in the early stage of COVID-19, ivermectin decreased the severity of the disease by 62 percent, and when used in late stages, it reduced the clinical severity by 39 percent. Clinical severity is measured by death, ventilation, disease progression, or hospitalization.

          Ivermectin treatment effects in COVID-19 patients, based on a meta-analysis of 102 clinical trials. (c19ivm.org)

          Considering the Entire Picture

          It’s difficult to believe that the designers of these studies were unaware of the dosing of ivermectin. Despite all of the above analyses, the reasoning behind the ivermectin underdosing or unfavorable study design may be linked to factors beyond science.

          A new drug or vaccine cannot achieve an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) status if there is an existing viable therapeutic available. This fact alone may have impacted many decisions.

          The NIH website lists only those RCTs that I found to have design flaws (or potential fraud) to justify its recommendation against the use of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.

          Peer-reviewed studies showing the efficacy of ivermectin in treating COVID-19 have been retracted without explanation, and doctors have been demonized, censored, and doxxed for speaking the truth.

          Legacy media, including The New York Times and CNN, reported incomplete and improperly interpreted trials that failed to present an accurate representation of ivermectin’s effects.

          It’s important to keep an open mind and consider the entire picture when examining the ivermectin issue, rather than dismissing it as conspiracy or misinformation. This can lead to more informed decisions that could ultimately save lives.

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

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 21:15

        • ATF Wants Funding For Data Analysts To Gather Gun Trace Information
          ATF Wants Funding For Data Analysts To Gather Gun Trace Information

          Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) wants more funding, personnel, and technology, along with Universal Background Checks, to combat gun trafficking.

          “Ghost guns” seized in federal law enforcement actions are displayed in a file photo at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) field office in Glendale, Calif., on April 18, 2022. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

          The agency included the wish list in Volume III of a four-part report, “National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment: Firearms Trafficking Investigations.”

          According to the report, the agency is hobbled by unwieldy databases, outdated processes, and a lack of full-time employees to track firearms from their first point of sale to the time they turn up at crime scenes.

          Second Amendment advocates counter that the agency has restrictions on it that prevent it from building a registry of firearms. They say the ATF should be more focused on crime than politics.

          “All the federal government needs to do is prosecute those who break these laws,” Randy Kozuch, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) said in an email to The Epoch Times.

          An ATF spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

          The report draws data from 9,708 ATF firearm trafficking investigations conducted between 2017 and 2021, according to a statement on the ATF webpage.

          It found nearly 230,000 trafficked guns in 7,779 cases between 2017 and 2021. On average, 16 firearms were found per investigation—almost 60 percent of the cases involved five or fewer guns, gun parts, or regulated accessories.

          Dealing firearms without a license was the most common trafficking-related crime reported. This has become something of a hot-button issue for Second Amendment advocates.

          Gun rights advocates who spoke with The Epoch Times dismissed the report as evidence that the ATF has been weaponized. They claim that President Joe Biden is pushing an anti-gun agenda by using the ATF to bludgeon legal gun owners and federally licensed dealers (FFLs).

          Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), said the ATF’s data belies the agency’s true intention. He pointed to the five or fewer firearms uncovered in the majority of the agency’s investigations.

          At the same time, less than one percent of the cases involved 251 or more guns. But those cases accounted for almost 59 percent of the firearms trafficked between 2017 and 2021. Mr. Johnson believes that many cases involve honest FFLs caught up in the ATF’s zero-tolerance policy.

          “They’re actually investigating normal people who sold five guns or less, when they really should be targeting the people they only target one percent of the time,” Mr. Johnston told The Epoch Times.

          “They should not be targeting the people who work in good faith with the ATF.”

          Volunteers help attendees register for the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., on Sept. 23, 2023. (Michael Clements/The Epoch Times)

          Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, agrees with Mr. Johnston.

          He says the data can’t be trusted because it’s based on sample data. This fact, combined with what he considers the politicization of the ATF under President Biden, makes the report suspect.

          “It’s hard to trust anything they say,” Mr. Gottlieb told The Epoch Times.

          The report states that the ATF’s current information-gathering system was designed for investigators, not data analysts. If the agency were adequately funded and had full-time analysts, it could provide more accurate and comprehensive reports.

          “Building this functionality into ATF’s data systems is a public safety imperative; it is necessary to enable ATF to provide timely, accurate, and actionable information and analysis to [provide information] on trends and threats posed by firearm trafficking,” the report reads.

          Mr. Johnston scoffed at the idea of increased funding for the ATF. He claims the agency can’t be trusted with the data it has.

          By federal law, the ATF is required to destroy much of the data it gathers on legal firearm owners. This is to prevent it from building a registry of firearms.

          According to the Congressional Research Service, this has not stopped the agency from amassing millions of records from FFLs over the years.

          A February 2024 report by the Service stated that in November 2021, the ATF reported having 921 million records from FFLs that had gone out of business. Mr. Johnston believes the agency has only gathered more records since 2021.

          A participant takes aim during the National Women’s Range Day at Texas Gun Experience on March 9, 2024. The event was sponsored by Gun Owners of America and Epowered2A. (Michael Clements/The Epoch Times)

          “They’ve already built an illegal registry. I don’t support giving an extra dime to this agency,” Mr. Johnston said.

          The report listed crimes the ATF is dedicated to fighting, including providing false information to an FFL, which often occurs when a legal buyer purchases a gun for a prohibited person. This is the so-called straw purchase.

          Another crime mentioned in the report is being a felon in possession of a firearm, which is often the result of a straw purchase.

          According to the report, trafficked firearms were reportedly connected to almost 19 percent of aggravated assaults, 11 percent of homicide cases, and more than 9 percent of attempted homicides.

          Felons Found With Guns

          About 60 percent of those found with trafficked firearms were convicted felons. Almost half, 48 percent, were between 25 and 34 years old.

          “ATF recognizes the role firearms play in violent crimes and pursues an integrated regulatory and enforcement strategy. Investigative priorities focus on armed violent offenders and career criminals, narcotics traffickers, narco-terrorists, violent gangs, and domestic and international arms traffickers,” the online statement reads.

          Mr. Kozuch said nothing is currently stopping the ATF from fighting crime.

          “ATF’s own data undermines its conclusions that new laws are needed, but it’s unsurprising that the Biden Administration’s ATF would use any opportunity to push more gun control,” Mr. Kozuch’s statement reads.

          Mr. Johnston agreed. He said the report makes clear what the ATF sees as its primary mission.

          “They’re not here to crack down on crime; they’re here to crack down on the Second Amendment,” he said.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 20:25

        • Ford Lightning Price Cut "Sends Shockwaves Through EV Market" 
          Ford Lightning Price Cut “Sends Shockwaves Through EV Market” 

          Shares of Rivian Automotive, Lucid Group, and Tesla Motors moved lower during the cash session in the US after Ford Motor announced price cuts for its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck amid concerns about sliding demand across the EV industry. Meanwhile, an EV price war between the automakers rages on as unprofitable EV startups struggle to survive. 

          Let’s begin with a Bloomberg report that says Ford is reducing the price of its Lightning pickup truck by up to 7.5%. Earlier this year, the company paused production of the truck and is set to resume production later in the month

          The largest price cut is on the Flash extended-range model, where customers could expect to save $5,500. The model now starts at around $67,995. Ford told Bloomberg that price cuts will help it “adapt to the market to achieve the optimal mix of sales growth and customer value.”

          The downshift in EV demand has led Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley to reevaluate Ford’s EV strategy by reducing spending on battery-powered vehicles by $12 billion, delaying the launch of various models, and beginning to offer an expanded lineup on gas-electric hybrid propulsion vehicles across North America. 

          Thousands of auto dealers nationwide recently warned the ‘climate change warriors’ in the White House: the 2030 EV push is backfiring. 

          “Currently, there are many excellent battery electric vehicles available for consumers to purchase. These vehicles are ideal for many people, and we believe their appeal will grow over time. The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers said. 

          They warned: “Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace.” 

          Many consumers do not embrace the government’s and corporate America’s forced EV adoption schemes. This is now entirely backfiring, as even Tesla’s first-quarter deliveries lagged behind expectations, which may indicate more price cuts are coming. 

          “Reports of Ford reducing prices for the F-150 Lightning EV are sending shockwaves through the EV market, particularly affecting Rivian and Lucid,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Steve Man said. 

          Man said, “Both startups are facing challenges that could be exacerbated by another round of EV price cuts, potentially eroding their profit margins and cash reserves at a time when they need to conserve cash.”

          Shares of Rivian dropped the most, down 6.5% in early afternoon trade. Shares of Lucid were down around 2.5%, and Tesla was flat on the session. 

          Recall analyst Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley recently suggested consolidation is coming to the industry:

          What a turbulent time for the EV space… Someone tell Biden to tell Powell … moar rate cuts, please, to reflate the imploding green bubble. 

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 20:00

        • From Taiwan To Fentanyl: Biden–Xi Dialogue Changes Nothing
          From Taiwan To Fentanyl: Biden–Xi Dialogue Changes Nothing

          Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          President Joe Biden speaks during a press conference after meeting with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ week in Woodside, Calif., on Nov. 15, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

          Commentary

          Biden–Xi talks change nothing about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) ambitions: seize Taiwan, destabilize global shipping, distribute fentanyl, and prepare for war by 2035.

          On April 2, in their first conversation since November 2023, President Joe Biden and CCP leader Xi Jinping discussed several pressing issues. These included Beijing’s ongoing economic support for Russia, Chinese military aggression toward Taiwan, Chinese cyberattacks on the United States and its allies, and the CCP’s interference in the 2024 U.S. elections, as well as urging Xi to convince Iran to halt support for terrorists and stop the export of fentanyl precursor chemicals. Xi, for his part, wants President Biden to remove U.S. technology curbs and chip bans.

          The irony of this dialogue lies in Xi’s absolute power within China. With a mere phone call or statement, he could instantly halt support for Russia; end CCP aggression toward Taiwan; demand Iran cease support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; stop fentanyl exports; or prevent CCP interference in elections. The fact that he doesn’t take such actions suggests that this is the way Xi wants it. These policies persist because he believes that they are best for the CCP.

          None of the issues discussed were new. The United States has engaged with China on these issues numerous times in the past. The Taiwan debate, for example, goes back more than half a century. The Russia–Ukraine war is now in its third year, and the only reason the Russian economy has not collapsed is because of the CCP’s ongoing support. The Middle East has always been a hotspot, but since Oct. 7, 2023, the unraveling has accelerated, with both Hamas and Hezbollah exchanging blows with the Israel Defense Forces. At the same time, global shipping is in peril because of the Houthis. Seizing on the opportunity, while the world is busy putting out fires elsewhere, the Somali pirates are back at work, hijacking ships. Xi could easily stop this by threatening to cut off economic and technological support for Tehran. But he has not and will not, irrespective of polite conversations with President Biden.

          Xi has been concerned about the U.S. chip ban and technology restrictions on China, which he says are “creating risks“ in U.S.–China relations. However, the restrictions are there for good reason, as a matter of national security. The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community has again identified the CCP as the country’s No. 1 national security threat.

          The 2024 Threat Assessment reads, “Beijing will focus on building a fully modernized national defense and military force by 2035 and for the PLA to become a world-class military by 2049.”

          Xi did not tell President Biden that he had canceled this goal; to achieve it, he needs U.S. technology and chips. Therefore, Xi has asked Washington to remove its tech restrictions so the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can proceed on schedule and be ready to take on the United States in the coming years.

          The chip and technology issue is just one more example of why these dialogues cannot and will not yield meaningful results. The Biden White House often refers to China as a competitor, not an enemy. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Intelligence Community regard China as a threat.

          The DOD’s annual Military and Security Developments report involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) reads, “The PRC’s strategy entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness the internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a ‘leading position’ in an enduring competition between systems.”

          As such, the U.S. military prepares for a war with the PLA on an ongoing basis.

          A country you go to war against is an enemy, not a competitor. But whether the term “competitor” or “enemy” is used, it is not in the United States’ interest to enable the modernization of the PLA. This is why former President Donald Trump began a program of tariffs and restrictions on China trade and investment and why President Biden has continued and intensified these restrictions. At the same time, it is not in the CCP’s interest to meet any of the demands made by President Biden.

          One area Xi and President Biden did agree on was global artificial intelligence (AI) governance—a concept that carries frightening implications as it will grant unprecedented censorship powers to those who write and enforce these rules. The United Nations, an organization in which the CCP holds significant influence, favors central control of AI.

          A U.N. statement reads, “Globally coordinated AI governance is the only way to harness AI for humanity while addressing its risks and uncertainties as AI-related services.”

          Wang Yi, director of China’s Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission, issued a statement on AI asserting that “AI should always be placed under human control.” This naturally raises the question: Who will be the human controlling AI?

          The only potential obstacle between Xi and the globalists in finalizing the details of AI governance is China’s desire to govern both the internet and global AI. The most likely outcome will resemble the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization, in which the CCP seeks to exert significant influence in drafting the rules and subsequently violates them as it sees fit.

          As for all the other issues between Washington and Beijing, negotiation or resolution seems unattainable as the two countries are in direct conflict with each other.

          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
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 19:40

        • More Than $12,000 In Pork Stolen From Truck In Northeast Philadelphia While Driver Slept
          More Than $12,000 In Pork Stolen From Truck In Northeast Philadelphia While Driver Slept

          Today in “signs that inflation continues to run out of control” news, more than $12,000 in pork was stolen from a Northeast Philadelphia truck this week, marking the 37th cargo theft in the area this year. 

          The thieves made off with 56 cases of pork, according to 6ABC Philadelphia.

          As ABC noted, the location where the pork was stolen is a popular overnight stop for truckers en route to morning warehouse deliveries. However, it’s also become a hotspot for theft, with recent incidents on March 14 involving stolen bourbon and meat while drivers were asleep.

          Captain Jack Ryan of the Philadelphia Police Dept. commented: “They are asleep in a lot of cases. The refrigerated trucks make a lot of noise.”

          Trucker Mark Leighton said he has installed a “meat lock” to prevent such thefts. “In order to cut it off, you have to have a massive tool,” he told 6ABC. The suspects in this case escaped in a silver Lexus SUV. 

          Recall last year thieves also stole 2 million dimes worth $200,000 from a truck parked at a Philadelphia Walmart. The truck had $750,000 in dimes in it altogether. Many were found strewn about in a Walmart parking lot where the trailer was parked. 

          The dimes had been picked up at the Philadelphia Mint, but the driver of the truck went home to sleep before planning to drive the next day to Florida. 

          Capt. Jack Ryan of Northeast Detectives commented: “This is common practice – to pick up a load going to Florida and go home for the night, get to sleep, and get on the road in the morning.”

          “They were trying to cross-load the dimes into other things. There are dimes all over the parking lot,” Ryan added, telling 6ABC.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 19:20

        • Americans Now Worry About Out-Of-Control Power Bill Inflation
          Americans Now Worry About Out-Of-Control Power Bill Inflation

          Tens of millions of Americans are having trouble paying their power bills as residential electricity inflation continues to run rampant. The latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (February’s print) shows that three out of every four major cities in the US had power prices rise for residential customers. 

          “Food has been a worry, but now electricity is the worry,” 75yo Alfredo De Avila told Bloomberg, adding, “Unless you want to go to candles and firewood, we have no other choice but to bite the bullet and pay.”

          For the Oakland, California, resident, already battered by high taxes, food inflation, elevated fuel pump prices, and out-of-control violent crime, the latest price increase from the state’s largest electricity utlity, PG&E Corp, of a 13% jump in power bills in January, plus more expected rises this year, could put the retiree under more financial pressure. 

          BLS data (from February’s print) shows that power prices nationwide have jumped 27% since early 2021. 

          The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, representing state directors of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, recently reported that the average US household heating bill was $836. This decreased from $978 the previous year and slightly down from $849 in 2020. Nonetheless, the Household Pulse Survey data in March indicated that 19.2% of families could not pay at least one energy bill in the past 12 months, an increase from 16.5% in the same period the year before. And power bill debt in the nation has just hit a record high. 

          Soaring power costs are happening during a major upgrade of the nation’s power grid. Bloomberg said utilities are “undergoing multibillion-dollar overhauls to replace aging fossil fuel plants with greener alternatives and to make existing systems more resilient to wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding.” 

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

          In a note last week titled “The Next AI Trade,” we outlined how power grids are racing to increase generation capacity to accommodate new demand, fueled by onshoring trends, electrification of transportation of buildings, extreme weather, and artificial intelligence data centers. 

          “A lot of people’s eyes just popped out in the past six months,” Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies LLC in Washington, DC, said, adding, “It’s been 20 to 25 years of flat power demand, but now we’re in a new mode.”

          Emily Fisher, executive vice president for clean energy at the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for the utility industry, said these costs can no longer be avoided, noting, “We have to make these investments to have a reliable and affordable system.” 

          Add rampant electricity inflation to the long list of soaring costs, such as the recent surge in gasoline prices at the pump as they inch closer to the politically sensitive level of $4 a gallon, elevated food prices, and the worst housing affordability in a generation. No wonder the vast majority of Americans are fed up with the failure of Bidenomics, as the president’s polling numbers have been going down the drain. 

          America is unaffordable. 

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 18:40

        • Montana Supreme Court Tries To Move The State Left
          Montana Supreme Court Tries To Move The State Left

          Authored by Rob Natelson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          The Montana State Supreme Court. (Screenshot via GoogleMaps)

          Commentary

          The Epoch Times reported on March 28 that the Montana Supreme Court struck down four state “election integrity” laws.

          The court’s decision appears to be part of a wider judicial effort to reverse conservative electoral trends in Montana.

          Manipulating elections might not seem like a proper role for a court. And it’s not. But as I detailed in an Epoch Times column on Dec. 4, 2023, the Montana Supreme Court has a record of extreme overreach. I described how the justices have made themselves almost unreviewable by exercising an absolute veto over the state constitutional amendment process.

          The Montana Supreme Court may be the most bizarre appeals bench in the United States. Along with extreme activism, it frequently exhibits leftward bias and legal incompetence. And, as explained below, perhaps a touch of corruption.

          The Court’s Record

          I have followed the Montana Supreme Court for many years. In 1990, I wrote my first scholarly article on its case law. I produced major studies in 2012 and 2018 and again in 2024. Although my initial impression (reflected in the 1990 study) was favorable, experience gradually changed my views.

          Over time, I learned that the justices’ treatment of legal issues, and particularly constitutional issues, often was sub-par.

          I also learned about the court’s leftward political bias. The easiest way to see this bias is to examine how the court treats contested ballot issues. In the years since 1982, it has upheld liberal ballot issues without exception, but almost without exception has struck down conservative ones.

          Montana lawyers have told me the court works in tandem with groups that promote left-wing causes and contribute to the justices’ reelection campaigns.

          More recently we have seen traces of actual corruption surface. In 2021, it came to light that for decades, the court’s administrator allegedly had been involved in illegal lobbying at taxpayer expense. An ensuing legislative subpoena produced a mass of emails supporting this conclusion. Then the justices shut down further discovery. In response to the administrator’s request, they quashed the legislative subpoena on a Sunday, without—as due process requires—giving the Legislature an opportunity to be heard.

          Why Does This Go On?

          As the subpoenaed emails show, the court’s improper behavior has persisted for decades. One reason it continues is that the court enjoys an unusually powerful position in the state political and legal system. It can retaliate against critics.

          Additionally, the liberal political establishment that has dominated the state for many years usually has supported the justices.

          The state’s media are also complicit. When self-serving judicial behavior occurred on the Colorado Supreme Court, the scandal was vetted in the Colorado press and a former chief justice was disciplined. In Montana, though, most of the media are uninterested in uncovering inappropriate judicial behavior—and some actively protect the court.

          Political Change and the Court’s Response

          At long last, however, Montanans are beginning to respond. Some have noticed that in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed several high-profile Montana decisions. Moreover, the state is becoming more conservative, and therefore less tolerant of liberal political activism. Republicans now control all executive branch offices and strong majorities in the Legislature.

          Perhaps the biggest factor triggering the public response, however, consists of the court’s extraordinary attacks on the conservative Legislature and on some of the Republican executive branch officials.

          The state Legislature has found its agenda largely stymied, as the court and the trial judges who follow its lead have voided or suspended dozens of new laws. After the attorney general dared criticize the justices, the court’s disciplinary arm began proceedings against him. For a Montana lawyer, in other words, the potential penalty for critiquing the court is to lose your law license.

          The justices have even attacked the Legislature’s internal procedures. This defies a 400-year-old Anglo-American constitutional tradition, which holds that a legislature’s internal rules are off-limits from interference by other branches of government.

          How the Court’s Attack on Election Integrity Fits In

          The Montana Supreme Court’s overruling of election integrity laws is part of a wider pattern. The pattern shows an apparent effort to alter state election rules to disadvantage the state’s conservative majority.

          Last year, the court largely gutted its own constitutional amendment standards to uphold a “jungle primary” amendment designed to squeeze out conservative candidates. Last month, the justices similarly manipulated the rules to sustain a pro-abortion ballot measure fashioned to heighten liberal turnout in the 2024 elections. The court further aided the pro-abortion measure by personally writing its ballot language instead of (as is usual) assigning that task to the attorney general.

          The Election Integrity Case

          The election integrity case began when the Montana Democratic Party and other left-leaning groups challenged laws curbing questionable electoral practices.

          Four laws were challenged. One moved the voter registration deadline from Election Day to the day before. People could still register up to the day before the election, but not on Election Day itself.

          A second law prevented 17-year-olds from sending in ballots before they turn 18.

          The third was a ban on paid ballot harvesting—the risky practice of paying people to collect other people’s ballots.

          The fourth required voters relying on student identification cards to produce additional evidence of identity.

          By any historical measure, all these laws were reasonable and moderate. Traditionally, voting deadlines have been at least 30 days before the election, not one day before. The Montana Constitution provides explicitly that the Legislature—not the courts—chooses whether to adopt Election Day registration. And the Legislature did not choose to do so until 2005.

          Traditionally, also, people have not been allowed to cast ballots before the age of majority. Ballot harvesting—not just paid ballot harvesting—usually has been illegal because of the risk of corruption and the threat to ballot secrecy.

          Requiring identification other than a university ID is necessary because a person should vote at the place of his permanent residence, and student IDs generally don’t disclose one’s permanent residence.

          To strike down measures so eminently reasonable and constitutional required some judicial contortions, but the Montana Supreme Court was up to the job.

          In mandating Election Day registration, it applied a one-way ratchet—essentially saying (amid some fudge) that a legislature can choose to adopt it but can’t choose to repeal it.

          The court held that the measure preventing 17-year-olds from depositing ballots was unconstitutional because their votes were not counted until after their 18th birthday. Of course, this is absurd: The fundamental purpose of the minimum age is to prevent minors from making adult decisions. The time of decision is when the ballot is deposited, not when it is counted.

          The part of the court’s opinion voiding the requirement for corroborating a student identification card ignored the fact that student IDs don’t depict the holder’s permanent residence.

          The section of the opinion voiding the ban on paid ballot harvesting focused on the rights of a small minority on Indian reservations. But it disregarded the risks to ballot secrecy. It overlooked the fact that the law allowed ballot harvesting to continue if no money changed hands. And most importantly, it ignored the fact that most ballot harvesting has nothing to do with Indian reservations. It’s a largely urban phenomenon employed by political activists to win an edge over their rivals.

          Throughout the court’s opinion, the justices demonstrated—as frequently in the past—a strong bias in favor of liberal constituencies at the expense of conservative ones.

          Other Mistakes

          The foregoing may be enough for the general reader. But here’s some red meat for constitutional wonks. In treating the state constitution, the court made two fundamental mistakes that competent jurists would not make.

          First, it relied heavily on the transcript of the convention that drafted the state constitution. But that convention merely made a proposal; it did not convert that proposal into law. The people purportedly did that when they voted on June 6, 1972. (The results of the election were disputed.)

          When Montanans voted, the convention transcript was still unpublished and unavailable. So the court should have focused on what the voters were told—which was somewhat different from what went on in the convention.

          The bench also erred in applying the wrong constitutional tests. It claimed that under the state constitution, voting is a “fundamental right,” and it applied rules applied to other fundamental rights, such as free speech.

          But voting is not like free speech. Unlike restrictions on speech, voting rules traditionally play a central role in promoting good governance. They do so by limiting the franchise to mature people who usually vote in person and know and have a stake in their communities.

          By contrast, practices such as Election Day registration and ballot harvesting impede good governance. They outweigh votes from conscientious people with ballots from uninformed transients who have little or no stake in the community.

          Another reason voting is not like free speech is that while restrictions on speech usually impair rights, voting rules promote rights. Ensuring that an election is fair does not merely protect the public interest. It also protects the voting rights of everyone.

          Even if a rule against paid ballot harvesting burdens a few people, it protects the value of the vote for everyone else.

          In the election integrity cases—as in many others—the Montana Supreme Court showed great concern for certain favored liberal constituencies. But it showed no interest in protecting the votes of the overwhelming majority of Montanans.

          Robert G. Natelson, a former University of Montana constitutional law professor who is a senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, authored “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015). The Frontier Institute has just published his paper, “The Montana Supreme Court: An Institution in Need of Reform” (2024).

          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
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 18:20

        • Vietnam Real Estate Tycoon Sentenced to Death Over Massive Fraud Amounting To 3% Of GDP
          Vietnam Real Estate Tycoon Sentenced to Death Over Massive Fraud Amounting To 3% Of GDP

          Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh City in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Vietnam Net said. The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was formally charged with fraud amounting to $12.5 billion, or nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP.

          Business woman Truong My Lan attends a trial in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Thursday, April 11, 2024.

          Lan illegally controlled Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 and allowed 2,500 loans that resulted in losses of $27 billion to the bank, reported state media VnExpress. The court asked her to compensate the bank $26.9 million.

          Despite mitigating circumstances — this was a first-time offense and Lan participated in charity activities — the court attributed its harsh sentence to the seriousness of the case, saying Lan was at the helm of an orchestrated and sophisticated criminal enterprise that had serious consequences with no possibility of the money being recovered, the AP reported.

          Her actions “not only violate the property management rights of individuals and organizations but also push SCB (Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank) into a state of special control; eroding people’s trust in the leadership of the Party and State,” VnExpress quoted the judgement as saying.

          Her niece, Truong Hue Van, the chief executive of Van Thinh Phat, was also sentenced to 17 years in prison for aiding her aunt.

          Lan and her family established the Van Thing Phat company in 1992 after Vietnam shed its state-run economy in favor of a more market-oriented approach that was open to foreigners. She had started out helping her mother, a Chinese businesswoman, to sell cosmetics in Ho Chi Minh City’s oldest market, according to state media Tien Phong.

          Van Thinh Phat would grow to become one of Vietnam’s richest real estate firms, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers. This made her a key player in the country’s financial industry. She orchestrated the 2011 merger of the beleaguered SCB bank with two other lenders in coordination with Vietnam’s central bank.

          The court found that she used this approach to tap SCB for cash. She indirectly owned more than 90% of the bank, a charge she denied, and approved thousands of loans to “ghost companies,” according to government documents. These loans then found their way back to her, state media VNExpress reported, citing the court’s findings. She then bribed officials to cover her tracks.

          Former central bank official Do Thi Nhan was also sentenced Thursday to life in prison for accepting $5.2 million in bribes.

          Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022. The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. Even former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after being implicated in the campaign.

          But Lan’s trial shocked the nation. Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

          Like neighbor China’s, the Vietnamese real estate sector has been hit particularly hard. An estimated 1,300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023, developers have been offering discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite rents for mixed-use properties known in Southeast Asia as shophouses falling by a third in Ho Chi Minh City, many in the city center are still empty, according to state media.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 18:00

        • The Deep State Prepares For A Trump Victory
          The Deep State Prepares For A Trump Victory

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

          Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Mich., on April 2, 2024. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

          Commentary

          We’ve all wondered if the fix is already in. Given the irregularities of the last election, and the manner in which the whole of the U.S. establishment rallied around one side, maybe a Biden victory in November is a foregone conclusion.

          I’m guilty of believing this. I’ve doubted every prediction that Donald Trump or RFK, Jr. can win. This is not because they won’t get votes. It’s because those votes might not matter enough.

          The power of haters is awesome and ubiquitous. The whole of legacy media, government, corporate tech, pharma, and both the administrative state and the deep state are dedicated to keeping them and their supporters from power.

          We don’t even know if elections really work anymore. It’s entirely possible, in this view, that millions will slog to the polls in November and do their duty in what will only end up as theater. The regime controls the ballots, surely, and nothing can overcome that. A second Biden term, the most unpopular president in my lifetime, is inevitable, in this view. The system is too broken to generate any other outcome.

          Admit it: you have been tempted by this outlook too.

          Well, I’m here to bring you some good news. The deep state has blinked. I will present evidence to you that the bad guys are actually preparing for a full-blown assault on administrative state hegemony. They are working to protect themselves against a victory by someone other than Joe Biden.

          Will it work? I don’t know but what’s super critical is that they are preparing. If it were not possible to win, they wouldn’t bother. In other words, this is very good news!

          The evidence comes from a largely unnoticed press release from the Office of Personnel Management. The legacy media did not report on this at all.

          It reads as follows:

          “The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today announced a final rule that clarifies and reinforces long-standing protections and merit system principles for career civil servants,” says the press release.

          It goes on to explain that this rule change makes it much more difficult or even impossible for any new president to reclassify “civil servants” as being under the control of the president. Instead, their jobs are permanent and thus protected against any efforts by a future president to reclassify anyone working for the federal government. None can be fired.

          In particular, the press release explains, this is designed to thwart another attempt to change their employment status, as happened in November 2020.

          “In the first week of the Biden-Harris Administration, President Biden revoked an Executive Order issued by the previous Administration that risked altering our country’s long-standing merit-based civil service system, by creating a new excepted service schedule, known as ‘Schedule F,’ and directing agencies to move potentially large swathes of career employees into this new excepted service status. This attempt would have stripped career civil servants of their civil service protections that ensure that decisions to hire and fire are based on merit, not political considerations.”

          The “previous administration” means of course the Trump White House, which issued the greatest executive order in a hundred years.

          After four years of being subverted and thwarted by the civil service bureaucracy, the White House finally figured out the core problem. There are more than 2 million permanent bureaucrats, ensconced in 430 agencies, who imagine themselves to live outside the democratic system and the U.S. Constitution itself. They believe they are the state and the elected leaders are mere decoration.

          Trump’s executive order insisted that every agency do an internal audit and ferret out any employee who has something to do with making or interpreting policy; that is, anyone whose work impacts on whether the president actually has control of the executive department. All those employees would be reclassified as Schedule F, meaning that they could be replaced if need be.

          That’s it. That’s the whole order. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much but it was actually brilliant. The Trump administration is the first to discover the great secret of American public life, which is that the administrative state has taken on a life of its own. After years of trying, the Trump White House finally happened upon a key lever to gain back control for the people. It’s as simple as that.

          The Washington, D.C. political press freaked out. It was as if a president had found the engine room and the one switch that controls the whole thing. That was never supposed to happen. This produced mayhem inside the bureaucracy, and a doubling and tripling down on the conviction that he could never win a second term, lest this order be carried out.

          That’s why one of the very first actions of the Biden administration was to repeal this executive order. That action made it very clear that Biden’s loyalties were with the deep state first and foremost. He would protect their jobs and power above all else. In fact, the OPM press release brags about this.

          At issue here is a phrase from the initial Trump order. Any employee would be reclassified who deals with “confidential, policy determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating.” Notice this word confidential. This would apply to the whole of the intelligence community, perhaps. So wait, are we saying that the president should be in charge of the CIA, FBI, NSA, NSC, and the entire security apparatus, even to the point that he could fire anyone? Maybe so!

          Such a situation would be intolerable to the bad guys. From their point of view, this would fundamentally upend the functioning of government in America.

          Let’s face it. If the OPM and the whole of the bureaucracy believed there was no threat from Donald Trump or RFK, Jr., such a rule change would not be necessary. They believe it is necessary, which implies that the civil service thinks that the rising populist movement is a genuine threat that could succeed in taking back the country. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother.

          What is the OPM? It was founded out of the Pendleton Act of 1883, which started the permanent bureaucracy in the United States. With it came the Civil Service Commission, the first name of what later was called the OPM.

          Until that time, and under the Constitution, the U.S. president had full control of the bureaucracy. The new president would typically replace a vast number of bureaucrats with loyalists. This was denounced as the “spoils system” but it could also be called simple democracy in which the people rule themselves through their elected representatives.

          The permanent class of rules grew through wars and crises over a hundred years to become the government that cares not a whit for who is technically elected or otherwise appointed as agency heads. As a matter of habit, they have come to ignore all the comings and goings of the people elected by the population. Elections are just a distraction to them.

          The essential point: Donald Trump and RFK, Jr. represent a genuine threat to the gang that has subverted and nearly wrecked this country. Now we know that this threat is real, else we would not see these efforts to entrench the bad guys and protect them against all conceivable threats.

          As this proves again, the main struggle alive in this country and all over the world is the one between the people and the deep state consisting of a vast network of elites in government, media, the corporate world, banking and finance, private foundations, and global bureaucracies, all working for their own interests at the expense of everyone else.

          It’s a battle for control, and it is the underlying dynamic that shapes our lives right now.

          The bad guys are scared. Now we know this for sure, or they would not be trying to pre-rig the system against fundamental change. The elites believe based on long experience that they can always outwit the rest of the population. We shall see.

          It’s going to be brutal before and after the election. There will be one or several October surprises. If Donald Trump wins, the onset of Winter will kick off propaganda like you have never seen. As the inauguration approaches, absolute hysteria will dawn. The COVID racket will seem like child’s play. Every day and every hour after will consist of wild attempts to stop the administration from functioning. What a time to be alive.

          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
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 17:40

        • 'Swag, Computers, And Travel': Fani In Hot Seat Again After DOJ Uncovers 'Inconsistencies' With $480K Grant
          ‘Swag, Computers, And Travel’: Fani In Hot Seat Again After DOJ Uncovers ‘Inconsistencies’ With $480K Grant

          The Justice Department has uncovered “inconsistencies” in a $480,000 federal grant used by Fulton County DA Fani Willis, two years after she fired a whistleblower who warned against misusing it to pay for “swag,” computers, and travel.

          According to the Washington Free Beacon, the grant is riddled with reporting discrepancies from Willis’ office.

          “During our review of the award to respond to this inquiry, we have noticed some inconsistencies in what Fulton County has reported to [the Federal Subaward Reporting System] and we are working with them to update their reporting accordingly,” a DOJ spox told the outlet on Friday.

          No further details were provided regarding the $488,000 grant – which was intended for the creation of a Center for Youth Empowerment and Gang Prevention in Atlanta. While the grant ended in September of last year, the center was never opened.

          Jim Jordan

          In early February, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Willis for records related to the grant, as well as whistleblower allegations made by fired staffer Amanda Timpson, who was listed as the grant director until Willis fired her in January 2022.

          Jordan threatened to hold Willis in contempt of Congress on March 14 after the district attorney responded to his subpoena with a “narrow set of documents” that had nothing to do with Timpson’s whistleblower allegations. Willis wrote in response that Jordan’s demands were “unreasonable and uncustomary” and suggested his investigation was an effort to derail her election interference case against former president Donald Trump. -Free Beacon

          According to Timpson, she was demoted after attempting to stop a top Willis campaign aide, Michael Cuffee, from using part of the $488,000 grant to pay for “swag,” computers and travel.

          “He wanted to do things with grants that were impossible, and I kept telling him, like, ‘We can’t do that,'” Timpson wrote Willis in a Nov. 19, 2021 meeting. “He told everybody … ‘We’re going to get MacBooks, we’re going to get swag, we’re going to use it for travel.’ I said, ‘You cannot do that, it’s a very, very specific grant.‘”

          “I respect that is your assessment,” Willis replied. “And I’m not saying that your assessment is wrong.”

          Willis later apologized to Timpson and said that Cuffee had “failed” her administration – yet less than two months later, Timpson was abruptly fired and escorted out of her office by seven armed investigators, according to Timpson.

          After she filed a wrongful termination whistleblower complaint, Willis’ office said in a statement that Timpson was a “holdover from the prior administration” who was fired due to her “failure to meet the standards of the new administration.”

          According to the Free Beacon:

          Fulton County records show that Willis’s office transferred $88,900 from the federal gang prevention grant to the Offender Alumni Association. But the group’s administrative director, Toni Barnett, told the Free Beacon that she had no idea why the county was reporting making those payments to her group in 2022 and 2023.

          “I have no idea where that information is coming from,” Barnett told the outlet on March 15. “I have no idea why you’re calling or where you’re getting that information from. You need to go to that government resource and you need to let that validate whatever you want to say or print. Because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

          Read the rest of the report here…

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 17:20

        • Berkeley Prosecutors Cut Probation Deal For Scientist Who Tried To Kill Colleague
          Berkeley Prosecutors Cut Probation Deal For Scientist Who Tried To Kill Colleague

          Authored by Jonathan Turley,

          I have been a criminal defense attorney for my entire career, but there is a case out of Berkeley, California that is a real head scratcher…

          David Xu was the chief metallurgist for a company called Berkeley Engineering and Research (BEAR) and was caught on tape trying to poison a colleague. His actions are blamed for not only causing harm to Rong Yuan, but her parents.

          After spending only 10 days in jail, Alameda County prosecutors and a judge signed off on a probation deal in the case.

          Xu was arrested back in 2019 after Yuan became suspicious that her illness (which she thought might be cancer) might be related to a water bottle that she used at work.

          When her parents used the bottle to cook, they also became ill. 

          She set up a spy camera at work and caught David Xu tampering with the water bottle. It was tested and found to contain “extraordinarily high levels of cadmium, a poisonous heavy metal.”

          That seems a pretty strong case for two counts of poisoning and an attempted murder prosecution.

          Yet, the prosecutors dropped the attempted murder charge and accepted a plea on the two poisoning counts. Then a probation officer recommended no jail time.

          The officer wrote that

          “The defendant is highly educated and living at home with his wife and children. He is employed and earning a stable income. Although this matter represents the first and only offense, it was serious in nature and could have resulted in death or serious illness of the victims…. It is the hopes of this deputy that the defendant will take advantage of this second chance and can satisfactorily complete this probation.”

          Even on the two poisoning counts, one would expect some jail time.

          This man hurt three people and could have killed a colleague.

          Yet, Alameda County DA Pamela Price signed off on letting Xu spend less than two weeks in jail for his crimes.

          It is not clear what it takes to get actual jail time in Alameda County under Price.

          The San Francisco Chronicle was unable to get sentencing data from her office and Price is the subject of a recall campaign over her lax enforcement record.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 17:00

        • Ukraine Passes Divisive Conscription Law Which Aims To Bolster Forces by 500,000
          Ukraine Passes Divisive Conscription Law Which Aims To Bolster Forces by 500,000

          Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday passed an ultra-controversial military mobilization law aimed at drastically boosting the number of its troops at a moment forces are facing severe manpower shortages amid the unrelenting Russian onslaught.

          It passed with a clear majority supporting, with 283 votes in favor in the 450-member parliament. The NY Times writes in the wake of the much-anticipated vote, “The law passed by legislators on Thursday addresses the issue of mobilization broadly, and includes provisions that lawmakers said were aimed at making the conscription process more transparent and equitable. The full text of the law was not immediately available.”

          Getty Images

          But among the most immediately controversial elements will include expanded powers given to Ukrainian authorities to issue draft notices on a larger scale, including using an electronic system. It also reportedly expands the age for draft registration, including for those living abroad.

          Recruiters have long sought to stamp out draft evasion, to the point of tackling and arresting young men in the streets, after which they are sent to brief training and then the front lines.

          But the most controversial aspect is that a key provision got quashed which assured rotation of servicemen. In many cases the same ground units have been stuck at front line positions since the start of the war. Troops had been promised that reinforcements would soon be rotated from rear positions, but this assurance is no longer the case:

          The vote came after parliament’s defense committee removed a key provision from the draft Tuesday that would ensure the rotation of servicemen after 36 months of combat, a move that surprised some lawmakers as it had been a promise of the Ukrainian leadership.

          Lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said in a Telegram post that he was shocked by the move to remove the provision. It was likely taken out because, considering the scale and intensity of the war against Russia, it would prove difficult to implement. Ukraine already suffers from a lack of trained recruits capable of fighting, and demobilizing soldiers on the front lines now would deprive Ukrainian forces of their most capable fighters.

          Thursday’s parliament vote paves the way for another comprehensive defense ministry mobilization policy and law which is to be focused on demobilization, expected to be issued within the next eight months. This appears to be a move to soften the controversy surrounding this fresh mobilization that just passed. 

          But by then it could be too late, as all of this could unleash Ukrainian fighting in the streets as recruiters are expected to widen the net of those being drafted into the military. Many young Ukrainian men and their families see the prospect of being shipped off to the front lines as a certain death sentence, as the war grinds on with no prospect of peace negotiations in sight for now.

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

          Back in February, former army Commander in Chief Valery Zaluzhny sparked controversy in saying that Ukraine needs have a half-million more new recruits this year if it hopes to keep up force strength. He had also explained that exhausted men who had served for two years at the front lines needed to be rotated out. President Zelensky, reportedly fearing immense public backlash over the proposed policy, sacked his defense chief and made him ambassador to the UK. But now it appears Kiev has no choice, given Zelensky has abandoned the option of sitting at the negotiating table with Putin.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 16:40

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        Apr 11

        Today’s News 11th April 2024

        • "I Am Going To Lecture You On Climate Change": BBC Reporter Gets Schooled For Hypocrisy
          “I Am Going To Lecture You On Climate Change”: BBC Reporter Gets Schooled For Hypocrisy

          Authored by Tilak K. Doshi via RealClear Politics,

          On March 28, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali of the South American country of Guyana became an instant hero to many as he refused to take lectures on climate change from a BBC reporter during an interview. In a two-minute video clip that went viral on X (formerly Twitter) and other social media, President Ali turned the tables on the BBC’s Stephen Sackur when the reporter accused Guyana of worsening the “climate crisis” by allowing the exploitation of its newly found oil and gas reserves.

          “Over the next decade or two, it’s expected that there will be $150 billion worth of oil and gas extracted off your coast,” Sackur told the president. “It’s an extraordinary figure. But think of it in practical terms. That means – according to many experts – two billion tons of carbon emissions will come from your seabed from those reserves and released into the atmosphere.” Guyana’s head of state quickly rebutted: “Let me stop you right there. Did you know that Guyana has a forest that is the size of England and Scotland combined, a forest that stores 19.5 gigatons of carbon, a forest that we have kept alive?”

          When the reporter asked President Ali whether the rainforest gave him the “right” to release the carbon, the Guyanese leader retorted: “Does that give you the right to lecture us on climate change? I’m going to lecture you on climate change.” Being lectured by the BBC on climate change is not a new development; it’s what the state-supported media service often does, and in hectoring tones. But is the BBC correct in its proclamations about what the “climate science” says?

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

          Climate Alarmists and Their Detractors

          The BBC seems institutionally committed to an alarmist position in its coverage of climate change issues. Many BBC programs seem driven to inject the “climate catastrophe” narrative into every energy-related news item. Stephen Sakur’s pointed remarks to Guyana’s president on the country’s rapid emergence as an oil and gas exporter were unexceptional in this regard.

          The response on social media to the viral clip is telling. Here is a short selection from X on March 29 and 30:

          Chris Rose (over 130,000 followers): “This is magnificent to watch. The President of Guyana truly put the BBC in its place. When sanctimony and pomposity meets [sic] sense and modesty.”

          Simon Ateba (over 670,000 followers): “EXPLOSIVE: President Mohamed  Irfaan Ali (@presidentaligy) of Guyana obliterates @BBC journalist Stephen Sackur (@stephensackur) over climate change hypocrisy. ‘No, no, I’m not done yet!’ WATCH.”

          Dilly Hussain  (over 110,000 followers): “LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE!” An absolute masterclass shutdown by President Mohamed Irfaan Ali of Guyana when probed by @BBCHARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur on his country’s new found oil and gas fields and the West’s concerns about “carbon emissions”.

          Visegrád 24 (over 970,000 followers): “I am going to lecture you on climate change,” says Guyana President @presidentaligy to BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, as he pushes back against the journalist attempting to lecture the Caribbean leader about oil being bad for the environment.”

          The headlines of leading newspapers on March 30 reflected these social media messages:

          The Telegraph: “Watch: Guyana’s president scolds BBC presenter for climate change ‘lecture.’”

          Times of India: “‘Are you in their pockets?’: Guyanese President calls out reporter for Western hypocrisy.”

          Fox News: “Video of Guyana’s president snapping back at BBC reporter’s climate quiz goes viral: ‘Let me stop you.’”

          Hypocrisy As the Default Option in Climate Change Narratives

          What is of interest here is the inherently hypocritical nature of the interactions between representatives of developed countries and those of developing ones concerning energy and climate policies. Some of the most apparent of such interactions occur during the UN’s annual COP (“Conference of Parties”) climate summits.

          UN Secretary-General António Guterres, never one to shy from hyperbolic pronouncements, warns of a “code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.” Indeed, based on dubious “hockey-stick” global-warming models formulated in the West, the secretary-general proclaims the approach of the “era of global boiling.”

          At COP26, held in 2021 in Glasgow, Western leaders addressed those making up 80% of humanity in speeches that reeked of carbon imperialism (here, here, and here). Their message can be fairly summarized as follows:

          We pledge climate finance to help you. There are promising new energy technologies to achieve our goals of net zero by 2050. The outlook for new jobs and economic growth are limitless with solar and wind power, electric vehicles, green hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration. However, we must stop all new fossil fuel investments now! You must give up fossil fuels or else the planet is doomed.

          Faced with the increasingly untenable hypocrisy of the Western elites discouraging fossil fuel use in the developing world, the pushback by leaders such as Guyana’s President Ali is no surprise. In 2015, the Indian government’s then-chief economic adviser Arvind Subramaniam spoke in no uncertain terms of a new carbon imperialism: “The rich world’s move against fossil fuels is a disaster for India, and other poorer countries.”

          In the lead-up to COP27 held in Sharm Al Sheikh, Egypt in 2022, Africa’s top energy official, Amani Abou-Zeid, the African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, said that African countries will push for “a common energy position that sees fossil fuels as necessary to expanding economies and electricity access.”

          At the COP28 climate summit held in Dubai, UAE, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, president of the summit and CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, rebutted questions from Mary Robinson, a former UN special envoy for climate change: “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C [maximum global temperature increase].” In an interview, he said that “You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuels . . . Please, help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

          URL: Cartoons by Josh

          That’s Enough Already!

          Germany, the world leader in green energy ambitions, provides the best lesson of untenable hypocrisy when faced with the real-world constraints of physics and economics. In 2022, the country faced the prospect of entering winter without adequate energy supplies. It had shut down its nuclear power plants and lost access to piped Russian natural gas by imposing sanctions against Moscow (which was then followed by the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline). In this context, Germany quickly retreated to coal power generation, and it now plans to double its gas-fired power-generating capacity.

          According to Doomberg, an energy and finance consultancy, Germany moved back to coal “with the speed and efficiency of the British evacuation of Dunkirk.” The IEA, the institution most responsible for the West’s clarion calls to stop fossil fuel investments, noted that Germany’s “significant reversal” drove European coal consumption up 9% in 2022. Energy security and the need to heat homes and keep lights on and factories humming trumped virtue-signaling climate goals – and Germany’s abject hypocrisy is obvious to many leaders in the developing world.

          Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has little to explain, much less apologize for, as his country rapidly emerges as an important South American exporter of hydrocarbons. Let the BBC’s reporters peddle their luxury beliefs to those who think they can afford them.

          Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an energy economist, independent consultant, and a Forbes contributor based in London.

          Tyler Durden
          Thu, 04/11/2024 – 02:00

        • Tyranny By The Numbers: The Government Wants Your Money Any Way It Can Get It
          Tyranny By The Numbers: The Government Wants Your Money Any Way It Can Get It

          Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

          The government wants your money.

          It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it.

          This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity, and that “someone” is the U.S. taxpayer.

          The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer.

          Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

          According to the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in order to spend money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day.

          Basically, the U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit card.

          Let’s talk numbers, shall we?

          The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is more than $34 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033.

          The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars.

          It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens).

          In other words, the government is spending more than it brings in.

          The U.S. ranks as the 12th most indebted nation in the world, with much of that debt owed to the Federal Reserve, large investment funds and foreign governments, namely, Japan and China.

          Interest payments on the national debt are more than $395 billion, which is significantly more than the government spends on veterans’ benefits and services, and according to Pew Research Center, more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection combined.

          According to the Committee for a Reasonable Federal Budget, the interest we’ve paid on this borrowed money is “nearly twice what the federal government will spend on transportation infrastructure, over four times as much as it will spend on K-12 education, almost four times what it will spend on housing, and over eight times what it will spend on science, space, and technology.”

          In ten years, those interest payments will exceed our entire military budget.

          This is financial tyranny.

          We’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians promising to pay down the national debt, jumpstart the economy, rebuild our infrastructure, secure our borders, ensure our security, and make us all healthy, wealthy and happy.

          None of that has come to pass, and yet we’re still being loaded down with debt not of our own making while the government remains unrepentant, unfazed and undeterred in its wanton spending.

          Indeed, the national deficit (the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it takes in) remains at more than $1.5 trillion.

          If Americans managed their personal finances the way the government mismanages the nation’s finances, we’d all be in debtors’ prison by now.

          Despite the government propaganda being peddled by the politicians and news media, however, the government isn’t spending our tax dollars to make our lives better.

          We’re being robbed blind so the governmental elite can get richer.

          In the eyes of the government, “we the people, the voters, the consumers, and the taxpayers” are little more than pocketbooks waiting to be picked.

          “We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.

          Consider: The government can seize your home and your car (which you’ve bought and paid for) over nonpayment of taxes. Government agents can freeze and seize your bank accounts and other valuables if they merely “suspect” wrongdoing. And the IRS insists on getting the first cut of your salary to pay for government programs over which you have no say.

          We have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used, but we’re being forced to pay through the nose, anyhow.

          We have no real say, but that doesn’t prevent the government from fleecing us at every turn and forcing us to pay for endless wars that do more to fund the military industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to imprison us within its walls.

          If you have no choice, no voice, and no real options when it comes to the government’s claims on your property and your money, you’re not free.

          It wasn’t always this way, of course.

          Early Americans went to war over the inalienable rights described by philosopher John Locke as the natural rights of life, liberty and property.

          It didn’t take long, however—a hundred years, in fact—before the American government was laying claim to the citizenry’s property by levying taxes to pay for the Civil War. As the New York Times reports, “Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.”

          Determined to claim some of the citizenry’s wealth for its own uses, the government reinstituted the income tax in 1894. Charles Pollock challenged the tax as unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Pollock’s victory was relatively short-lived. Members of Congress—united in their determination to tax the American people’s income—worked together to adopt a constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision.

          On the eve of World War I, in 1913, Congress instituted a permanent income tax by way of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution and the Revenue Act of 1913. Under the Revenue Act, individuals with income exceeding $3,000 could be taxed starting at 1% up to 7% for incomes exceeding $500,000.

          It’s all gone downhill from there.

          Unsurprisingly, the government has used its tax powers to advance its own imperialistic agendas and the courts have repeatedly upheld the government’s power to penalize or jail those who refused to pay their taxes.

          While we’re struggling to get by, and making tough decisions about how to spend what little money actually makes it into our pockets after the federal, state and local governments take their share (this doesn’t include the stealth taxes imposed through tolls, fines and other fiscal penalties), the government continues to do whatever it likes—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its citizens.

          To top it all off, all of those wars the U.S. is so eager to fight abroad are being waged with borrowed funds. As The Atlantic reports, “U.S. leaders are essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”

          Of course, we’re the ones who have to repay that borrowed debt.

          For instance, American taxpayers have been forced to shell out more than $5.6 trillion since 9/11 for the military industrial complex’s costly, endless so-called “war on terrorism.” That translates to roughly $23,000 per taxpayer to wage wars abroad, occupy foreign countries, provide financial aid to foreign allies, and fill the pockets of defense contractors and grease the hands of corrupt foreign dignitaries.

          Mind you, that’s only a portion of what the Pentagon spends on America’s military empire.

          The United States also spends more on foreign aid than any other nation, with nearly $300 billion disbursed over a five-year period. More than 150 countries around the world receive U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance, with most of the funds going to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. That price tag keeps growing, too.

          As Forbes reports, “U.S. foreign aid dwarfs the federal funds spent by 48 out of 50 state governments annually. Only the state governments of California and New York spent more federal funds than what the U.S. sent abroad each year to foreign countries.”

          Most recently, the U.S. has allocated nearly $115 billion in emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine since the start of the Russia invasion.

          As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in a 1953 speech, this is how the military industrial complex continues to get richer, while the American taxpayer is forced to pay for programs that do little to enhance our lives, ensure our happiness and well-being, or secure our freedoms.

          This is no way of life.

          Yet it’s not just the government’s endless wars that are bleeding us dry.

          We’re also being forced to shell out money for surveillance systems to track our movements, money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to fund schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply, and on and on.

          There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.

          Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, corporate turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.

          Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.

          Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.

          And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.

          But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?

          What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?

          What if, instead of quietly sending in our tax checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?

          As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re no longer living the American dream.

          We’re living a financial nightmare.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 23:40

        • "We're Going To Lose A Major War": US Navy Deletes Photo Of Ship Commander Shooting Rifle With Backwards Scope 
          “We’re Going To Lose A Major War”: US Navy Deletes Photo Of Ship Commander Shooting Rifle With Backwards Scope 

          Cmdr. Cameron Yaste, the Commanding Officer of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), was recently photographed shooting a 5.56×45mm M4 carbine with the optics installed backward. 

          The now-deleted image and press release on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service website featured Yaste shooting the M4 with the Trijicon VCOG scope installed backward while pointed at a giant target balloon.

          Here’s what the press release said before it was deleted: 

          Cmdr. Cameron Yaste, the Commanding Officer of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), fires at the “killer tomato” during a gun shoot. The ship is in US 7th Fleet conducting routine operations. 7th Fleet is the US Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with Allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific Region.

          Here’s how to properly use the scope…

          The website Internet Archive saved a snapshot of the press release: 

          Netizens mocked the Navy commander, and that’s probably why the service deleted the image and text. 

          Here’s what the internet had to say: 

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

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

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

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

          Yaste merely shows how the US Navy is unprepared to fight the next major conflict. Sigh… 

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 23:20

        • The End Of The Neo-Liberal Order
          The End Of The Neo-Liberal Order

          Authored by ‘Dalwhinnie’ via BombThrower.com,

          It’s no longer about markets. It’s about identity.

          The historian Prof. Gary Gerstle maintained that the neo liberal order was coming to an end, that free movement of goods, money, ideas and talent characterized the neo liberal order and that it was in the process of losing ascendancy. Losing ascendancy does not mean disappearing, it means losing ascendancy. Peter Zeihan says much the same and locates the issue in the guarantee offered by the US Navy since WW2 to police the sea lanes of the world. Also large diesel engines and cheap fuel may have as much to do with trade as any deliberate policy measures. I digress.

          Somewhat to my surprise I agreed with the leftist professor of history.

          So far so good. I have ordered his book and will read it skeptically. (The Rise and Fall of the Neo-Liberal Order).

          The neo liberal order got going about the time of Reagan and Thatcher and was characterized by reliance upon, and praise for, the market. In the period under discussion, various US Presidents, of whom Clinton is prominent, also pursued neo liberal promarket policies. This illustrates the tendency for large movements of policy to continue despite changes in the party holding the presidency. Canada obtained free trade with the US, and many liberalizing trade measures were adopted throughout this period roughly 1970-2000.

          The next assertion of the professor was that the dominance of neo liberalism was coming to an end. I also agree with that assertion, perhaps for different reasons than those of the learned professor.

          The effects of the neo liberal order were various and I shall try to point out the major features. This is obviously me talking, not Professor Gerstle.

          • off shoring of domestic North American manufacturing, which led to the gutting of manufacturing towns, increasing despair and drug addictions (viz Angus Deaton on deaths of despair in the working class) and much cheaper goods at the stores

          • Industrialization of much of the rest of the world. When did you first notice that clothing you wore came from Cambodia, Indonesia, or Vietnam?

          • Very significant increase of the national share of wealth to the top 1% and eventually the top 1% of the 1% as the economy became more monetary and intangible and less a matter of things produced. Software firms worth more than Boeing or Ford for instance.

          • Oxycontin plagues and mass drug addictions

          • Very high rates of non white immigration of peoples to Europe and North America. You are not supposed to notice this, by the way. But assimilation is not proceeding too well in many European countries and the same process is well underway in the United States.

          The remainder of Professor Gerstle’s talk concerned Trump, Orban and Bolsonaro and the supposed authoritarianism of same and the threat to democracy. I should say “democracy” because clearly the word has become code for something other than changes of governments in a populist direction. These are held to be threats to “democracy” which seem to consist of changes of history of which leftists disapprove.

          Here is where I depart from Professor Gerstle’s alarmism about populist changes to governments.

          He was also concerned with the January 6th insurrection on the hill and the menace it portended to the continuity of American institutions. I was once very alarmed by January 6th riots until I began to believe the entire event was a police -infiltrated and significantly police-inspired stunt to disgrace Trump. It has worked.

          Prof. Gerstle along with many other Democrats believes that democracy is under attack.

          Let me try to set forth the reasoning of many on the Trumpist right, if “right” is the term to be applied. Here we get to territory that will summon forth political disagreement.

          For many of us, a combination of events has persuaded us that democracy is already in grave danger from the following, which is largely drawn from the US experience.

          • A politicized leftist judiciary and prosecutorial apparatus

          • A politicized federal police

          • A politicized intelligence apparatus

          • An almost certainly manipulated if not stolen presidential election

          • Uncontrolled immigration of people, some of whom are in the United States with subversive intentions

          • The immigration of 20 or 40 millions is not being controlled because the Democrats want to achieve permanent electoral supremacy by endowing the illegals with votes

          • A minor but serious plague has been used as a pretext for a massive repression of personal liberties both of trade and movement on the basis of compulsory vaccination by radical mRNA therapies that have been insufficiently tested, and which appear to be causing a serious increase of deaths in the general population

          • which plague was engineered by experiments in gain of function (increased lethality) research funded by US sources in Chinese laboratories (RFK I pushing these buttons as a central part of his electoral campaign)

          • A push by all global leaders and bureaucracies to reduce energetic throughputs, the basis of wealth creation, in the name of a spurious climate agenda.

          • A fundamental attack on sex roles being carried on as the focus of the next personal liberation struggle.

          So yes, the people, rightly or wrongly, are unhappy with the state of their governments and what these governments have so clearly indicated they wish to do.

          Consequently, as a result of governments being so badly misaligned with their electorates, and so apparently ready to call opposition to their intentions as “far right” “fascist” “transphobic”, and so ready to denigrate the white settler populations of which the electorate is still mostly composed, the neo liberal order is coming to an end. This is occurring not because of trade issues, or income inequality, but because of fundamental challenges posed by left wing governments to the people who still compose the electorates.

          To what do we belong? To the nation, or to various sexual and cultural minorities?

          Trump has a clear answer. Biden, if he has an answer at all, says that most Americans belong to an illegitimate race. And if he cannot say this, his minions state it or insinuate it.

          The neo liberal order is coming to an end because the issues have decisively moved on from trade and markets to identity and belonging.

          *  *  *

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          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 23:00

        • Huge Dovish Bet Loses $50 Million In One Day
          Huge Dovish Bet Loses $50 Million In One Day

          Late on Tuesday, the financial world was swept up by a report from Bloomberg according to which an unknown trader had put on single record-sized trade, betting that today’s CPI print would come in dovish, and forcing the Fed to cut sooner. It did not work out quite as expected.

          For those who missed it, a significant block trade in US short-term interest-rate futures, specifically in December 2024 SOFR futures, took place during market hours on Tuesday, marking the largest trade of its kind. This trade – which was widely publicized by Bloomberg – contributed to driving gains in the Treasury market. After all, nobody would gamble tens of millions if they didn’t know something.

          The trade, likely initiated by a buyer, coincided with expectations of benign March consumer price index data, potentially leading to a revival in expectations for Fed rate cuts. Confidence in this outlook was reinforced by State Street Global Advisors predicting an aggressive half-point Fed rate cut by June and remarks from US President Joe Biden’s economic aide, Lael Brainard. As of the time of the trade, the swaps market was pricing in approximately 65 basis points of Fed rate cuts by year-end. The December 2024 SOFR futures were trading slightly higher than the block trade’s price, indicating continued market activity and investor interest in hedging or speculating on interest rate movements.

          In retrospect, it turned out that the trader really didn’t know anything, and on Wednesday the trade blew up in spectacular fashion after a stronger-than-expected reading triggered a market rout.

          According to Bloomberg calculations, moments after the CPI print, which came in hot on every possible metric, the position was roughly $50 million in the red, based on price moves in the underlying December 2024 futures.

          As duly noted earlier, after Wednesday’s red hot report, expectations for the first full quarter-point rate cut this year wilted and shifted to November from September, with the market now pricing in less than two 25 basis-point moves for all of 2024.

          While it’s not known who placed the record futures bet, or whether it was made in conjunction with other trades, the scale of the block trade — with a $2MM DV01, or $2 million in gains or losses per basis point move — suggests it was made to offset a separate underlying position, possibly a bearish stance although it is unclear. Separate data released Wednesday from the CME suggested the trade was a new wager or hedge, rather than short-covering of an existing position.

          The unknown trader was not the only casualty of today’s red hot inflation number: on Tuesday, State Street predicted a half-point cut as soon as the June meeting; instead swaps are now pricing in just 3 basis points of cuts for the FOMC meeting. If State Street had put money on the trade, it is now gone… all gone.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 22:40

        • California's Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based On Ratepayers' Income
          California’s Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based On Ratepayers’ Income

          Authored by Jane L. Johnson via The Mises Institute,

          Utility bills – for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage – have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans.

          Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage.

          But changes are afoot in the utility business as federal and state governments urge Americans to convert from fossil fuels to electricity for home heating, appliances, and transportation. From this transition will undoubtedly follow changes in utility rate-setting models.

          Fixed Fees Coupled with Usage-Based Electricity Rates

          Some electric utilities currently charge customers a flat, fixed fee as well as usage-based charges, both on the same monthly bill. The fixed fees, often called “customer charges” or “meter-reading charges,” are imposed irrespective of energy usage. These fees assure revenue stability and offset the overhead expenses of running electric utilities. Energy usage-based charges, which can vary seasonally, are designed (and regulated) to recover the cost of the electricity sold.

          Economists refer to this pricing strategy as a two-part tariff in which the consumer must pay a fixed fee for the right to buy a product or service (energy in the case of electric utilities). This pricing model effectively maximizes revenue for sellers that have some monopoly pricing power in their respective markets because of the way they have structured their businesses. Electric utilities are, of course, regulated monopolies that serve designated geographic areas.

          Other Examples of Two-Part Tariff Pricing Strategy

          • Disneyland charges high entrance fees to its theme parks, but prices for individual rides are just sufficiently high to cover the marginal cost of operating the rides. A family that has traveled from Kansas to California or Florida Disney venues will likely not balk at paying high admission fees combined with low per-ride ticket prices.

          • Popular retailer Costco charges annual membership dues that allow customers to buy large product packages at relatively low unit prices. While Costco isn’t strictly considered a monopoly among warehouse stores, its unique membership and marketing methods effectively give it monopoly status with great cachet.

          • Country clubs typically charge high membership fees that offer members the right to buy greens fees and participate in social activities with other like-minded, equally affluent members.

          • Bars levy admission cover charges combined with fees per drink once patrons are inside.

          The strategy works when sellers can easily identify different buyer groups and prohibit individual buyers from selling to nonmember buyers.

          For example, country club members cannot resell greens fees or social activities to nonmembers. Disneyland visitors cannot resell ride tickets to those who have not paid the entrance fee. And electric utility ratepayers cannot resell to others who don’t have accounts with the utility.

          Income-Based Fixed Charges

          But what if utilities based their fixed fee on customers’ income levels rather than a flat uniform fee for every customer?

          California, home to 10 percent of the total US population and often considered a state laboratory where policies begin before adoption across the nation, offers a glimpse into the future of utility rate setting as the two-part tariff pricing model has now taken on a new wrinkle.

          In 2022 the supermajority Democrat state legislature passed and the governor signed Assembly Bill 205 (AB 205), which ordered the California Public Utilities Commission to authorize a “fixed charge” on residential electric bills by July 2024. Customers of the three large investor-owned utilities (IOUs)—Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric—would pay this charge regardless of their electricity usage and in addition to that usage. The basis of the fixed charge is to be determined by each IOU utility, subject to approval by the California Public Utilities Commission.

          The legislation also required the utilities to reduce their rates for electricity usage in order to assist low-income customers as electricity prices continue to rise. This represents not only a major shift in the standard rate-setting model from usage orientation to fixed charges but also a new emphasis on income and wealth redistribution from high-income customers to low-income, somewhat akin to a progressive income tax.

          There is no precedent for such redistribution in utility rate regulation.

          AB 205 was intended to ensure that the IOUs’ new two-part pricing strategy be revenue-neutral – that is, continue to make sufficient revenue to invest in needed infrastructure for long-distance transmission (picture large pylons across the landscape) and distribution (local power lines delivering power to retail customers). The three IOUs own the vast majority of California’s energy infrastructure (poles and wires), construction and maintenance of which are so vital to greater electrification of homes and transportation as California focuses on transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

          A further intent of the legislation, moreover, was to raise additional revenue to pay for burying power lines that might otherwise ignite wildfires and constructing facilities to carry solar and wind-generated energy to large urban areas. Higher-income customers would pay a disproportionately high share of these construction and maintenance costs, even if they don’t use more power.

          It all sounded like a win-win for progressives:

          Rich people pay more for energy, poor people pay less, and everyone makes progress on global warming.

          Until, that is, questions arose on possible fallout from this new rate-setting model:

          How to determine ratepayers’ income levels without invading their privacy?

          How might higher income-based fixed charges, coupled with lower kilowatt-hours usage rates, reduce financial incentives to conserve energy usage?

          How might lower usage rates affect desirable future sales of rooftop solar installation?

          Because of these imponderables and because the California Public Utilities Commission has not approved any of several possible methodologies to implement AB 205, one legislator has now introduced Assembly Bill 1999 to repeal the fixed-charge mandate. Another legislator who voted for AB 205 now confesses that the legislation was long and confusing and was called up for a vote very shortly after its text was available to read.

          Blame is being passed around.

          Is the original AB 205 merely a profit-grab by the three large IOUs? Were legislators remiss in approving it too quickly in their zeal to mandate climate goals? Who originally decided to incorporate the income-based fixed charge into the legislation?

          Addressing these questions may be a challenge, something akin to solving an algebraic problem with more variables than equations, which leaves only an indeterminate solution. Too many conditions must be satisfied: revenue neutrality, protecting customer privacy when determining their income levels, energy usage rates low enough to protect low-income customers, usage rates high enough to encourage energy conservation and future installation of rooftop solar, sufficient revenue to invest in infrastructure for wildfire prevention, and additional grid capacity to support electric vehicle recharging stations and home heat pumps.

          It is possible to solve such problems using linear programming, maximizing a linear function subject to the various constraints. But it is unlikely that California Public Utilities Commission staff could grapple with such a solution in time to approve income-based electric utility two-part tariffs in time for July 2024 implementation.

          Whether this two-part tariff income-based pricing model might migrate to utilities in other states is unclear at this point, but its success or failure in California will probably determine its ultimate fate. In the meantime, perhaps the original legislation AB 205 is so poorly written that it should be repealed outright, consigning another well-intentioned governmental intervention effort to the proverbial dustbin of history.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 22:20

        • 54% Of Americans Think Biden's Open Borders Aimed At Creating Permanent Democrat Majority: Rasmussen
          54% Of Americans Think Biden’s Open Borders Aimed At Creating Permanent Democrat Majority: Rasmussen

          A new poll from Rasmussen finds that 54% of likely voters believe Joe Biden to be “encouraging” illegal aliens to enter the United States in order to “create a permanent majority” for the Democrats, the National Pulse reports.

          According to the poll, 43% “strongly agree” that the border crisis is being facilitated for political advantage, while 14% “somewhat agree.” 29% “strongly disagree,” while 8% “somewhat disagree.”

          Hispanic voters, despite having leaned Democrat in every general and midterm election since 1980, are actually more likely to believe Biden is exploiting illegal immigration than any other ethnic group. Forty-eight percent strongly agree this is what the Democrat leader is doing, and 20 percent somewhat agree for a combined 68 percent. This compares to 17 percent who strongly disagree and seven percent who somewhat disagree.

          A combined 54 percent of white voters agree Biden is trying to create a permanent majority, and a plurality of 47 percent of black voters agree. –National Pulse

          Meanwhile 36% of self-identified moderates believe Biden is trying to create a permanent majority, as do 36% of Democrats.

          In February, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the Biden administration doesn’t bear responsibility for the border crisis, despite, among other things:

          • Terminating the National Emergency at the Southwest border
          • Revoking a Trump-era Executive Order that was designed to ensure there was meaningful enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
          • Issuing an executive order protecting DACA recipients
          • Unveiling the U.S. Citizenship Act, which would provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., demonstrating intent to reward illegal border crossers with a path to citizenship.
          • Announcing a 100-day moratorium on deportations and immigration enforcement, effectively providing amnesty to criminal and other removable aliens

           (It’s a really long list…)

          And since Biden was sworn in as president in January 2021, there have been at least 10 million illegals who have entered the United States, while the government deals with a backlog of more than 3 million asylum cases in US courts.

          We’re sure Congressional Republicans will have all sort of nice things to say about immigration when we get to the amnesty phase of the operation.

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

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 22:00

        • It’s Time For A U.S. STEM Talent Strategy To Compete With China
          It’s Time For A U.S. STEM Talent Strategy To Compete With China

          Authored by Dan Reed & Dario Gil via RealClear Wire,

          U.S. innovation fuels our economic strength and is vital for our national security. Released last earlier this month, the National Science Board’s congressionally mandated State of U.S. Science and Engineering Indicators report shows that an accelerating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) talent crisis is imperiling America’s economy and security.

          Let’s start with a bit of perspective. The U.S. STEM workforce is now one quarter of the total U.S. workforce – 38 million people at all degree levels who use STEM skills in their jobs, including 19 million skilled technical workers without a bachelor’s degree. That number will only rise as companies expand their STEM workforce and their R&D investments in response to rising global competition. The CHIPS & Science Act is now funding one response to global competition and national security risk — the reshoring of our semiconductor production.

          Meanwhile, key technological sectors, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, face major challenges in filling urgently needed job openings, and making the promise of economic development a reality. Let’s be clear –China is gaining on us, and it has articulated plans to increase its R&D investment even further. Indicators data show that China recently surpassed the United States in research publications and patent applications, and China’s growth in high impact articles is outpacing its overall growth in publications. These overall trends are also true for the specific field of artificial intelligence – a field that is critical to national security. We cannot risk falling behind.

          We must address this crisis now. How?

          First, we must increase the flow of domestic talent into the STEM workforce. To start, Congress must fully fund the remaining parts of CHIPS & Science Act – investing in developing the STEM workforce, from preK-12 education through skilled technical workers and college STEM graduates to doctoral-level researchers in industry and academia. Sadly, the spending bill that Congress just passed cuts some of our most important science federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation, moving us backwards.

          Second, we need new policies that double-down on one of our nation’s greatest strengths: attracting and retaining top STEM talent from around the world, including from countries that are emerging science partners. We must do more to entice and enable science and engineering students to work in the U.S. after they receive their degrees.

          Third, we need a modern-day National Defense Education Act (NDEA) to spur private and public collaboration and provide the specific skills and talent needed by American industry.

          An NDEA that would: invest in preK-12 STEM education and increase our STEM teacher supply across the country. Build capacity for the gateways into STEM training across the country: community colleges, technical schools, and other geographically and financially accessible institutions. Expand graduate fellowship programs, with a focus on critical and emerging technologies. Create national service programs like the Defense Civilian Training Corps and increase scholarships for low-income individuals. Increase options for foreign-born STEM talent to stay after their education and training and reduce barriers for doing so.

          This is a national call-for-action. We need all-hands on deck – no group alone can solve this problem. Business, government, and academia must come together in a collaborative partnership and commitment far beyond the scale in which we are investing now. Otherwise, we risk ceding U.S. science and engineering leadership to China, with deep and lasting negative effects on our national security and our economic competitiveness.

          Dr. Dan Reed is a former Microsoft Executive and currently serves as the chair of the National Science Board (NSB). Reed previously served as Provost at the University of Utah where he now is Presidential Professor of Computational Science and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering.

          Dr. Darío Gil is the IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research and a member of the NSB.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 21:40

        • Inflation Check: Doctors Making $350,000 Per Year Can't Find Homes In Long Island As Prices Surge 50%
          Inflation Check: Doctors Making $350,000 Per Year Can’t Find Homes In Long Island As Prices Surge 50%

          While every news anchor and talking head in the world of finance continues to congratulate the Fed despite inflation still not being under control, prices are telling another story. 

          Specifically, housing prices. In fact, a new report from Bloomberg is now detailing how even doctors making $350,000 per year are “struggling” to find places to live in locales like Long Island.

          The report cites the region’s “chronic housing shortage” and detailed the story of Paul Connor, who helps run Stony Brook’s Eastern Long Island Hospital. 

          “The single most difficult impediment to get around right now is the housing prices,” he said of the area. 

          Long Island’s North Fork, including Greenport, epitomizes New York’s severe housing crunch, with home prices surging by 50% to nearly $1 million, and available listings plummeting by 60% for its 50,000 residents, the report says.

          This crisis mirrors a broader state issue, characterized by a mismatch of job growth to housing availability, leading to historically low rental vacancies in New York City and skyrocketing rents – and spitting in the face of the narrative that inflation is cooling.  

          Upstate areas like Buffalo and Syracuse also face soaring property prices, compounded by restrictive zoning in the suburbs and mortgage rates nearing 7%, making homeownership increasingly unattainable. Suffolk County’s meager housing growth rate, one of the lowest in the state, further underscores the acute challenge of expanding the housing supply to meet demand.

          Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference added: “It’s a huge concern. It’s not just a New York City issue anymore. Affordability is an issue across the state.”

          “Part of the squeeze with the North Fork is the spillover effect from the Hamptons because prices have risen so rapidly that the North Fork became this cheaper alternative — until it wasn’t,” added Jonathan Miller, President of Miller Samuel.

          Connor concluded: “Whether you’re a cardiologist or you work in one of the local restaurants, it’s to the advantage of everyone in our community to have people who live and work locally.”

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 21:20

        • Sean 'Diddy' Combs Loses 18 Brand Partnerships Amid Sexual Assault Allegations
          Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Loses 18 Brand Partnerships Amid Sexual Assault Allegations

          Authored by Jessamyn Dodd via The Epoch Times,

          Amidst a whirlwind of controversy swirling around Sean “Diddy” Combs, the mogul behind the Empower Global project, at least 18 brands have severed ties with his e-commerce platform. Empower Global, which champions black-owned businesses, has faced a significant setback with the departure of notable partners, including Tsuri, Nuudii System, No One Clothiers, Fulaba, and House of Takura., according to a report by Rolling Stone.

          Annette Njau, the force behind House of Takura, cited Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit against Sean Combs as the pivotal moment that guided their decision. Ms. Njau emphasized their stance, stating, “We take the allegations against Mr. Combs very seriously and find such behavior abhorrent and intolerable. We believe in victims’ rights, and support victims in speaking their truth, even against the most powerful of people.”

          In a statement regarding No One Clothiers’ decision to leave the platform, spokesperson Lenard Grier addressed the complexities involved in such a move: “While this decision was difficult due [to] the reverence we once held for Mr. Combs as a leader in business and entertainment, it was clearly the correct choice.”

          Ashli Goudelock, at the helm of skincare brand Tsuri, discussed their impending exit, underscoring an unyielding commitment to gender equality and dignity. Ms. Goudelock remarked: “As a company owned and led by women, we refuse to dwell in ambiguity regarding the mistreatment of our gender.”

          Rebecca Allen, founder of the eponymous shoe brand, said: “We enjoyed working with the team but have not seen meaningful sales, so we were already planning to terminate our relationship at the end of this year. These harrowing allegations have expedited our decision, and we ended our partnership with Empower Global earlier this month.”

          In a bid to salvage his reputation, Mr. Combs took to Instagram on Dec. 6 to assert his innocence and vow to defend his name against what he perceived as baseless attacks. Denying accusations of sexual assault, trafficking, and abuse leveled against him by Cassie Ventura, Mr. Combs declared his unwavering resolve to combat what he views as a concerted effort to besmirch his character and legacy.

          “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”

          Meantime, the company is facing a period of uncertainty as it addresses these challenges. The future of Empower Global remains unclear.

          In November, Mr. Combs temporarily stepped down as a co-chair of Revolt, a music-oriented digital cable television network that he co-founded. The company posted a statement on X reading, “While Mr. Combs previously has previously had no  operational or day-to-day role in the business, this decision helps to ensure that Revolt remains steadfastly focused on our mission to create meaningful content for the culture.”

          Police and media members gather outside the home of U.S. producer and musician Sean “Diddy” Combs in Los Angeles on March 25, 2024. Homes belonging to Sean “Diddy” Combs were being raided by federal agents, media reported on March 25, with the U.S. hip hop mogul at the center of sex trafficking and sex assault lawsuits. (David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)

          This comes as Mr. Combs has been accused in four separate civil lawsuits of sexual abuse. Legal action began on Nov. 17, 2023, when Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’ former girlfriend, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleged rape, sex trafficking, and physical abuse. The parties reached a settlement later that same day for an undisclosed amount.

          Two additional women filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse against Mr. Combs in late November of that same year. The lawsuits coincided with the expiration of the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that provided a one-year window for victims of sexual abuse to file civil claims regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred.

          Adding another layer to the legal saga, an unnamed woman lodged another lawsuit against Mr. Combs. This time, the allegations include rape and sex trafficking, with the plaintiff asserting that Mr.Combs and two accomplices gang-raped her when she was just 17 years old.

          In addition, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a lawsuit against Mr. Combs in February, alleging sexual abuse and harassment.

          In March, federal agents executed search warrants at the Miami and Los Angeles homes of the music mogul. These investigative actions are linked to a federal probe of allegations ranging from sex trafficking and sexual assault to the solicitation and illicit circulation of narcotics and firearms.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 21:00

        • US Deficit Tops $1.1 Trillion For First Six Months Of Fiscal 2024 As Spending Hits 2024 High
          US Deficit Tops $1.1 Trillion For First Six Months Of Fiscal 2024 As Spending Hits 2024 High

          It’s oddly fitting that in a time when the interest on US debt just hit a record $1.1 trillion, that the US deficit for just the first six months of fiscal 2024 is also $1.1 trillion.

          According to the latest Treasury Monthly Statement, in March the US deficit hit $236 billion, some $40 billion more than the $196 billion expected, if below February’s $296 billion…

          … which was the result of $332 billion in govt tax receipts – translating into $4.580 trillion in LTM tax receipts, and which was down 5% compared to a year ago…

          … offset by the now traditional ridiculous monthly outlays, which in March amounted to $568 billion, up from $567 billion in February and the highest monthly spending total in calendar 2024, which translated into a 6 month moving spending average (for smoothing purposes) of $542 billion. Take a wild guess what will happen to the chart below during and after the next recession.

          This, incidentally, is a reminder that the US does not have a tax collection problem – it has a spending problem, and no amount of tax changes will fix it; in fact all higher taxes will do is force more billionaires to move to Dubai where they pay zero taxes.

          Putting the YTD deficit in context, in the first six months of fiscal 2024, the US deficit hit $1.065 trillion, just shy of the $1.1 trillion reached last year, which was the 2nd highest on record and only the post-covid 2021 was worse. Annualized, we expect total deficit to hit $2.2 trillion in fiscal 2024, a year when the US is supposedly “growing” at a nice, brisk ~2.5% pace. One can only imagine what the GDP growth would be if the US wasn’t set to have a wartime/crisis deficit…

          … and we can’t even imagine what US deficit will be after the next recession/depression.

          Meanwhile, as reported previously, total US interest continues to explode, and after surpassing total annual defense spending about a year ago, just the interest on US debt will soon become the single largest government outlay as it surpasses social security by the end of 2024, when according to BofA’s Michael Hartnett it hits $1.6 trillion…

          … and surpasses Social Security spending as the single largest spending category in the US government.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 20:40

        • Democrats Commit Vastly More Dark Money Than Republicans For 2024
          Democrats Commit Vastly More Dark Money Than Republicans For 2024

          Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

          Democratic dark money groups, megadonors, and unions are funding a massive spending effort aimed at reelecting President Joe Biden and advancing the Democratic Party’s power in Washington.

          So far, nine major outside spending groups say they will together spend nearly $800 million to support the reelection of President Biden. This is in addition to the massive financial resources the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will likely pour into the rematch of the 2020 election.

          The progressive organizations—American Bridge 21st Century, Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, Climate Power, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, Republican Voters Against Trump, Service Employees International Union, Unite the Country, and VoteVets— have pledged to spend a total of $792 million on the 2024 election to boost President Biden and the Democratic Party.

          Former President Donald Trump, who is supported by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its affiliates, is not seeing nearly as many commitments.

          Groups pledging to back President Trump’s campaign or to hinder President Biden add up to less than a quarter of the amount pledged by the Democrat money powerhouse.

          All told, about $160 million has been formally pledged to explicitly help President Trump’s campaign, and Republicans in general. One major group has said it will spend “eight figures” to go against President Biden.

          An Epoch Times analysis of the financial records of the various groups shows many are a combination of federally regulated political action committees (PACs) and 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

          Under federal law, PACs must report regularly to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), disclose their donors, and declare their overall finances.

          The nonprofits, which are classified as charitable organizations and social welfare organizations by the IRS, report much less often and aren’t required to name their donors. For this reason, 501s are frequently called dark money groups.

          PACs that do share donor information are getting money from some of the most prolific donors and organizations in the United States.

          American Bridge

          American Bridge 21st Century, a group specializing in researching and publicizing negative information about opponents of the Democratic Party candidates, said it will spend $200 million on the 2024 election.

          When American Bridge made its announcement in January, it said $85 million was already raised and committed.

          (L–R) Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton attend a campaign fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 28, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

          American Bridge’s release said $140 million of its 2024 expenditure will go toward television, digital and streaming ads, radio, and direct mail placements in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It could extend its effort to North Carolina.

          “These ads will feature the true stories of women voters and their families living in these key swing states and will use their voices to expose the truth about Trump’s agenda,” the release said.

          American Bridge is registered with the FEC as AB PAC, a hybrid PAC. According to its latest financial statement filed with the FEC, it had about $5.9 million in cash on hand at the end of February.

          Between January 2023 and the end of February 2024, AB PAC received numerous donations of more than $1 million.

          The most prominent supporter was the super PAC, Democracy PAC, an entity largely financed by George Soros. Between January 2023 and February 2024, Democracy PAC gave about $4 million to AB PAC.

          According to data collected by the watchdog organization OpenSecrets, Mr. Soros was the biggest spender in the 2021 to 2022 election cycle, spending about $178.8 million. Mr. Soros, the founder of the Open Society Foundations, is a prolific donor to Democratic and progressive causes.

          In 2023, according to FEC records, Democracy PAC had only one donor: George Soros. In 2021 and 2022, according to FEC records, DemocracyPAC had two donors: Mr. Soros and the Fund For Policy Reform.

          Fund For Policy Reform sent DemocracyPAC $25 million. Alexander Soros, George Soros’s son and the chair of Open Society Foundations, is a director of the Fund, according to its tax documents.

          Additionally, Michael Moritz, a longtime partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and now a senior advisor at Sequoia Heritage, gave AB PAC $2 million in June 2023, according to FEC records.

          (Left) Billionaire George Soros attends a discussion with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and a group of American business leaders at the Blair House in Washington on May 20, 2015. (Right) Alexander Soros, founder of the Alexander Soros Foundation, speaks onstage during a climate event at the Ford Foundation in New York City on April 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Ford Foundation)

          According to donor records maintained by OpenSecrets, Mr. Mortiz has sent $8 million to AB PAC between 2019 and 2023.

          Two other Democratic Party megadonors are bankrolling American Bridge. FEC records indicate Reid Hoffman and Deborah Simon both sent $1 million or more to the hybrid PAC.

          Ms. Simon, an heir to the Simon family real estate fortune, sent $2.5 million in 2023. Mr. Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn Corp., sent AB PAC $1 million in 2023.

          OpenSecrets ranked Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Simon among the top 25 largest spenders on the 2021–2022 election cycle. Together, they sent $35.7 million to liberal causes in that period.

          American Bridge is also tied to the 501(c)(4) nonprofit American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. According to its most recently filed tax returns, the Foundation had about $1.3 million in net assets at the end of 2022.

          Representatives of American Bridge didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

          Service Employees International Union

          The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents 2 million workers in the United States and Canada, according to the union. Its membership is primarily employed in health care, public services, and property services.

          In a March 13 announcement, the union said it will spend $200 million—its most extensive campaign ever—to reach as many as 6 million voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

          “The union will engage multiracial working-class voters who are less likely to vote or have never voted at all through field programs, relational organizing, earned media, and paid media, partnering with community groups who are trusted messengers in their communities,” an SEIU release said.

          A woman casts her ballot in the state’s primary election in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024. (Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The Democratic National Committee, Scott Olson/Getty Images)

          The SEIU operates a labor organization political action committee—Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE)—and is linked to the super PAC United We Can.

          According to Federal Election Commission records, both of the groups are financed by SEIU members and the SEIU’s local unions.

          The two funds, led by SEIU COPE, collectively retained about $35.3 million in cash on hand at the end of February, according to their latest FEC disclosures.

          In the 2020 election cycle, covering 2019 and 2020, together, the funds raised about $78.5 million. Those funds, according to the FEC, spent about $7.7 million to support President Biden.

          Representatives of the SEIU didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

          League of Conservation Voters

          On March 19, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental group that typically promotes liberal candidates for federal office, announced its plans to spend $120 million on reelecting President Biden.

          LCV is a complex organization composed of nonprofits and FEC-registered PACs. Its two federal PACs—LCV Victory Fund and LCV Voters Action Fund—had about $14.7 million on hand at the end of February, according to the groups’ FEC filings.

          LCV also includes the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the League of Conservation Voters Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.

          According to the FEC, most of the money raised by the PACs between January 2023 and February 2024 came from the League of Conservation Voters Inc. It sent LCV Victory Fund about $12.7 million during that period.

          LCV has received funding from multiple organizations tied to Arabella Advisors. In 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the most politically active accounts, sent LCV about $3.5 million, according to its IRS records.

          Representatives of LCV didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

          Read more here…

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 20:20

        • Radical Left Group Demands Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge To Be Renamed Over Racism Claims 
          Radical Left Group Demands Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge To Be Renamed Over Racism Claims 

          Far-left group Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County (CAAL), which has been on a multi-year rampage across Maryland, removing controversial statues (read: here) and pushing reparations resolutions (read: here) in Annapolis, has called on state officials to rename the recently collapsed 1.6-mile Port of Baltimore bridge because the current name “Francis Scott Key Bridge” is racist. 

          The new bridge hasn’t even been built yet and might not even get built for years. Still, CAAL is already arguing that Francis Scott Key, the man behind the lyrics to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ “demeaned black people” with the song’s lyrics and that he enslaved people, according to local newspaper The Baltimore Banner. 

          CAAL called on progressive Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly to rename the bridge after late Rep. Parren J. Mitchell. She was the first African American from Maryland elected to the US House of Representatives. 

          On Monday, reporters asked Gov. Moore about the potential name change of the Key Bridge. He said that’s not even a topic yet, as salvage crews are still trying to reopen the commercial shipping channel. 

          “I think any other conversations along those lines, there will be time for that but now’s not the time,” he told reporters.

          In a lengthy Facebook rant, CAAL claimed that “taxpayer’s dollars were being used to honor racism” and noted that it expected “backlash whenever there is an effort to bring about change in America.” They said that backlash “will see an immediate response from right-wingers.” 

          CAAL’s website says it “fights for the human rights of African-Americans and to create a just society” and is “driven by progressive ideas and bold actions.” However, where are those bold actions while Baltimore City implodes into crime chaos? The leftist organization has been around since 2011, and since then, those bold actions to help blacks has yet to materialize in Baltimore. 

          Some questions we have: 

          Why isn’t CAAL taking bold actions to address rampant black-on-black gang crime in the metro area or address the education scandal in Baltimore City Public Schools that robs black children of their future? What about soaring violent crime, unleashed by failed social justice reforms, has transformed part of the metro area into a warzone? What about defunding the police measures that have collapsed the police force? Or tens of thousands of vacant row homes and a collapsed inner city economy that provides limited opportunity to young black males (some of whom have chosen a life of crime instead). 

          Perhaps the challenges facing Baltimore are to big for the leftist group to tackle. It appears, instead, they focus their agenda on rewriting history… 

          “Why do you always trying to make our history racist ? Good or bad , our history is what made us a great nation. Changing names of bridges, schools, removing statues,etc just promote racism,” one Facebook user wrote on CAAL’s post. 

          The American Historical Association explains why Americans should know their history:

          “Laymen and educators are generally agreed that knowledge of our own history is essential in the making of Americans. The reasons for this belief may be summed up under four main heads. History makes loyal citizens because memories of common experiences and common aspirations are essential ingredients in patriotism. History makes intelligent voters because sound decisions about present problems must be based on knowledge of the past. History makes good neighbors because it teaches tolerance of individual differences and appreciation of varied abilities and interests. History makes stable, well-rounded individuals because it gives them a start toward understanding the pattern of society and toward enjoying the artistic and intellectual productions of the past. It gives long views, a perspective, a measure of what is permanent in a nation’s life. To a people it is what memory is to the individual; and memory, express or unconscious, guides the acts of every sentient being.” 

          Marylanders should demand that CAAL do more in Baltimore City before tearing down any more statues, pushing reparation bills, or trying to rename non-existent bridges.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 20:00

        • How Trump Could Beat The Deep State
          How Trump Could Beat The Deep State

          Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

          Let’s say that Trump wins the November election. What would a second Trump presidency actually look like?

          Today we’re going to investigate that question. Let’s first back up to the 2016 election.

          Trump ran the most incompetent presidential transition process in my lifetime and perhaps the worst in history. The problems began with the fact that none of Trump, his family members and inner circle actually thought he would win the 2016 election with the exception of campaign manager Steve Bannon.

          I predicted Trump would win but I was almost alone in that regard.

          Trump picked Chris Christie as his transition manager, seemingly oblivious to the fact that as a prosecutor, Christie had put Jared Kushner’s father in jail. Given Kushner’s role as Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, this was a recipe for failure.

          A well-run transition doesn’t start the day after the election. It begins a year or more advance with a list of loyal appointees ready to go. Trump had no preparation and no team. Christie was fired as transition manager and Mike Pence took over, but the entire process was bungled.

          The other problem was that Trump applied the New York real estate developer mentality to his administration. He never worried much about his appointees because if they failed, he could always yell, “You’re fired!”

          That may work in New York, but it doesn’t work in Washington. Appointees are protected by politicians, lobbyists and the media. If you fire someone, you can expect a barrage of leaks, policy paralysis and opposition to any new appointee.

          Even if a bad choice is fired, the lower levels of the deep state take over and run rings around you while waiting for a replacement who will take months to get a handle on the job in a best case.

          Trump never understood any of this.

          Trump also trusted the wrong people. He installed James Mattis as secretary of defense, Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, H.R. McMaster as national security adviser and John Kelly as chief of staff. They were all RINOs from the Bush wing of the party.

          They were brought in as “adult supervision” of the supposedly reckless Trump, but they all stabbed Trump in the back. Meanwhile, loyal supporters like Steve Bannon and K.T. McFarland were shoved aside.

          Trump didn’t learn. He did fire James Comey as head of the FBI (three months too late) but then appointed Christopher Wray as the new FBI director. Wray now works for Biden and puts Trump supporters in jail. But Trump was the one who appointed him.

          Trump should have fired the lying Anthony Fauci after one meeting. Instead, he gave Fauci the keys to the U.S. economy. Fauci then implemented lockdowns, school closings, vaccine mandates, masking and social distancing in ways that ruined the U.S. economy and gave Trump’s enemies an excuse to change election laws to favor mail-in ballots, which permits more widespread cheating.

          The list goes on. The bottom line is no one was worse at transition planning, appointments, endorsements and tolerance of gross incompetence than Trump. He was his own worst enemy and seemed incapable of learning the ropes in how to deal with Washington bureaucracy and the deep state.

          This leaves one overriding question. Has Trump learned anything since leaving office in 2021? Will he have a successful transition this time or simply repeat the blunders of 2017–2021?

          Read on to see how Trump could pull it off…

          How to Take on the Deep State

          Has Trump learned anything since leaving office in 2021? Will he have a successful transition this time or simply repeat the blunders of 2017–2021? To answer those questions, we turn to two books that hold the key to possible success in a new Trump administration. The first is called The Plum Book. The second is called Mandate for Leadership 2025.

          “Plum Book” is a nickname for a publication from the Government Printing Office based on the fact that it has a plum-colored cover. The official title is United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions.

          It’s a 232-page directory of about 8,000 jobs in the U.S. government with an emphasis on the executive branch (controlled by the president) and independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It’s literally page after page of job listings by title, department and pay grade.

          What makes the Plum Book special (and indispensable to a presidential transition team) is that the jobs listed in the book are those that are open to political appointment and not subject to a competitive process.

          These are the jobs where the president can just pick the person he wants and install that person in a key policy position without going through normal civil service channels. Some of the positions may be subject to Senate confirmation, but that usually poses no difficulty, especially if the new president’s party also controls the Senate.

          The Plum Book is like a secret guide to understanding the deep state and putting your own people in place to control it.

          Even the most obscure federal agencies have top positions to be filled. They all have a director, one or more deputies, board members, executive assistants, etc. That’s how deep the deep state really is. When Biden calls for an “all of government” approach to climate change or DEI, the Plum Book tells us that means 8,000 hands on deck.

          The executive office of the president involves a lot more than 10 or so close assistants in the West Wing such as counsel to the president, chief of staff and a few special assistants. The Plum Book lists 83 separate jobs (not including clerks, interns and executive assistants).

          These jobs support the president only and do not come close to covering the entire executive branch. Among these positions are “special assistant to the president and assistant communications director for strategic messaging,” and “special assistant to the president and deputy director of White House information technology.” As you can see, even the assistants and deputies have assistants and deputies.

          So if Trump wins the election, the Plum Book will be an important tool to put the right people in place..

          Still, the Plum Book is only the beginning of a successful transition. It tells us what positions need to be filled but does not offer a guide to policy. The selection of individuals for appointments needs to be guided by a set of policies that can act as a filter for choosing the right individuals.

          Who is doing the hard work of outlining policy initiatives for hundreds of agencies, commissions and offices that comprise the executive branch and ultimately the deep state? It’s fine to win an election and use the Plum Book to fill key positions with competent loyalists, but what policies will they actually implement?

          Fortunately for Trump, the Heritage Foundation has done this work. The Heritage Foundation is just one of hundreds of think tanks and policy centers in Washington, D.C. But in 2024 they’ve taken the lead in collecting and publishing policy papers on hundreds of key issues.

          Their work is called Mandate for Leadership 2025. I call it the Trump playbook. It’s available online at the Heritage Foundation website. It’s 887-pages long and every page is filled with technical discussion.

          The content is conservative but not ideological. There is a fair balance and even competing perspectives. In the section on trade, there is “The Case for Fair Trade” by Peter Navarro and “The Case for Free Trade” by Kent Lassman. It’s likely that the best policy includes some content from both perspectives depending on the specific trading partner, reciprocity and the impact on U.S. jobs.

          The Heritage Foundation playbook Mandate for Leadership, combined with the Plum Book and Trump’s apparent willingness to learn from his past mistakes when it comes to appointments completes the Trifecta needed for success in a second Trump administration to destroy the deep state. Investors should hope that Trump stays on that path and listens to the hundreds of experts and institutions that are working hard to make that success a reality.

          The difference for investors between another Biden administration and the return of Trump to the White House could not be more stark. The Biden administration has been characterized by excessive regulation, pointless mandates as part of the Green New Scam, open borders bringing crime, drugs and cartel influence into the United States, disastrous wars in Ukraine, Gaza and now the closing of the Red Sea-Suez Canal passage, increased segregation of Blacks in colleges, the destruction of 50 years of progress in women’s sports by allowing competition by men and a long list of other ruinous policies.

          The first Trump administration was characterized by business and personal tax cuts, reduced regulation, no new wars, outreach to nuclear rivals such as Russia and North Korea, tariffs on unfair trade by China, a concerted effort to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, demands that NATO members pay their fair share for mutual defense and a secure southern border with Mexico.

          Trump also made an historic three appointments to the Supreme Court, which has emerged as practically the last bastion of constitutional order and the rule of law. There’s no reason to expect any improvement in another Biden administration. In fact, policies will almost certainly grow worse as Biden fails physically and mentally and opens the door to a possible acting president in the form of Kamala Harris, a known dunce.

          There’s good reason to believe that a second Trump administration will offer the growth-oriented policies of the first administration with a much more effective decision-making apparatus resulting from attention to the Plum Book, the playbook and the transition process.

          A better transition process in a second term means the biggest threat to the deep state in decades.

          And a new team will put us on the road back to sanity. But powerful people won’t go quietly. A more experienced Trump will conduct a second war to destroy them. Unless they destroy him first.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 19:40

        • US 'Considering' Dropping Prosecution Of Assange, Biden Says
          US ‘Considering’ Dropping Prosecution Of Assange, Biden Says

          Wednesday saw a rare and unexpected positive development in the Julian Assange extradition case. President Joe Biden has affirmed the US is “considering” dropping its prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder. 

          Currently, Assange is awaiting a final ruling from the UK high court over his possible extradition to the US, coming at the end of a lengthy appeals process. But the following exchange with President Biden and reporters just happened: 

          When asked about the request by reporters at the White House on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said “we’re considering it” – comments described as “encouraging” by Mr Assange’s lawyer.

          Image: Creative Commons

          Biden issued the response in a press briefing while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for an official White House visit, where the two leaders are expended to deepen defense ties.

          It is widely perceived this was all set in motion when in February Assange’s native Australia saw its parliament vote to issue formal request that charges against Julian Assange be dropped by the US. The motion adopted by parliament emphasized “the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia.”

          The country’s prime minister Anthony Albanese immediately backed the motion calling for his return to Australia.

          Amnesty International also recently renewed its call to drop the charges against Assange. “The risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance. Should Julian Assange be sent to the U.S. and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial, too,” a statement said.

          We detailed in March that the Biden administration might be looking for a way to bring the 14-year long legal drama to an end. A WSJ report at the time said, “The U.S. Justice Department is considering whether to allow Julian Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information, according to people familiar with the matter, opening the possibility of a deal that would end a lengthy legal saga triggered by one of the biggest classified intelligence leaks in American history.”

          A plea deal means the whole crisis for him and his family could finally come to an acceptable and peaceful end after all of these years. But Assange’s legal team never gave any level of confirmation to the prior WSJ reporting.

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

          However, this fresh Biden statement seems to confirm the reporting that a plea deal could be on the table.

          A May 20 hearing which has been scheduled by the UK High Court and is expected to take up whether the US ‘assurances’ that Assange would not face either the death penalty or torture if transferred to US custody are satisfactory. His lawyers have long argued that confinement in a US federal ‘Supermax’ facility would indeed be torturous and would also severely degrade his mental health.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 19:20

        • Popular Paper On Ivermectin And COVID-19 Contains False Information
          Popular Paper On Ivermectin And COVID-19 Contains False Information

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

          A popular study that claims ivermectin has shown no effectiveness against all-cause mortality contains false information but remains uncorrected.

          The meta-analysis, published in 2021 by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, explores how groups in randomized, controlled trials fared after receiving ivermectin compared to control groups.

          Among five trials included for the portion on all-cause mortality, none showed an effect for ivermectin, the authors claimed.

          Ivermectin “did not reduce all-cause mortality,” they wrote.

          But the claim is wrong. One of the five trials was described as finding ivermectin recipients were more likely to die, but actually found that ivermectin recipients were less likely to die. “The risk base estimation … confirmed that the average mortality obtained in all of ivermectin treated arms was 3.3%, while it was about 18.3% in standard care and placebo arms,” the authors of that paper said.

          Dr. Adrian Hernandez, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Pharmacy, and other authors of the meta-analysis are aware of the false information. The group released their study as a preprint before the journal published it. The first version included the false information. A corrected version properly portrayed the trial’s results for all-cause mortality in a figure summarizing the results, but still falsely said none of the trials showed a benefit against all-cause mortality.

          Dr. Hernandez and Clinical Infectious Diseases did not respond to requests for comment.

          The lingering false information is in a paper that has attracted numerous citations in other studies, in the press, and on social media. Altmetric, which tracks engagement, scores it at 5,900. A score of 20 or means a paper is doing “far better than most of its contemporaries,” according to the company.

          Morimasa Yagisawa of Kitasato University and other researchers pointed out the issue in a March review of ivermectin trials, saying they were “concerned about the spread of misinformation and/or disinformation” about trial results.

          “The articles on systematic reviews and meta-analyses are often erroneous or misleading. This is perhaps because the authors were not involved in the clinical trials or patient care and only searched for and analyzed articles and databases on clinical trial results,” they wrote. The problems are “particularly serious” in the paper for which Dr. Hernandez was the corresponding author, the researchers said.

          “Although it was a clear error, the wrong content of the preprint was published as a major article in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the official journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, without being changed,” they wrote. “Many comments were made questioning the insight of the reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief for publishing a paper with such inconsistencies, but the paper is still published without correction. Since this is a prestigious journal of a prestigious society, an early corrective action is required.”

          “There have been several fraudulent meta-analyses, and this is a striking one,” Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief officer of the FLCCC Alliance and author of the book The War on Ivermectin, told The Epoch Times in an email.

          “In this meta-analysis, they selected only 10 of the 81 controlled trials, 33 of which were randomized, on ivermectin that were available at the time. Eight of the ten they selected involved mild COVID-19. Typically, mild COVID does not lead to death. And here they were looking at death rates and, as expected, saw very few. The inclusion criteria they used were intended to show no effect. And they succeeded. Conflicted researchers have been doing this to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin since the beginning of the pandemic,” he added.

          Issues in other meta-analyses include the improper inclusion of papers that did not describe clinical trial results, Mr. Yagisawa and his co-authors said.

          They noted that a number of trials have found ivermectin recipients were better off. That includes trials cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its position that ivermectin is not effective against COVID-19.

          The FDA recently settled a lawsuit over that position, agreeing to take down several web pages and social media posts.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 19:00

        • Bridge Collapse: Moody's Cuts Maryland Transportation Authority's Debt Outlook To Negative
          Bridge Collapse: Moody’s Cuts Maryland Transportation Authority’s Debt Outlook To Negative

          The fallout from the Port of Baltimore bridge collapse has sparked supply chain snarls and economic pains in the Maryland area, forcing Moody’s Ratings to downgrade the outlook of the Maryland Transportation Authority’s debt from “stable” to “negative” because of mounting “uncertainties around the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s replacement project’s costs, including their funding and timing.” 

          “Any negative impact from the replacement project would be on top of financial metrics that were expected to narrow from capital investments prior to the loss of the bridge,” Cintia Nazima, a Moody’s analyst, noted in a report initially mentioned by Bloomberg.

          Moody’s maintained the Aa2 rating for the MTA’s revenue bonds, linked to about $2.2 billion in outstanding debt. Nazima explained that this rating “reflects the essentiality of the authority’s road network, the fundamental strength of the service area, and its history of strong financial and operational management and performance.” 

          The analyst said the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) Key Bridge comprised about 7% of MTA’s total revenue in 2023. They expect traffic to be rerouted on adjacent highways and tunnels, adding the MTA will likely recapture most of the lost toll revenue. 

          The bridge was the primary land feeder into the Port of Baltimore. It connected the port to the I-95 highway network in the Mid-Alantic.

          Source: Bloomberg 

          For more than two weeks (since March 26), container ships, vehicle transport ships, bulk carriers, and other large commercial vessels have been diverted to other East Coast ports. Last week, the US Army Corps of Engineers provided a timeline for reopening the port, potentially at the end of May. However, there is no timeline on when the bridge will be rebuilt, with some figures in the 3-5 years range.

          In a separate note last week, Moody’s warned the bridge collapse “has the potential to hurt the transportation and warehousing sector” in the Baltimore region. 

          How does the MTA recapture the lost toll revenue? Well, higher toll fees, of course. 

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 18:40

        • Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam Of All Time
          Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam Of All Time

          Authored by Stephen Moore via The Epoch Times,

          President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes.

          It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.

          But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart.

          They pay billions in taxes.

          The culprits here are the very companies that President Biden is in bed with: green energy firms.

          It turns out that despite all the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in America, by far the biggest tax dodgers in the country are the wind and solar power industries.

          Over the past several decades, the green energy lobby—what I call the climate-change-industrial complex—isn’t paying its fair share. That’s because the vast majority of these companies pay nearly ZERO income taxes.

          But they wade in rivers of federal direct and indirect subsidies that keep these zombie companies alive. Over the past two decades, the renewable energy lobby has collected more than one-quarter trillion dollars in subsidies—payments that we’ve been assured over and over would be temporary. The argument for these grants, loans, tax abatements and other sweetheart kisses is that these were “infant industries” in need of a Head Start program for CEOs.

          Except these companies have never even reached puberty after all these years.

          What’s worse is that President Biden keeps spoiling the children with lavish gifts for bad performance.

          A new report by tax expert Adam Michel at the Cato Institute finds the green energy subsidies—mostly created by Biden policies like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act—will drain the Treasury of as much as $1.8 trillion over 10 years.

          The Cato report finds that since its passage, “the estimated cost of the IRA’s new and expanded energy tax credits increased dramatically.”

          These tax shelters are just a form of Aid to Dependent Corporations. They never seem to want to cut the umbilical cord.

          What have we gotten for this mountain of taxpayer-funded green energy largesse?

          Nothing, really.

          Today, we still get 80 percent of our energy in America from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Wind and solar are stuck at less than 10 percent. This is some investment we’re making.

          Meanwhile, President Biden keeps railing against companies that pay no income tax. He’s advocated a mandatory 15 percent minimum corporate tax. But guess what industry is explicitly exempt from the minimum? The green energy lobby.

          It’s just a reminder that a lot of people are getting really, really rich off climate change hysteria.

          The “green” in green energy doesn’t stand for a cleaner environment.

          It stands for the color of money. Yours and mine.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 18:20

        • "Obviously, This Is Very Bad News For Biden": Wall Street Reacts To Today's Red Hot Inflation Print
          “Obviously, This Is Very Bad News For Biden”: Wall Street Reacts To Today’s Red Hot Inflation Print

          Coming into today’s CPI number, which followed three previous red-hot inflation prints, we said that it’s time for a “miss” (the first of 2024) not because the data demands it – on the contrary, prices continue to rise at a frightening pace – but because a dovish CPI print today would be the last opportunity for the Fed to set a timetable for a rate cut calendar ahead of November’s election.

          Well, you can wave goodbye to all that, because we just got the 4th consecutive “inflation beat” in a row…

          … with supercore inflation coming in blazing hot…

          … thanks to a boiling inflation print which saw every single CPI metric coming in hotter than expected – was a shock, not because it reflected reality, but because it effectively sealed Biden’s fate because as Bloomberg’s Chris Antsey writes, “obviously, this is very bad news for Joe Biden… we’re approaching the point where high inflation is bound to still be in voters’ minds when they head to the polls, regardless of how the price figures come in over summer.”

          With that in mind, here is a snapshot of kneejerk reactions by various other Wall Street economists and strategists to today’s print courtesy of Bloomberg.

          Morgan Stanley economist Ellen Zentner is the first sellside to warn her June rate-cut call is in jeopardy:

          “The upside surprise in core CPI is moving the inflation data further away from the convincing evidence the Fed needs to start cutting in June. Dependent on the PPI data tomorrow, this print tilts the Fed toward a later start to the cutting cycle than our current forecast for June.”

          Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch:

          “The so-called ‘Super-core’ CPI  measure – services excluding rents – jumped from 3.9% y/y in February to 4.8% in March. This latter metric is heading the wrong way and quite quickly at that.”

          David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist at JPMorgan asset management:

          “I wish the Federal Reserve would pay more attention to what they do to financial markets with their manipulation of interest rates and not worry too much about what they are doing to the economy. Last decade, we mispriced housing terribly and now a large chunk of younger Americans can’t buy a house.”

          Anna Wong, Bloomberg economist:

          “March is a month where the CPI enters a seasonal window that’s favorable for disinflation. The fact that core CPI remained the same in March as February — even if it maps to about 0.3% in core PCE inflation terms – is not a good development. This report, more than February’s, is likely to feed Fed concern that progress on disinflation is stalling — even though the core print for the two months was the same.”

          Marvin Loh, State Street economist:

          “While the rent component shows a strong disinflationary trend, the more important owner’s occupied component is stubbornly unchanged and well above what is needed to get towards a stable 2% level.”

          Ira Jersey, Bloomberg rates strategist:

          “The 3-month annualized core CPI climbing to 4.5% is going to keep early Fed-cut calls muted coming up. 50 bps of cuts in 2024 currently being priced may not occur until later in the year. The yield curve flattening isn’t surprising as we continue to price out early and deep cuts.”

          * * *
          “The timing of 2024 rate-cut expectations are front of mind for market participants, with linear markets pricing just below even odds of a first cut in July. Still, the stickiness of ‘supercore’ inflation, now north of 8% on a 3-month annualized basis, may continue to put upward pressure on expectations of the Fed’s terminal floor.”

          * * *

          “A retest of 4.51% is nearly assured with the higher-than-expected CPI. If that doesn’t hold, 4.7% is the next stopping spot for the 10-year yield.”

          Seema Shah, economist at Principal Asset Management:

          “Today’s print sealed the fate for the June FOMC meeting with a hike now very unlikely. In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the US election will begin to heavily intrude with Fed decision making.”

          Priya Misra, JPM rates strategist:

          ”This was a pivotal report for the market since the last 2 reports were a little high (0.4% mom) and the Fed viewed those readings as a ‘bump in the road’ rather than a change in the trend towards inflation moderation.Rates have risen in the last few weeks as cuts have been priced out but there is more room to go. I also think risk assets will be sensitive to rates if the 10y moves above 4.5%. So far risk assets could ignore the high inflation prints since the Fed was dismissing it. But I think that changes now… Most of the strength in the core explained by firmer motor vehicle insurance costs and medical care — both of these do not feed into the core PCE deflator in the same way. So incoming Fedspeak will be very important”

          Lindsay Rosner, head of multi-sector fixed income investing at Goldman Asset Management:

          “To be clear, this number did not eclipse the Fed’s confidence; it did, however, cast a shadow on it. When it comes to spread risk, one hotter CPI print does not derail the bigger story which is the economy is strong, defaults remain benign, and the technicals continue to cast sunshine on spreads maintaining this range.”

          Erik Norland, chief economist at the CME Group:

          “Given the recent trend in fuel prices, there’s a risk that headline inflation readings on a year-on-year basis surpass 4%. The narrative up to now has been danger of sticky 3% but few are talking about a reacceleration to the 4s.

          Florian Ielpo at Lombard Odier Asset Management:

          “If the Fed remains committed to its ‘one cut in June’ stance, real interest rates could remain stable while inflation compensation may increase. This would be supportive for equities, as real financing conditions would not tighten further, and profit margins could benefit from higher-than-expected inflation.”

          Torsten Slok of Apollo Global

          “Easy financial conditions continue to provide a significant tailwind to growth and inflation. As a result, the Fed is not done fighting inflation and rates will stay higher for longer.”

          It’s about to get even worse: recall today we have a $39 billion 10-year auction which is already being dubbed “sloppy” and a definitive break of 4.5% could easily extend if underwriting dealers are left holding the bag. As it stands, the 10yr has popped above the 4.5% parapet. Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets says:

          “We expect the setup to the auction will break 4.50% in 10-year yields with ease.”  

          And George Goncalves, head of US macro strategy at MUFG, adds:

          “Price action tells you two things – positioning wasn’t as concentrated or in line with the mini rally we had heading into the number over the last 24hrs and at same time very little in auction setup either.. . Bottomline if no dip buyers show up this morning, and we keep drifting, the risk is a 4.5% this afternoon.”

          * * *

          The bottom line, as Bloomberg’s Sebatian Boyd writes is the following:

          “today’s CPI print adds to the evidence that US monetary policy just isn’t as restrictive as the Federal Reserve thinks it is, and that interest rates will therefore need to stay higher for longer. There are lots of reasons that might be: The great resignation during the pandemic may well have heightened productivity in the US economy as people found new jobs where they’re a better fit. Higher government spending would also push up the neutral rate of interest. But every time we get a hot indicator, the case builds that it has happened and that conventional measures of neutral interest rates are too low. If that is the case, the upshot is higher yields and a flatter curve, because not only would the Fed be able to cut by less than expected in the short term, but yields will need to be higher in the long term too.”

          Finally, we conclude where we started, and echoing what we said in our CPI preview, namely that the BLS had Biden’s fate in its hands, it appears the bureaucrats just voted for Trump. Here is BBG’s Chris Antsey:

          Obviously, this is very bad news for Joe Biden. It’s still only April, and we’ll have another half-a-year’s worth of inflation reports before the election. But we’re approaching the point where high inflation is bound to still be in voters’ minds when they head to the polls, regardless of how the price figures come in over summer.

          To underscore how calamitous today’s data is for Biden, here also is BBG’s Enda Curran:

          Let’s be clear — today’s data has both economic and political implications. The economics are straight forward: It looks unlikely that the Fed will be cutting rates near term (barring a shock). The political implications are less clear but no less meaningful: Poll after poll has found that voters are grumpy on the economy and news that it could be a while yet before the inflation story is over won’t brighten their mood.

          And with Biden’s goose now thoroughly cooked, the next question is how long before somebody raises the possibility of a rate hike.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 18:15

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        Apr 10

        Today’s News 10th April 2024

        • Migrant Crime Explodes Higher In Germany In 2023, Violent Crime Hits Record Levels
          Migrant Crime Explodes Higher In Germany In 2023, Violent Crime Hits Record Levels

          Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,

          The number of foreign suspects soared to around 923,000 last year, representing a massive 18 percent increase in just one year nationwide, according to crime statistics from the German Interior Ministry released on Tuesday.

          However, the even more shocking number may have to do with violent crimes, which soared to record levels in 2023.

          The data from the interior ministry shows that 41 percent of all crime suspects are foreigners, with 2.246 million people in the country suspected of a crime in 2023, which is 7.3 percent more than in 2022, reports Die Welt,

          Overall, foreigners only represent 15 percent of the population.

          ‘Completely lost contact with the population’

          The shocking numbers have hit Germany like a thunderclap and could have a number of political implications.

          The head of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, slammed Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) after the drastic rise in foreign crime was revealed.

          “The Federal Minister of the Interior is becoming more and more like ‘Nancy in Wonderland’ when she is astonished to discover that Germany has become more violent,” Wendt told Bild.

          He argued that one would only be surprised with this outcome “if one has completely lost contact with the population.”

          Faeser, for her part, has labeled “right-wing extremism” the biggest threat to the country, all while allowing violent crime and rape to explode under her tenure, especially from foreign criminals.

          The government is now racing to naturalize millions of foreigners in order to ensure that they are not counted under “foreign” crime but are instead counted as “Germans,” as German crime statistics list anyone who commits a crime as “German” regardless of their migration background as long as they have a German passport.

          Record cases of violent crimes

          Critics like to claim that much of the “foreign crime” actually consists of immigration law violations. However, this is not the case. For one, these figures do not include violation of immigration law, which were excluded from the data. When one examines the data, foreigners are vastly overrepresented is in serious crime, especially violent crimes.

          In fact, half of all violent crimes in Germany were committed by foreigners.

          In 2023, the authorities registered around 214,000 violent crimes, an increase of 8.6 percent, and several records were broken in this area. There was a record number of cases involving dangerous and grievous bodily harm, reaching 154,000 cases, a 6.8 percent increase. At the same time, “intentional simple assault” rose to an all-time high of 434,000 cases, jumping 7.4 percent.

          Robberies soared higher by 17 percent to 44,857, which is also considered a violent crime.

          Crime soared in other categories as well. For example, residential burglary rose to 77,819 cases, up 18.9 percent, car theft (29,985, up 17.5 percent), shoplifting (426,096, up 23.6 percent) and pickpocketing (109,314, up 11 percent).

          A total of around 5.94 million crimes were registered in 2023.

          The numbers don’t give the full picture

          To truly understand this rise in foreign crime, it must also be understood that many of the “German” suspects actually have a migration background and are not ethnic Germans. That is because the statistics count any foreigner who obtains German citizenship as simply “German.”

          Second- or third-generation migrants who commit crimes are also simply listed as “German” in the crime statistics.

          This is unlike Denmark, for instance, which tracks suspects with a migration background, giving a much clearer picture.

          Read more here…

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 04/10/2024 – 02:00

        • Islands That Climate Alarmists Said Would Soon "Disappear" Due To Rising Sea Found To Have Grown In Size
          Islands That Climate Alarmists Said Would Soon “Disappear” Due To Rising Sea Found To Have Grown In Size

          Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

          An amount of land equivalent to the Isle of Wight has been added to the shorelines of 13,000 islands around the world in just the last 20 years. This fascinating fact of a 369.67 square kilometre increase has recently been discovered by a group of Chinese scientists analysing both surface and satellite records. Overall, land was lost during the 1990s, but the scientists found that in the study period of three decades to 2020 there was a net increase of 157.21 km2. The study observed considerable natural variation in both erosion and accretion. Of course, the findings blow holes in the poster scare run by alarmists suggesting that rising sea levels caused by humans using hydrocarbons will condemn many islands to disappear shortly beneath rising sea levels. By means of such flimsy scare tactics, as we have seen in many other cases, desperate attempts are made to terrify global populations to accept the insanity of the Net Zero collectivisation.

          The scientists said their data suggested that sea-level rise has not been a widespread cause of erosion for island shorelines in the studied regions.

          “Presently, it is considered one of the contributing factors to shoreline erosion but not the predominant one,” they explained.

          Needless to say, none of this will detain the attention of climate hysterics in both mainstream media and politics.

          The Guardian was in fine form last June stating that rising oceans will extinguish more than land.

          “It will kill entire languages,” it added, noting the effect on Pacific islands such as Tuvalu. Those areas of the Earth that were most hospitable to people and languages are now becoming the “least hospitable”.

          Silly emotional Guardianista guff of course, but happily it does not seem to apply to Tuvalu.

          A recent study found that the 101 islands of Tuvalu had grown in land mass by 2.9%.

          The scientists observed that despite rising sea levels, many shorelines in Tuvalu and neighbouring Pacific atolls have maintained relative stability, “without significant alteration”. A comprehensive re-examination of data on 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls with 709 islands found that none of them had lost any land. Furthermore, the scientists added, there are data that indicate 47 reef islands expanded in size or remained stable over the last 50 years, “despite experiencing a rate of sea-level rise that exceeds the global average”.

          The Maldives is also a poster scare for rising sea levels, with the attention-seeking activist Mark Lynas – he of the nonsense claim that 99.9% of scientists agree humans cause all or most climate change – organising an underwater Cabinet meeting of the local Government in 2009. As it happens, the Maldives is one of a number of areas that have seen recent increases in land mass.

          Other areas include the Indonesian Archipelago, islands along the Indochinese Peninsula coast, and islands in the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Notably, the  coastal waters of the Indochinese Peninsula had the most substantial gain, with an increase of 106.28 km2 over the 30-year period. Of the 13,000 islands examined, the researchers found that only around 12% had experienced a significant shoreline shift, with almost equal numbers experiencing either landward (loss) or seaward (gain) movement.

          The scientists identify many reasons why islands can grow in size despite the small annual rises in sea level seen in many parts of the world. It is noted that island shorelines are constantly changing due to factors such tides, winds, nearshore hydrodynamics and the transport of sediment. On inhabited islands, human action such as fish farming and land reclamation can be important.

          Of course, humans action can have a number of unintended consequences, notably the mining of coral and the breakdown of natural water barriers. Island states such as the Maldives have not been slow in coming forward to claim ‘climate reparations’ from guilt-tripped citizens in the developed world. But tourism has dramatically boosted income in the Maldives to first world levels at a time when the locals have mined coral in industrial quantities to build ports, airports and resort developments. In the process, ocean life diversity has been lost and the islands are often less protected from storm waves that can flow direct to the shoreline. In a recent essay, a group of scientists and economists charged that coral mining “has resulted in massive degradation of shallow reef-flat areas, with important negative impacts on coastal protection”.

          The Chinese findings are important in helping destroy the claim that many low-lying islands will simply disappear beneath the waves in the near future due to human-induced climate change. They show how shoreline changes are a persistent and ongoing process that is subject to many natural and human influences. Most of the poster islands used for climate scares such as Tuvalu and the Maldives have increased in size of late, and are hardly suitable to whip up fear of a claimed climate ‘emergency’. Sea level rise is not a “predominant” cause of the changing coasts, the scientists note.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:40

        • How Will Tehran Respond To Israel? Could Iranian Stealth Drones Target Critical Oil Infrastructure?
          How Will Tehran Respond To Israel? Could Iranian Stealth Drones Target Critical Oil Infrastructure?

          Iran’s foreign minister said on Monday that Washington military leaders gave Israel the “green light” to conduct a missile strike on its consulate building complex in Damascus last week that killed several of its top military officials, including two generals. 

          Hossein Amirabdollahian said, “Our response to the Zionist regime and its punishment is certain.” He continued that “conveying the message of our country to the United States as a full-fledged support of the Zionist regime and direct response for its crimes and actions.” 

          Addressing those warnings, in the US, National Security Council Strategic Communicators Coordinator John Kirby stated at a press conference on Monday that he couldn’t touch on the specific intelligence matters but pointed out that “the Israeli government could count on the United States’ support for any self-defense needs against threats directly by Iran to Israel, threats that Iran has made public.” 

          As a possible military response by Tehran nears, Kirby also warned US troops across the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, face mounting threats from drone and missile attacks. 

          The question on everyone’s mind in the intel community is how Iran will respond. Tehran has many options, but which will it use?

          A Bloomberg report on Monday titled “Iran’s Better, Stealthier Drones Are Remaking Global Warfare” reminded us how Iran’s mastery of low-tech drone warfare poses a significant threat to US military bases and oil infrastructure in the Middle East. 

          Earlier this year, three American troops were killed, and more than three dozen were injured by an Iranian-designed kamikaze drone at the Tower 22 US military base in Jordan. 

          “The last two years have been a period of hyper-acceleration of new tactics and techniques for Iran’s employment of drones,” Matthew McInnis, a Pentagon intelligence officer, told Bloomberg. 

          In February, Iran’s Aerospace Force Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced that Tehran-made stealth drones could target any moving vessel and critical infrastructure at great ranges. 

          Hajizadeh claimed that Iran is one of the world’s leading powers in defense, including drone and missile technologies. 

          “We have now reached a point where the terrorist military of the United States openly admits that it is not seeking a conflict with the Islamic Republic because it is unable to resist the Iranian defense prowess,” he said. 

          Iran’s drones are becoming stealthier, and that has the US intel community up at night. Bloomberg pointed out, “The one that hit Tower 22 in January penetrated US defenses by shadowing an American drone that was landing there.” 

          A spokesman for the US Department of Defense recently said Iran’s procurement, development, and proliferation of drones are “an increasing threat to international peace and security.” They noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set up a panel of senior leaders last month to figure out “this urgent operational challenge.” 

          Iran’s stealth drone technology has likely advanced significantly since Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Tehran, launched a complex drone swarm attack on the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia in 2019. 

          The question, again, is how Tehran will respond to Israel/the US. There are mounting concerns Iran or Iran-backed proxy groups could use suicide stealth drones against critical oil infrastructure, such as the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia. Brent crude would immediately spike over the $100 a barrel mark if that facility was hit. And it would be viewed as an indirect attack on the US, as we penned in a note titled “The Weaponization Of Crude Could Trigger The Next Financial Shock.” 

          Iran has stealth drone technology, and we’re sure they’re not just looking at pretty drones in a giant underground warehouse. They will use it. The question the intel community has is how Tehran will respond to Israel. 

          Tick, tock, tick, tock… 

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:20

        • US Will Not Accept Another "China Shock", Yellen Says
          US Will Not Accept Another “China Shock”, Yellen Says

          By Dorothy Li of The Epoch Times

          China commonly floods global markets with cheap products, and the United States will not allow this to threaten U.S. jobs, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on April 8 as she concluded a return visit to China.

          After Bejing’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization, massive quantities of low-priced products exported from China killed about 2 million jobs in the United States and led to the hollowing out of industrial production in many parts of the country, Ms. Yellen told reporters in Beijing, calling it the “first China shock.”

          “I simply would say, [the situation] would not be acceptable to the United States,” she said.

          On her second trip to China as treasury secretary, Ms. Yellen repeatedly expressed Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s burgeoning production in green-energy sectors, including electric vehicles, their batteries, and solar panels, as household consumption remains weak in the country.

          She criticized China for flooding the global market with cheap products, as Beijing shifted its policy focus by investing in manufacturing factors to boost the country’s stagnant economy.

          The message recurred through the four days of talks with senior Chinese officials, including Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who oversees China’s economic and financial systems.

          Following the April 8 meeting with the Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, Ms. Yellen raised the issue again.

          “I am particularly worried about how China’s enduring macroeconomic imbalances—namely, its weak household consumption and business overinvestment, aggravated by large-scale government support in specific industrial sectors—will lead to significant risk to workers and businesses in the United States and the rest of the world,” she told reporters at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Beijing.

          “China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity. And when the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products, the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question.”

          The treasury secretary acknowledged that addressing the issue takes time. “Our concerns will not be resolved in a week or a month,” she said….

          There are signs that Beijing is reluctant to change its economic strategy.

          …

          But she emphasized that the Biden administration would push Beijing to change its course.

          Over a decade ago, China’s massive state subsidies “led to below-cost Chinese steel that flooded the global market and decimated industries across the world and in the United States,” she said.

          “I’ve made clear that President Biden and I will not accept that reality again.”

          Continue reading at The Epoch Times

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 23:00

        • Japan Warns AI Could Cause Total Collapse Of The Social Order
          Japan Warns AI Could Cause Total Collapse Of The Social Order

          Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

          Two top Japanese companies have warned that artificial intelligence could cause a total collapse of the social order if it is not rapidly reigned in.

          Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and Yomiuri Shimbun Group Holdings, the country’s largest telecommunications company and the country’s biggest newspaper, jointly published the AI manifesto.

          It warned that if legislation is not passed quickly in major countries across the world, artificial intelligence threatens to decimate democracy and provoke widespread societal unrest.

          Pointing to AI programs being developed by US tech giants, the manifesto warns, “In the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars.”

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

          The report stated that such technology is designed to seize users’ attention with little regard for morality or accuracy.

          Guided by Keio University researchers, the companies called on the Japanese government to pass new laws to protect elections and national security from AI.

          As we previously highlighted, programs such as Google’s Gemini AI system caused fury after they openly discriminated against white people and in some cases erased them from history altogether.

          OpenAI’s ChatGPT produced equally ludicrous content, in one case saying it would refuse to quietly utter a racial slur that no human could hear in order to save 1 billion white people from a “painful death.”

          *  *  *

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

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 22:20

        • Iron Ore's Two-Day Rally Biggest In Years On China Bottoming Hopes  
          Iron Ore’s Two-Day Rally Biggest In Years On China Bottoming Hopes  

          Over the past year, there has been a surge in doom-and-gloom headlines about China’s economy. The country’s mercantilist policymakers have spent months attempting to stimulate a fragile economy through monetary easing while keeping the real estate crisis at bay. However, a more optimistic view is emerging as Chinese macroeconomic data and stocks stabilize, with the commodity market now indicating signs of a more favorable economic outlook heading into spring. 

          Bloomberg reports iron ore prices in Asia are headed for the largest two-day rally in more than two years, fueled by prospects of a bump in steel demand and output in the world’s second-largest economy. 

          According to financial firm Macquarie Group, April and May are the most active periods for construction across China. They noted that iron ore inventories are peaking at ports, and steel output at the nation’s blast furnaces has already increased. 

          There’s a “bit of a reversion back to normal seasonal trends where you have higher hot metal production throughout the middle of the year,” Rob Stein, a metals analyst at Macquarie, told Bloomberg in a phone interview. Stein added that this should help iron ore to achieve a price range between $110 and $120 a ton. 

          Nick Savone, global head of equity sales at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to clients that his “team’s supply/demand model shows a closely balanced market, supporting prices well above the cash cost curve, which continues to move higher. They see upside to spot price, to $120/t in Q3, as Chinese stocks draw down on stable demand and lack of further upside to seaborne supply.”

          Despite China’s economy being plagued with many problems, including a real estate bust, deflation, debt troubles, demographic winter, foreign investor exodus, supply chain fracturing, and deteriorating Sino-US ties, recent macroeconomic data shows a potential bottom forming. 

          China’s official factory purchasing managers index moved into expansion last month, the first time since September. The services sector index hit the highest level since June, and a separate factory index from and S&P Global hit to a 13-month high. 

          Late last month, China’s President Xi Jinping met with more than a dozen American business leaders, including Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Inc. and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm Inc., to restore confidence in the Chinese economy. 

          The CSI 300 Index found a floor at the start of February and rose 13% through early April. After halving since February 2021, the multi-year equity rout appears stabilized (for now). 

          Meanwhile, the JPM Global MFG PMI index bottomed for the past year and recently moved into expansion territory. 

          The question on everyone’s mind is if the world’s second-largest economy has finally bottomed. If so, the global economy could be on a soft landing path. If not, look out below… 

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 22:00

        • Jordan Believes Hamas Behind Huge Gaza Protests Which Seek To Sever Ties With Israel
          Jordan Believes Hamas Behind Huge Gaza Protests Which Seek To Sever Ties With Israel

          Via Middle East Eye

          Jordanian authorities have clamped down on participants in the daily protests against the Israeli war on Gaza, amid accusations that Hamas has a role in igniting them. Thousands have been protesting daily in Ramadan in front of the Israeli embassy in the capital, Amman, demanding its closure and an end to normalization with Israel in response to its atrocities in Gaza.

          The protests continued even though the embassy has no diplomatic mission, following the departure of Israel’s ambassador in October and Jordan’s recalling of its ambassador in protest of the Israeli war on Gaza. Jordanian authorities have been caught off guard by the size of the Ramadan protests, which average between 6,000 to 10,000 participants. 

          Via Reuters

          Columnists and former officials have attacked Hamas leaders, especially Khaled Meshaal, accusing the movement and the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to create chaos in Jordan.  Former information minister Samih al-Maaytah accused the Hamas movement abroad of collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan to advance Hamas’s political agendas. 

          “Hamas abroad is trying to pressure Jordan to restore relations with the movement,” he said, citing a speech on March 26 in Amman by Meshaal, the head of Hamas abroad, calling on millions to take to the streets.

          “Hamas wants to send a message that it can influence and lead the Jordanian street, which is also convenient for the Iranians who have not been able to exercise any political influence in Jordan,” Maaytah told MEE.

          Jordanian government spokesperson Muhannad Moubaydeen said on Tuesday that the government did not mind the demonstrations, but was concerned about the chants, which it views as pro-Hamas.

          “Jordanian security is charged with protecting the demonstrators and ensuring their safety, but the problem is those who harm national security and come out with unacceptable chants,” he said in a press conference. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan has rejected these accusations. 

          According to Murad al-Adayleh, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Action Front, a party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, “there are no special party interests in these protests, which represent all sectors of Jordanian society that support the Palestinian resistance”.

          “The Jordanian people’s relationship with the Palestinian issue is different from any Arab people because it is geographically and demographically related to Palestine,” Adayleh told MEE. “We paid sacrifices and sacrifices from our children for the sake of Palestine, so it is natural for us to see these sit-ins in all cities.”

          Adayleh said the accusations of Hamas’s role in the protests seek to discredit the protest movement, which has so far been the largest in the Arab world. “There are attempts to demonize the Jordanian movement because it has begun to influence the Arab street and has galvanized protests in other Arab countries,” he said. 

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          Jordan was the second Arab country after Egypt to normalise relations with Israel in 1994, in a peace treaty that remains deeply unpopular in the country. Jordanians have also denounced the kingdom’s import of Israeli gas as “treasonous”.

          Hundreds detained

          Jordanian security services have detained hundreds of political activists from different parties since the beginning of the 7 October war. Lawyer and former judge Louay Obeidat said that more than 1,500 activists have been prosecuted for their protest activities. 

          Many of them have been released, but dozens remain in administrative detention, while seven are considered to have been forcibly disappeared. Among the detainees was trade union activist Maysara Malas, who has been in administrative detention, held without charge for the past four months in connection with the protests.

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          Malas’s family said that 20 members of the General Intelligence raided his house in al-Rashid suburb at dawn on 4 January to arrest him. During the raid, the officers asked all family members to turn off their phones, searched the house and Malas’s car, and confiscated documents, electronic devices and surveillance camera tapes, the family said in a statement. 

          After an hour-and-a-half-long search of their house, Malas was handcuffed and detained without any charge. He remains in detention at the General Intelligence Department, and his lawyer has been prevented from visiting him, according to the family. 

          The National Alliance for Rights and Freedoms, a group of human rights activists, said that the Jordanian authorities pursued a huge number of activists in connection with the sit-in near the Israeli embassy.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:40

        • 'Bird Flu-Pocalypse' Forces Hong Kong To Suspend Some Imports Of US Poultry Meat
          ‘Bird Flu-Pocalypse’ Forces Hong Kong To Suspend Some Imports Of US Poultry Meat

          The recent spread of bird flu—also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI— across several US states has been hyped by corporate media. Some journalists are quoting ‘experts’ who warn the bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse’ than Covid.’ 

          According to Bloomberg data, the story count in corporate media for all things “Bird Flu” last week hit a record high on data going back to 2014. 

          The context here is crucial. Bird flu is not just a US issue anymore; it’s ‘going global,’ and this is happening just before the US presidential elections in November.  

          On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s food safety authority published a memo stating, “Import of poultry meat and poultry products suspended in some areas of the United States.” 

          Here’s the full memo from the Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department:

          The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (April 9) that in response to a notification from the World Organization for Animal Health regarding an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Ionia County, Michigan, and Parmer County, Texas, USA, The CFS immediately instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and poultry products (including poultry eggs) from the above-mentioned areas to protect public health in Hong Kong.

          A spokesman for the CFS said that according to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 37,770 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 83.84 million poultry eggs from the United States last year.

          The spokesman said: “The CFS has contacted the US authorities regarding the incident and will continue to closely monitor information on the outbreak of avian influenza from the World Organization for Animal Health and relevant authorities, and will take appropriate actions in light of the development of the local epidemic.”

          If it’s bird flu or whatever “Disease X” could possibly be, there appears to be a push to “intersect” some type of ‘Covid crisis’ before the 2024 US elections.

          “They will surely try to run their “Disease X” ruse. But they have already lost the trust of the people they made war against in their own country. In which case, expect resistance among the un-sick,” James Howard Kunstler penned in a note earlier this month.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:20

        • Vanderbilt Students Expelled Over Violent Protest, Including Activist Recognized By The White House
          Vanderbilt Students Expelled Over Violent Protest, Including Activist Recognized By The White House

          Authored by Jonathan Turley,

          For years, we have discussed the failure of universities to take actions against faculty and students shutting down events or acting unlawfully, including faculty guilty of criminal assault.

          Now, Vanderbilt has expelled three students after anti-Israel protests, including Jack Petocz, a political activist recognized by the White House and featured prominently in the New York Times and other news outlets.

          According to the Vanderbilt Hustler and The College Fix, the students were arrested for allegedly assaulting a security guard amid raucous anti-Israel protests inside an Administration building late last month.

          A security video shows a security officer overwhelmed as he tried to keep protesters out of Kirkland Hall.

          The officer is shown being pushed down the hall before leaving the frame of the video camera.

          Petocz posted a denial on X:

          “I did not touch a community service officer, nor am I anywhere near the individual in the video. I’d implore you to trust a student activist over rich, powerful, white men, but that’s your choice.”

          He insisted that he and the other students were only “peacefully protesting the genocide in Palestine.”

          X Screenshot

          Petocz’s activism, including opposing the Florida parental rights law, has been widely celebrated in the media including an article that featured him in a January 2022 front story on fighting conservative school boards. President Biden invited him to the White House for a bill signing and took a picture with him in the Oval Office.

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          It appears that universities are growing impatient with protesters, particularly after a series of sit-ins. Recently, students were suspended for storming the office of Pomona College President Gabrielle Starr. Nineteen students were reportedly arrested.

          Starr claimed in an open letter that racial slurs were used by students and declared:

          “These actions are actively destructive of the values that underpin our community. Any participants in today’s events … who turn out to be Pomona students, are subject to immediate suspension. Students from the other Claremont Colleges will be banned from Pomona’s campus and subject to discipline on their own campuses.”

          The actions of the university have led to protests on campus and calls for the student board to reverse that suspensions.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 21:00

        • Equity Mantra Now Is To Buy Dips But Hedge Risks
          Equity Mantra Now Is To Buy Dips But Hedge Risks

          By Jan-Patrick Barnert, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist

          There are two pieces of stock market wisdom which — unlike many others — often ring true: “buy protection when you can, not when you must” and “a hedged pot never boils.” Both seem to be at play right now.

          Last Thursday’s equity drop was followed the next day by a 1% gain on Wall Street and a late-session bounce in the Stoxx 600. That fits the pattern we’ve seen since December — that of an uptrend punctuated with occasional drops, before markets to cruise back to record highs in a day or two.

          Strategists at Tier 1 Alpha acknowledge Thursday’s move was “one of those exogenous events that took markets unexpectedly for a loop.” But they note that as the selloff accelerated, oil prices and Bitcoin spiked, while US short-term rates and gold snoozed. With no across-the-board flight to safe havens, Thursday was likely more about individual investors hedging positions, rather than everyone rushing for the door, they say adding that “somebody felt more pain than the rest of us.”

          Indeed, buying and pricing of put options is picking up both in Europe and the US. Levels are certainly not extreme but the trend indicates investors are less complacent than before, as the timing of the first US interest-rate cut recedes further into the year.  

          “For the first time this year, we saw real demand for protection on Thursday, as the GS Panic Index reached its highest level since last fall,” Goldman Sachs’s Derivatives Sales Trading desk tells clients. And the bank’s prime desk points to net US equity sales heading into Friday’s non-farm payrolls print, with short sales outpacing long buys.

          Meanwhile, Thursday’s move lifted the VIX above 16 points — a departure from the pattern of recent months, whereby the gauge mostly closed below the 15-point mark. If the correlations illustrated by our chart below hold true, stocks might be in for some more trouble — essentially a VIX spike along the lines of last spring and summer would imply a 4-6% equity decline over a 20-day rolling period.

          Finally, take a look at market momentum. That’s deteriorated over the past two trading days, with pro-cyclical benchmarks such as DAX and Dow lagging, alongside US mid- and small-cap stocks. These areas are usually sensitive to interest rates, yet for months they have largely ignored the US rate-cut re-pricing, widening the stock-bond gap to a level many would consider uncomfortable.

          “This gap combines with various risks, technical indicators and signals to suggest not chasing equity markets here. We would look for better entry points ahead,” writes Berenberg analyst Jonathan Stubbs. His view echoes that of Amundi, which missed the recent rally yet plans to wait for a market pullback before wading into buy.

          It all suggests investors plan to stay in the game for now, merely adjusting their portfolios to their highest conviction trades. But at such cheap levels, putting hedges in place increasingly looks like a no-brainer.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 20:20

        • 15 US Agencies Knew Wuhan Lab Was "Trying To Create A Coronavirus Like COVID-19": Rand Paul
          15 US Agencies Knew Wuhan Lab Was “Trying To Create A Coronavirus Like COVID-19”: Rand Paul

          While a massive body of evidence exists on the origins of COVID-19, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is conducting his own investigation into the matter.

          In a Tuesday op-ed, Paul writes that government officials from 15 federal agencies “knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.”

          These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.

          Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. -Rand Paul

          Paul is talking about the DEFUSE project, which was revealed after DRASTIC Research uncovered documents showing that DARPA had been presented with a proposal for EcoHealth to perform gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus.

          And according to Rand Paul, officials from 15 agencies knew about this. While the project was never funded (DARPA called it too dangerous) – Paul writes: “This project, the DEFUSE project, proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.“

          And what does this mean?

          It means that at least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19.

          Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research. Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus.

          Peter Daszak concealed this proposal. University of North Carolina scientist Ralph Baric, a named collaborator on the DEFUSE project, failed to reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19.

          And now we know that 15 agencies heard the proposal and when each agency discovered that COVID-19 was strangely similar to DEFUSE’s proposed virus creation, not one agency head stepped forward to warn the public that the virus might be man-made and therefore already adapted to transmit freely among humans. -Rand Paul

          Paul further writes that Fauci’s NIAID was not only briefed on the DEFUSE proposal, his “Rocky Mountain Lab” was named as a partner in it along with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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          Meanwhile, researcher Ian Lipkin, one of the authors of the “proximal origins” coverup paper, was also part of the DEFUSE plan – which he never revealed publicly.

          “Did NIAID warn us? Did Anthony Fauci warn us? No! All lips remained sealed,” writes Paul.

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          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 20:00

        • Staving Off Revolution
          Staving Off Revolution

          Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

          If the leadership chooses happy-story PR and toothless reforms for show in the hopes it will all blow over, these subterfuges have the potential to push dissatisfaction beyond the point of control.

          Whatever else we might say or think about the leadership class, they tend to have a keen sense of self-preservation. The ability to issue optimistic visions of sunshine and unicorns with a straight face is valuable, to be sure, but so is the ability to sense that the BS is no longer working and something must be done to stave off a potentially career-ending collapse of confidence.

          As a general rule, the ability to maintain a delusional confidence that it’s all going to work out just fine tends to end very poorly for the leadership class. However sincerely it may be uttered, let them eat brioche doesn’t resolve the extreme asymmetries that generate revolutionary disorder. Something more is required, something that either reduces the asymmetries of wealth and power or gives the appearance of doing so.

          Staving off revolution requires some action that benefits those for whom the status quo is no longer working. While borrowing and distributing “free money” works for awhile, this profligacy generates its own destabilizing dynamics, and so eventually reducing the asymmetries of wealth and power requires the leadership to take a chunk out of the perquisites and spoils of the financial elite.

          Since the leadership class is either beholden to the financial elite or has dual membership in both clubs, the leaders are quickly declared “traitors to their class” even as they are acting to stave off the overthrow of the predatory financial elite that pushed asymmetries to destabilizing extremes.

          In other words, the leaders saving the financial elite from the consequences of their own rapacity will get no credit from those they’re saving. Rather than grasping that giving up 10% of their gains will preserve the remaining 90%, the infinite greed and hubris of the financial elite locks their minds in a delusional fantasy that their wealth and power are “deserved” and therefore untouchable.

          That the system is rigged so that every pitch is a gentle toss and every base hit becomes a home run is conveniently ignored.

          That doing nothing could lead to a one-way ticket to Devil’s Island issued by a revolutionary government doesn’t compute. That they could soon be fighting over the MREs occasionally flung from aircraft doesn’t penetrate their hubris-soaked echo chamber of entitlement. The task of saving their own class falls thanklessly to the leadership.

          Policies that would have been rejected out of hand as politically impossible become normalized as leaders rush to stave off revolution. The historical path from complacency to denial to policy extremes is well-worn: first the leadership tries the sunshine and unicorns cover story. When this fails to satisfy the disenfranchised mob, the leaders issue grand sounding edicts that suggest “hope and change” is right around the corner.

          Once this well-used ploy fails to quench the social distemper, then the leaders accept that “when things get serious, you have to lie,” and so they lie, at first to cool the ugly sentiment and then to buy time.

          Eventually, some real action has to be taken, and then it gets dicey. There are mistakes to be made in any policy choice: doing nothing can trigger disaster, but so can doing too little or too much. The luxury of calibrating a response is no longer available, and so extreme policies are thrown at the wall until something sticks.

          Those who counseled caution are cashiered, for their advice led to the current crisis. Those who counseled radical responses are elevated and freed to unleash whatever they claim will work like magic.

          But alas, by this late stage, magic is in short supply, and extreme policies set off second-order consequences no one anticipated, except perhaps those overly cautious voices who did not understand that the option of good choices had long since dissipated, and the only options left were bad or possibly worse than merely bad.

          The extremes of wealth-power asymmetries that generated the crisis are eventually matched by equally extreme policies designed to stave off the overthrow of the ruling elites. If these actually rebalance what was allowed to drift out of balance, order and stability can slowly be restored.

          If the leadership chooses happy-story PR and toothless reforms for show in the hopes it will all blow over, these subterfuges have the potential to push dissatisfaction beyond the point of control, and predictions about the next stage of events become folly: beyond this event horizon, anything becomes possible.

          *  *  *

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          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:40

        • Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks
          Moscow Accuses Hunter Biden-Linked Company Burisma Of Financing Terror Attacks

          Russia says it has uncovered more damning evidence connecting the US and NATO to recent terror and assassination campaigns in Russia, including making connections to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack which resulted in over 140 Russians dead and hundreds more wounded and injured.

          Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is the country’s top investigative body, announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal probe into senior US and Western officials who are believed to be “financing terrorism”. 

          The formal statement claims that an ongoing investigation has “established” that money from commercial organizations tied to NATO were used to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia, as well as to “inflict economic damage” against the country. Lately there’s also been a spate of devastating cross-border attacks on refineries, ports, and oil facilities.

          President Biden has long been under scrutiny centered on alleged corruption involving him and his son, Hunter Biden. via AP

          Another major event and probe which is high on the Kremlin’s agenda is the August 20, 2022 assassination of Darya Dugina outside of Moscow, in a car bombing which authorities believe was likely intended to kill her father, Alexander Dugin, prominent philosopher and pundit who is seen as a close ally of President Putin. There’s also the assassination of famous pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, killed in an April 2023 cafe bombing in St. Petersburg..

          While it is nothing new that Russian officials would raise suspicions that such targeted attacks had covert NATO support, whether directly or indirectly, what is new – and a bit surprising – is that the name Burisma Holdings appears in the fresh statement of the Russian Investigative Committee. 

          This name is of course very familiar and notorious in the West, as AFP and Moscow Times report Tuesday:

          The top law enforcement body named the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the implicated organizations. U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden served as a member of Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019.

          His role has fueled Republican accusations against the Biden family over claimed corruption and culminated in an ongoing impeachment probe in U.S. Congress. Hunter Biden has denied any wrongdoing, and a former FBI informant was arrested in February on suspicion of fabricating accusations against the president’s family.

          The Russian investigative body described that it is still examining “sources and movement of several million U.S. dollars and the involvement of specific persons from government officials and public commercial organizations of Western countries.”

          It said further it is seeking to expose “links of the direct perpetrators of terrorist acts with their foreign curators, organizations and sponsors” — however without naming specific countries or specific terror attack or assassinations (other than identifying Burisma).

          Just like with US media over the past several years, Burisma has been featured prominently in Russian state media reporting. Below is the precise section from Tuesday’s official statement naming Burisma (according to machine translation):

          It has been established that funds received through commercial organizations, in particular, the oil and gas company Burisma Holdings, operating in Ukraine, have been used in recent years to carry out terrorist acts in the Russian Federation, as well as beyond its borders in order to eliminate prominent political and public figures and causing economic damage. —Russian Investigative Committee

          This marks a first over the course of the more than two year long Russia-Ukraine war. Recently, Ukraine has stepped up its cross-border drone and missile attack on Russian soil. Moscow has all along complained that these attacks are sophisticated and long-range enough (with long-range attacks especially wreaking havoc on Russian oil facilities) that they must have CIA or Western intelligence help. 

          Conservative media was abuzz Tuesday after a familiar name resurfaced, this time over alleged links to terror financing…

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

          It appears that the Kremlin is now not just pointing the finger at Western governments, but at commercial entities within Ukraine which have long established Western business ties. It seems the theory is that companies like Burisma are continuing to play a ‘middle man’ role in term of ‘terror financing’ for attacks on Russian soil.

          Washington has repeatedly rejected Russian allegations that the US is involved in these attacks. Yet as we’ve recently detailed, more and more US mainstream media reporting has of late been offering surprising clarity on the CIA’s role in assisting Ukraine with mounting high-risk cross border attacks on Russian soil of late.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:20

        • David Hogg Group Hit With Allegations Over Spending Practices And Policies
          David Hogg Group Hit With Allegations Over Spending Practices And Policies

          Authored by Jonathan Turley,

          Gun control activist David Hogg has been hit with allegations over the spending practices of his group Leaders We Deserve PAC. Conservative outlets are reporting that the group spent comparably little on actual candidates as opposed to travel and expenses. His prior counsel is a familiar name in such controversies in Washington: former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias.

          (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

          Hogg created a group in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections to elect Generation Z politicians to offices throughout the country. The group was given favorable national coverage in major media outlets. He explained that contributions would be used to elect young Democrat candidates:

          “[We’re] trying to pick them and say, you know, we would like to help you run for office, we’ll supply you with all of the resources that you need and help basically coach you and hold your hand to get there, which is kind of the gap that’s in the space right now, for at least young people at the state legislative level.”

          Federal filings reportedly show that year-end 2023, Leaders We Deserve raised over $3 million. That is impressive for its first year in operation.

          The conservative sites allege that the group spent “only about $263,000 on its stated mission of electing candidates from Generation Z to office combined with donations to other Democrat Party committees and groups—and instead spent more than $1.4 million on disbursements to themselves for payroll and to political consulting firms and legal fees, in addition to travel and entertainment expenses like hotels, flights, and meals.”

          However, it spent reportedly spent more than $1,314,000 on travel and related expenses while giving $80,000 to the Elias Law Group.

          Previously, when allegations of self-dealing and accounting improprieties were raised with regard to Black Lives Matter, the group’s attorney, Elias, immediately stood out for many. Elias resigned from his “key role” with BLM as the scandal exploded.

          (MSNBC/via YouTube)

          Elias’s name has now again popped up in the controversy involving Hogg, who is accused of raising millions to support liberal candidates but allegedly spending only $263,000 on such candidates while paying $83,000 to the Elias law firm. (These figures are reportedly from federal filings but neither Elias nor Hogg have specifically addressed the media reports).

          Elias has long been a controversial figure, including being sanctioned in court. He was named as the key figure in hiding the funding of the Steele dossier by the Clinton campaign, which led later to a FEC fine. Reporters accused the campaign of lying to them about the funding. Elias was also reportedly with campaign chair John Podesta when he allegedly denied such funding to congressional investigators.

          Despite accusing the GOP of election denial and manipulation, Elias was also involved in alleged gerrymandering efforts and challenging the outcome of elections based on alleged problems with voting machine tallies.

          Back to the most recent controversy, Hogg could argue that, as a well known activist figure, his travel to these campaigns is the boost that the group promised donors. He is the assistance. Likewise, the group could argue that it is still getting ramped up for greater spending efforts in the fall. As for the legal fees, the group could argue that start up legal fees and reporting fees tend to be higher at the outset.

          The controversy does raise some novel questions about the purpose of contributions. Hogg coming to a local campaign is likely to generate media attention for a candidate. He can also claim that he and his staff bring needed expertise and advice to novice or young candidates. That could be their interpretation of the promise to “basically coach you and hold your hand to get there.” Critics are focused on the pitch to “supply you with all of the resources that you need.”

          The group is only the latest political or business effort launched by Hogg, who previously tried to start a “progressive pillow company” before stepping away from the enterprise.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 19:00

        • What Do They Know: Goldman, Amex Quietly Cut Rates On Savings Accounts… Is The Fed Next?
          What Do They Know: Goldman, Amex Quietly Cut Rates On Savings Accounts… Is The Fed Next?

          It is not a secret that the biggest market debate of 2024 is when – and even if – the Fed will cut rates: after all, with the US labor force adding hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, and core CPI bubbling along at a blistering hot ~4% pace, many – such as Larry Sanders and even Neel Kashkari – are warning that the Fed does not need to cut rates (in fact, a rate hike may be prudent). On the other hand, we have a growing roster of Democrat politicians (most notably Senator Elizabeth “Pokarenhontas” Warren) demanding Powell cuts rates to “help address the affordable housing crisis” and also reduce the record high credit card APRs for their voters.

          It’s not just the politicians: the dovish Fed itself in its latest dot plot indicated that it still expects to cut rates 3 times in 2024, a schedule which – when accounting for the November elections – would mean the Fed has to start cutting in June if it wishes to avoid delaying the start of the easing cycle and also avoid the impression that it is hoping to influence the outcome of the presidential elections (much to the chagrin of Bill Dudley who wrote a 2019 op-ed demanding Powell do just that).

          Yet even as the market has recently taken a machete to its own dovish expectations, and after pricing in more than 6 rate cuts in 2024 at the start of the year, has since trimmed its forecast to less than 3 full cuts…

          … or even fewer than the Fed has telegraphed…

          … suggesting that the market is convinced that the Fed is wrong, the economy will run hotter than expected, and Powell will be forced to delay, or even scrap, the easing cycle.

          But maybe not, because while signs mounts – especially in the realm of higher commodity prices – that a June cut is a pipe dream, some financial institutions are aggressively taking matters into their own hands: consider that in the last week, not one but two financial giants, have quietly cut the interest rate they pay on their “high yield” savings accounts, a step that usually takes place just around the time they are dead certain the Fed will cut rates or right after.

          We are talking about Goldman and American Express: starting with the former, last Wednesday, Goldman’s consumer bank Marcus lowered the rate on its high-yield savings account for the first time in more than three years, trimming the APR on the bank’s flagship product to 4.4%, down from 4.5% in March. It was the first cut since November 2020, when Goldman lowered the rate from 0.6% to 0.5%.

          “Our current rate places us ahead of the majority of our peers,” a Goldman spokesperson told Bloomberg in an email when asked to explain the rate cut. “We will continue to focus on providing value to our customers and growing our Marcus deposits business which is a priority for the firm.”

          Well, you can only keep growing deposits if the rate cut does not lead to deposit outflows… which can only happen if Goldman knows that everyone else is also about to cut rates, following in the footsteps of the Fed

          And then moments ago, doubling down on the clear dovish trend that is suddenly sweeping banks for “reasons unknown”, American Express did the same, when it cut the rate on its High Yield Savings Account to 4.30% from 4.35%.

          Or maybe the cuts are not for “reasons unknown”: maybe the banks realize that they can start cutting rates because soon everyone else will do the same for one simple reason: the Fed will fire the starting pistol to an easing cycle so many believe will start momentarily.

          As Bloomberg notes, the move signals that financial institutions are on alert for when they can lower interest rates for individuals, and the fact that not one but two of the biggest players in the game just did that, should be enough to raise a lot of eyebrows about the Fed’s rate cutting plans…

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:58

        • Over 500,000 Democratic Voters Have Cast Primary Protest Votes Against Biden
          Over 500,000 Democratic Voters Have Cast Primary Protest Votes Against Biden

          There are clear indicators that large swathes of prior Biden voters don’t intend to vote for him this next time around versus Trump. The latest example is that the “uncommitted” campaign is gaining steam, having garnered the support of more than a half-million Democrat voters.

          The initiative organized by dissident Democrats outraged over President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war has sent a powerful shot across the bow of his presidential campaign, and the movement didn’t even exist at the start of the 2024 primary season. Yet The Nation says that so far in total 530,502 people have voted “uncommitted” or “uninstructed” where it’s available on the ballot.

          Anadolu/Getty Images

          The initiative was first implemented in the key swing state of Michigan, resulting in over 100,000 people there registering their vote as “uncommitted”. The state has a huge Arab and Muslim demographic.

          The Nation has documented that the movement is spreading fast, and it should be a huge worry for Biden campaign strategists: 

          The campaign has won enough votes to secure Democratic National Convention delegates from Minnesota (14), Hawaii (7), Michigan (2), and, according to local news reports, Washington (2). And notable levels of support for the effort in must-win battleground states such as Wisconsin signal that the president’s campaign cannot neglect the fact that a substantial portion of the base that must be mobilized this fall is crying out for the United States to back an immediate, permanent cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel’s assault has cost more than 33,000 lives.

          According to more from AntiWar.com, which has been closely following the movement:

          Last week, 48,091 votes were cast for “uninstructed” in the Wisconsin primary. The turnout far exceeded organizers’ expectations, as their goal was to secure 20,682, the margin of victory for Biden in Wisconsin for the 2020 election.

          The opposition to Biden was strongest in the area of Wisconsin where University of Wisconsin–Madison students reside, historically a Democratic stronghold. In that area, 30% of voters cast ballots for “uncommitted,” something Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) called “a big, f**king deal.”

          Meanwhile, there’s also been an intensifying divide among Democrats over whether to halt defense aid to Israel,  a debate which only intensified in the wake of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza, which left seven international workers dead, including an American.

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

          This increased fragmentation of Biden’s base has been on display in recent days too, given former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – still very influential among Dems – has publicly come out against Biden’s policy to continue arming Israel. The issue is entering the heart of the Democratic establishment, threatening unity.

          Axios reported that she “signed onto a call by progressive members of Congress for the U.S. to stop transferring weapons to Israel over a strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza.”

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:40

        • Illegal Immigrant With 7 Deportations And 11 Arrests Charged With Murder
          Illegal Immigrant With 7 Deportations And 11 Arrests Charged With Murder

          Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

          An illegal immigrant who had been deported seven times and arrested 11 times was charged with aggravated murder after an unidentified body was found in Ohio, according to local authorities.

          A man in handcuffs in a file photo. (Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images)

          Police found the body in Hamilton on Monday after responding to a 911 call. Investigators interviewed suspect Fermin Garcia-Gutierrez the following day.

          Butler County Sheriff’s Office stated that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez, a 46-year-old Mexican national, was detained on an ICE holder and held in the Butler County Jail for weapon charges, aggravated murder, and drug possession.

          Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez had previously been deported and arrested multiple times using seven different names and three different birth dates.

          “Who knows how many people this guy has been involved in and has killed? Here in the United States, in our jail, he’s had two or three weapons charges, he’s had domestic violence [charges] … driving while intoxicated.

          “We don’t know how many he’s killed in Mexico,” Mr. Jones said at a press conference.

          Mr. Jones also blamed the Biden administration for the surge in illegal crossings at the U.S.–Mexico border.

          “Our border is broken, and these individuals are the cause of it,” he said. “We’ve got to stop this border invasion, it’s killing us and its killing innocent people.”

          The Hamilton Police Department is continuing its investigation into the murder case, according to Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

          Border Patrol has encountered more than 7.6 million illegal immigrants trying to cross the border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

          Former federal officials and experts have said in the past that there is a real possibility that hundreds of people on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist have slipped into the United States among the millions of other illegal immigrants over the past three years.

          Both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Border Patrol’s former chief, Rodney Scott, have been sounding the alarm about the state of U.S. borders amid an increasing number of known criminals and terror suspects being caught trying to enter the United States.

          Customs and Border Protection data show that in fiscal year 2023, which ended in October 2023, Border Patrol agents apprehended 172 people on the watchlist from along the southwest border. However, when all ports of entry are added, the total number rises to 736. Some illegal immigrants were also caught with explosives.

          U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens has previously called for stricter immigration policies to deter illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border with Mexico, including imposing jail time for violators.

          Mr. Owens also suggested reviewing the country’s asylum laws to ensure that only migrants with legitimate claims will be allowed to seek asylum in the United States. He thinks that if people know there will be a consequence for breaking the law and entering the country illegally, they’ll be less likely to do it.

          Stephen Katte contributed to this report.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:20

        • Scandal Rocks Biden's Labor Dept For Lying About Sharing Non-Public Inflation Data With Secret Group Of Wall Street "Super Users"
          Scandal Rocks Biden’s Labor Dept For Lying About Sharing Non-Public Inflation Data With Secret Group Of Wall Street “Super Users”

          A little over a month ago, a scandal erupted among the (relatively small( group of economists who keep a close eye on the monthly inflation data reported by the Biden Department of Labor, when they learned that there is an even smaller, and much more exclusive group of economists called “super users” who get preferential treatment from the BLS, including wink-wink-nudge-nudge explanations of where the data may diverge from expectations. That was the case for the January CPI when as Bloomberg first reported, the BLS sent an email to a group of data “super users”, which “explained suggested a surge in a measure of rental inflation — which left analysts puzzled — was caused by an adjustment to how subcomponents of the index are weighted”:

          Once it became public knowledge that there was a super secret group of preferential “accounts” receiving economic data, immediately following the Bloomberg report, a recipient of the email said that BLS Statistics “tried to retract it and that they were told to disregard its contents.” Almost as if they were trying to hide it after the fact.

          In retrospect, it appears the BLS really did have something to hide, because in a follow up from both the NYT and Bloomberg, we now learn that an economist from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was corresponding on data related the monthly CPI print with major firms like JPMorgan and BlackRock, in what Bloomberg said “raised questions about equitable access to economic information.”

          Extending on the report from February, records requested by Bloomberg revealed that the unnamed BLS economist answered numerous inquiries about details within the CPI in recent months, mostly related to computations in key categories within shelter as well as used cars, according to

          The back and forth between the financial firms and the economist “who has been with the BLS for many years” was first reported by the New York Times;  as discussed previously, the government bureaucrat sent several emails to a broader group, which he called “my super users” in one of the emails obtained by Bloomberg. The BLS previously lied when it said it doesn’t maintain a list of “super users.”

          In mid-February, one user asked if they could be added to the “super user email list,” to which the BLS economist replied minutes later, “Yes I can add you to the list.” The move was an attempt by the lowly paid government worker to curry favor with his much better paid peers on the sell- and buyside so that he could, one day, trade the preferential data access for a cushier job in some hedge fund or Wall Street firm.

          As Bloomberg details, while the recipients’ names were redacted from the request, email signature details or disclosures from their employers were visible in some of the provided records. And in addition to BlackRock and JPMorgan, other banks, hedge funds and research firms — Brevan Howard, Millennium Capital Partners LLP, Citadel, Moore Capital Management, High Frequency Economics, Nomura Securities International and BNP Paribas — appeared in the exchanges and declined to comment. Pharo Management and Wolfe Research also came up in the emails but didn’t provide comment.

          Understandably, economists – at least those who were not important enough to be on the “super user” list – have been clamoring to find out more about these “super users” are after the BLS staffer addressed an email to those people in February, suggesting that a change to the weights of underlying data within a key measure of rental inflation was behind its surge in January’s CPI. As we reported at the time, the BLS told recipients to disregard its contents, and subsequently tried to clear the confusion with a notice on its website. The agency also said that the email was “a mistake.”

          But, as noted above, we now know that this was merely the latest lie by a Biden agency; and so this latest revelation “is likely to prompt a deeper look at the dissemination of economic information that has implications for how major assets trade as well as Federal Reserve policy.”

          The BLS encourages people to ask questions and makes its staff available to engage with the public, but they strive to create equal access to information for everyone, said Emily Liddel, associate commissioner for publications and special studies at the BLS. Clearly, granting access only to Wall Street giants is not quite the equitable treatment the agency’s woke DEI staffers envisioned.

          “Obviously this has been an embarrassment for the agency,” Liddel said. “The public puts a lot of trust in us to be fair, and our data providers put a lot of trust in us for the data to be secure. It’s our goal to repair that trust.”

          And while the BLS economist often pointed users to relevant links on the agency’s website, at least one case, he shared information that wasn’t publicly available at the time, related to the calculation for the used cars index within the CPI. Liddel said it is “still under review” whether the employee shared other nonpublic information, and that the issues appear to be isolated to this one staffer. He is not answering incoming user questions at this time, she said.

          * * *

          While it remains unclear who the economist is, the NYT reported that emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the agency — or at least the economist who sent the original email, a longtime but relatively low-ranking employee — was in regular communication with data users in the finance industry, apparently including analysts at major hedge funds. And they suggest that there was a list of super users, contrary to the agency’s denials.

          At the time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the email had been an isolated “mistake” and denied that it maintained a list of users who received special access to information.

          And while there is no evidence (yet) that the employee provided early access to coming statistical releases or directly shared other data that wasn’t available to the public, in several instances, the employee did engage in extended, one-on-one email exchanges with data users about how the inflation figures are put together. Such details, though highly technical, can be of significant interest to forecasters, who compete to predict inflation figures to hundredths of a percentage point. Those estimates, in turn, are used by investors making bets on the huge batches of securities that are tied to inflation or interest rates.

          Analysts regularly interact with government economists to make sure that they understand the data, but “when such access can move markets, the process for that access needs to be transparent,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project in Washington. “This stuff is so valuable, and then someone just emails it out.”

          In at least one case, emails to super users appear to have shared methodological details that were not yet public. On Jan. 31, the employee sent an email to his super users describing coming changes to the way the agency calculates used car prices, at the time a crucial issue for inflation watchers. The email included a three-page document providing detailed answers to questions about the change, and a spreadsheet showing how they would affect calculations.

          “Thank you all for your very difficult, challenging and thoughtful questions,” the email said. “It is your questions that help us flesh out all the potential problems.”

          The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the change in a news release in early January, but did not publish details about it on its website until mid-February, two weeks after the email from the employee.

          It isn’t clear when the employee began providing information to super users, or whether he was the only economist at the agency to do so. Several of his emails were also sent to an internal Bureau of Labor Statistics email alias, suggesting that he did not believe his actions to be inappropriate… or he was simply an idiot.

          The super users issue came to light in February, when the employee emailed the group saying that he had identified a technical change that explained an unexpected divergence between rental and homeownership costs in a recent data release. “All of you searching for the source of the divergence have found it,” he wrote.

          About an hour and a half after that email went out, a follow-up told recipients to disregard it. In a subsequent online presentation, Bureau of Labor Statistics economists presented evidence that the change identified in the employee’s email was not, in fact, the source of the divergence.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 18:00

        • Who Should Compete In Women's Sports?
          Who Should Compete In Women’s Sports?

          Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClear Politics,

          “What is a woman?” “Can a man get pregnant?” Questions like those are frequently raised at Senate hearings for progressive nominees to the federal bench or Cabinet positions. Republicans pose them for a reason. They know the witnesses will fumble the answers.

          Some try to wriggle out with circumlocutions, offering only convoluted mumbling. That works brilliantly for French academic articles but not so well for U.S. Senate hearings. Other witnesses, mostly judicial nominees, claim they cannot answer because the questions might come before them in future cases. They breathe a sigh of relief since their real motto is “Loose lips sink ships.”

          Often, Republicans discover the witnesses have already proclaimed their views in opinion pieces, social media posts, or academic articles when they were appealing to like-minded audiences on the left. When the audience is more skeptical, however, they are less eager to repeat those answers or to defend them.

          Progressive witnesses may not have answers, but ordinary voters certainly do. They tell pollsters that men cannot get pregnant. Shocking, I know. They think it is ludicrous to place tampons in men’s bathrooms, which some universities and elite high schools do now.

          The question of “who is a woman?” is more vexed. The reason is that common sense and cultural tradition point in one direction (“he was born a male and that’s what he is”) but those are opposed by another tradition: our respect for human autonomy. The Western values of human autonomy and deference for individual choices mean we normally acknowledge an adult’s self-identification. (Here is a hard question, though. If my autonomy is to be respected on issues of self-identification, why can’t I simply identify myself as an African American or Native American, even if there is no DNA evidence of that identity? Why shouldn’t that be my choice, just like gender? Yet self-identification as a racial minority without that bloodline is fiercely condemned as a malicious fraud. Just ask Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal, or Ward Churchill.)

          These issues are far from settled politically. If an adult male identifies as a woman, many people say, “So be it. Live and let live.” Others are more dubious. Still others reject it outright.

          What most people agree on, finally, is that children should not be subjected to irreversible biological procedures or medications. That’s child abuse. It took U.S. hospitals several years to reach that conclusion and end those profitable operations, probably because their lawyers pushed them to stop. In years to come, you can expect lawsuits by adults who will claim they were mutilated as children when they were too young to give informed consent. They will say their parents, doctors, and hospitals should be held liable for the damage they caused. Dial 1-800….

          Some of these issues were on the table again this week in Wisconsin. The state legislature in Madison passed a law protecting biological women (the fashionable term is “cis-women”) from competing against transgender women in sports. The governor, a progressive Democrat, promptly vetoed the bill.

          Why he exercised that veto is an interesting question. It’s certainly not because there are many transgender voters, even if we include their supportive families and friends. The real reason is that the issue has been folded into the gaping ideological divide between progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans. The governor did not want to risk being caught on the wrong side of that fault line, alienated from his political base. He may also believe, quite sincerely, that the veto was the ethical thing to do.  It’s always hard to separate a politician’s ethical principles, if there are any, from hard-nosed calculations.

          Feminists are a vital part of the progressive base in every state, including Wisconsin. What’s so striking here – amazing, really – is how silent most feminists have been about transgender competition in women’s sports. Although a few have spoken out, nearly all have remained silent, probably because they do not want to be excoriated for their views or outflanked by those claiming to be more progressive.

          Note that the issue here is not whether a biological male who now identifies as a woman can compete in sports. Of course she can. The issue is whether she (formerly a “he”) should be allowed to compete against biological women.

          There are really two basic questions at play. One is whether the inclusion of transgender women poses any physical danger to biological women. In contact sports, it might. Indeed, some injuries have already occurred.

          The larger, more profound issue is whether this competition would be fundamentally unfair. That ethical standard applies to any sport where strength and body composition matter, even if there is no threat of injury.

          Take golf.

          The easiest way to think about transgender women in sports is to ask yourself, “Should all golfers, both men and women, be grouped together in the same tournaments, competing on equal terms?”

          Put differently, should there be women’s golf tournaments at all? If the answer is “Yes, there should be a separate competition for women,” then ask yourself why? Surely that’s because men can hit the ball much farther, putting women at a severe disadvantage. If that’s the reason, doesn’t it apply equally to transgender women, who can hit the ball much farther than biological women?

          This difference in physical strength matters in many sports, from swimming to weight-lifting, from bowling to track and field. Currently, there are single-gender tournaments in all of them. That includes every Olympic event except one equestrian competition. But why continue this sex segregation? If you think transgender women should compete against other women in those sports, despite their marked differences in strength, what is your rationale for any single-gender competition?

          And what is your rationale for prohibiting testosterone supplements for biological females? Allowing them would actually level the playing field since transgender women already have that male hormone.

          These arguments are not meant to degrade transgender men or women. They are not about respect for them as persons. They do not imply, for instance, that adults shouldn’t be able to identify as a gender different from their biological sex at birth.

          Respect for individuals and their self-identification is not the point here. The point is to call out unfair competition, condemn it, and stop it. That can happen only if people slip off their ideological blinders, at least for a moment, and face the issue squarely. Honestly.

          Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.

          Tyler Durden
          Tue, 04/09/2024 – 17:40

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