• The Geopolitics Of World War III
  The Geopolitics Of World War III

  Authored by Michael Hochberg & Leonard Hochberg via RealClearWire.com,

  Introduction

  On January 2, 2024, Foreign Minister Israel Katz proclaimed “We’re in the middle of World War III against Iran [led] radical Islam, whose tentacles are already in Europe.”   He claimed that Israel, in engaging in a war against Hamas and other Iranian proxies, was defending “everyone.” Although his rhetoric may seem overblown to many in the United States and Europe, it should not be dismissed out of hand.  Sometimes, regional conflicts, such as the Japanese conquest of Manchuria of 1931-32 or the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, foreshadow dangers that are more geographically extensive and militarily intense.  Do the barbaric events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza prefigure a broader, global armed conflict?  Or is this merely a local conflict, one that is likely unresolvable short of one side or the other engaging in genocide or ethnic cleansing? 

  We have written this paper in a specific context. Over thirty months ago we made a geopolitical prediction regarding the emergence of a global conflict with four fronts.  However, social scientists rarely test their theories by predicting future political events.  Who wants to be characterized as a Jonah or a Cassandra?  As one eminent strategist argued, the future of war (in detail) is unknowable.  And, with perhaps one notable exception, social scientists rarely engage, on a routine basis, in disprovable prediction.  Without predictive tools, social scientists and strategists must rely on intuition, a knowledge of history, and good theories—all of which are often in short supply.

  

  A Four-Front Global War?

  On the anniversary of D-day, June 6, 2021, The Hill posted our paper, “Could the United States Fight a Four Front War? Not Today.”  We predicted that several autocratic powers would launch “simultaneous challenges” designed to diminish the power and influence of the United States.  These seemingly distinct conflicts, when viewed from the perspective of Halford Mackinder’s Heartland thesis, should be perceived as separate fronts of a single war by autocratic, territorial powers – either in close cooperation or piggybacking on one or another’s challenge to the established order – on the dominance of the United States and its maritime partners and allies situated along the Eurasian littoral.  We argued that the United States should rebuild its naval capacity, and by implication its military industrial capacity more generally.  Specifically, we wrote: “If we are to avoid a multi-front war, the United States must be ready to fight and win conventional conflicts in several places simultaneously and must invest in strengthening our allies’ ability to defend themselves.”

  Written on the eve of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, August 31, 2021, our paper suggested that Vladimir Putin’s Russia might once again attack Ukraine to complete the conquest it had initiated in 2014 and thereby dominate the northern littoral of the Black Sea from Crimea to Moldova. To wit:

  Russia continues to threaten Ukraine, aiming to consolidate its conquest of Crimea. When Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arms, the U.S. guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Russia has eloquently demonstrated the low value of such guarantees.

  Regarding Iran, we argued that:

  Rogue autocratic regimes are a growing threat. Iran sponsors Houthi rebels in Yemen, stokes Shi’ite discontent in the Gulf States and Iraq, dominates Lebanon and Syria through Hezbollah, and threatens shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz. Iran, through its many proxies throughout the Middle East, would seek to dominate the region and instigate further attacks by Hamas on Israel. 

  Communist China, a new peer adversary for the United States, would be tempted to pile on, seeking to reunify Taiwan with the Mainland as a preliminary to securing control over the South China and East China Seas:

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping has declared that Taiwan will be incorporated into China, by force if necessary. China is building a capacity to invade or blockade Taiwan, threatening U.S. reliance on Taiwan for advanced electronics, semiconductors, and as a port to contain Chinese ambitions in the Pacific.

  Our intuition suggested that the current administration was squandering a key strategic asset, specifically the deterrence required to cause leaders of autocracies across Eurasia to refrain from testing the resolve of the United States.  More recently, we introduced the concept of ‘distributed deterrence’ as a strategy that the United States could leverage to generate more effective deterrence both quickly and inexpensively.

  We offered these predictions in the hope that Western policy makers would strengthen the defenses of our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and that as a result, deterrence would win the day.  In effect, we were hoping to be proven wrong, as policy makers considered the dangers of a multi-front war in their planning.  Unfortunately, events have begun to unfold as we predicted, because the United States did not act in a timely way to adequately reinforce, train, and support our allies.

  Taking Stock

  After 30 months, we believe it is now necessary to take stock of our prediction.  To do so is not merely to provide a checklist of what we got right or wrong, but more significantly to offer an assessment of how our understanding of the strategic history of Eurasian autocracies led to these predictions.

  The Ukraine Front

  The 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine resulted in the conquest of Donbas – a territory along the eastern Ukrainian border with Russia – and the Crimea.  These areas were inhabited largely by ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, though some of them certainly had no desire to be ruled from Moscow.  Putin justified this attack as a response to Ukraine’s assault on a population that wished to remain Russian, in a cultural, linguistic, and ethnic sense.  The Russian failure to capture a land bridge to Crimea from its conquests in Donbas strongly suggested that another campaign would have to be launched to consolidate territory, provide another supply route to Crimea, and forestall a Ukrainian bid to enter the EU and NATO (here, here, here, and here). 

  After Russia renewed its war in Ukraine on February 22, 2022, many Western pundits began to speculate on how this second phase would end.  The Russian drive on Kiev, designed to conquer the Ukraine capital, stalled, and then was turned back.  Ukraine forces launched successful counter attacks in the east and south, reconquering some lost territory and fueling a sense that a Ukrainian victory might soon be possible.  Meanwhile, as the United States became more committed to the Ukraine cause, few commentators offered an assessment of what the United States should seek as an outcome in line with its own interests, and what means should be deployed in order to generate such an outcome.  We indicated that there were essentially three geostrategic outcomes (here, here, and here) that should be considered: Sell out Ukraine to turn Russia from an ally of China into a client of the United States, secure a rapid Ukraine victory that would reinforce the international rules based order, or allow a stalemate to emerge that would grind down the Russian military machine.  After explaining the pros and cons for each, we argued that the most desirable outcome, from an American strategic perspective, was a rapid Ukrainian victory that would result in Ukraine retaking both the Russian naval base in Sevastopol and the Crimean bridgehead.  Regardless of the feasibility of reconquering Crimea, the destruction of the Russian Black Sea fleet is highly desirable.

  To achieve this goal, the United States had to quickly supply Ukraine with advanced conventional military equipment, including long range missiles that would enable Ukraine’s forces to attack not only the logistics centers deep in Russian territory but also the Russian Navy.  Instead, the Biden administration has released ever more advanced equipment, haltingly and in dribs and drabs, which did not permit the Ukrainian troops to expel Russian forces from Donbas.  What weapons were provided were in many cases deliberately crippled so that they could not be used against Russian territory.  Extensive public discussions have preceded the delivery of advanced weapons systems, which has made it impossible for the Ukrainians to achieve surprise.   Instead of a rapid Ukrainian advance, the current position is one of stalemate, with trial balloons being released for diplomacy (here, here, and here) to restore (a faux) peace to Ukraine.  Initiating talks with Putin at this moment, when he has mobilized more manpower and is negotiating the purchase of weapons from Iran and China, signals Western weakness while emboldening enemies of the United States and disheartening Western allies across Eurasia.  With a significantly larger economy and population base than Ukraine, and with the ability to operate from a geographic shelter where they cannot be attacked, Russia has marked advantages in a long-war scenario.  If Russian propaganda and Western impatience can undermine Western popular support for Ukraine, even maintaining the current stalemate may become impracticable for the Ukrainians.  A steady and assured flow of Western support, including the provision of advanced systems is a necessity for the continued viability of the Ukrainian war effort. 

  Hamas-Israel Front

  Israel, the United States’ foremost ally in the Middle East, has once again come under attack by Hamas.  In a recent post, we argue that Hamas attacked Israel on the behalf of Iran to derail the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arabic Muslim countries including, most notably, an upcoming negotiation with Saudi Arabia.  Such was the short-term occasion for the attack; over the medium run, Iran had engaged in a geostrategy of proxy encirclement, at two different scales: the local encirclement of Israel and a wider regional encirclement of Saudi Arabia.

  Across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia faces adversaries: Iran and its clients and proxies across the Fertile Crescent – that is the lands from Iraq, through Syria, and on to the eastern Mediterranean coast in Lebanon – and in Yemen, to the south of Saudi Arabia, where the Houthis have launched rockets attacking Saudi pipelines.  Furthermore, Iran has become deeply involved in the civil war in Sudan and has cooperated extensively with Qatar.  Both are major supporters of Hamas, and Iran backed Qatar during the crisis in Qatari relations with Saudi Arabia in 2017.   In addition to this geographically extensive encirclement of Saudi Arabia, there is ongoing effort to encircle Israel: To the North, Iranian proxies in Lebanon (i.e., Hezbollah) and, across the Golan Heights, the client state of Alawite Syria; to the east, the Palestinians in the territories of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority; in Israel, the Arab Israelis as a potential fifth column; and, to the west, in Gaza, the terror group, Hamas.  An Israeli tie to Saudi Arabia would have provided Israel with legitimacy in the Arab Muslim world and, should the Iranians launch an attack on Saudi Arabia or Israel, shared intelligence, technology, and expertise could have contributed to mutual defense.  For the foreseeable future, while the war in Gaza continues, negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to yield any public results.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet recognized in the aftermath of the slaughter of October 7, 2023 that Hamas and Gazan civilians were inspired by a culture of hatred to commit acts of barbarism (here, here, and here) – rape, beheadings, mutilation, kidnappings, etc. – previously deployed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. To respond to this attack along the Gaza frontier, and to cope with the threats emerging on the northern border, on the Golan, and in the West Bank, Israel called up 300,000 reservists.  As of October 8, 2023, Israel’s standing army numbered 169,500, with the reserves numbering 465,000.  This call-up has deleterious economic consequences:  According to the Times of India, “JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicts that Israel’s economy may shrink 11% on an annualized basis in the last three months of the year due to the ongoing conflict with Hamas.”  The longer this war goes on, the greater the economic disruption.  The longer the desired political and military outcome, eliminating Hamas in Gaza, remains in doubt, the greater the likelihood that Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies will enter the fray in a significant fashion.  For Israel, deterrence, once lost in Gaza, must be forcefully and unambiguously restored, or its many regional enemies, including the Palestinians on the West Bank and potentially Muslims in Israel itself, may be inspired to launch intifadas, insurrections, and attacks.  For Israel, the attack on 10/7 and its aftermath presented an existential threat, because it altered regional perceptions of the competence of the IDF (contra here).

  The Attack on International Shipping

  In our prediction, we suggested that the Iranian regime would once again disrupt maritime commerce by attacking international shipping that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.  On January 11, 2024, Iran announced the seizure of a Greek-owned oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, the waterway leading to the Strait of Hormuz.  It is too soon to tell if this event is a one-off or the opening of a campaign. 

  However, we did not perceive that the Iranians would prompt the Houthis to disrupt maritime commerce in the Bab al-Mandab, the strait connecting the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.  The Iranians have allegedly supplied the Houthis with advanced weaponry – missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles – for attacking Saudi pipelines and international shipping.  Although the Houthis’ claim to be attacking Israeli shipping in response to the Gaza war, the fact that most of the ships that have been attacked are owned by non-Israeli nationals and are not traveling to or from Israel suggests that these attacks are part of an ongoing Iranian effort to disrupt flows of commerce passing through the Middle East.  Such attacks are particularly harmful to the Egyptian regime, which derives an outsized portion of their revenues from canal fees and associated activity.  Identifying the geographic particular, the disruption at the Bab al-Mandab instead of at the Strait of Hormuz, proved elusive; however, we anticipated the Iranian intention. 

  Why did the Iranians turn to the Houthi proxy?  The Iranians may have become more risk averse, acting indirectly through the Houthis; attacks through proxies are less likely to generate repercussions or counterattacks at home, as they are deniable.  Meanwhile Iranian proxies are also engaged in repeatedly attacking U.S. outposts and military bases in Iraq and Syria, and most egregiously the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.  Iran has also issued a threat to attack shipping passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, presumably by mobilizing another proxy in Morocco.  Such geostrategic darts, for want of a better word, thrown at the United States and maritime commerce have demonstrated Iranian opposition to the Israeli war in Gaza and an intent to compromise the passage of shipping over the high seas.  It is unclear whether Iran’s leaders seek to drive the United States out of the Middle East, or whether they intend to draw the United States into a series of local counterinsurgencies against Iranian proxies, which would give Iran immense negotiating leverage.

  As of the writing of this essay, these attacks at the Bab al-Mandab have led the United States and the United Kingdom to attack the Houthis, but the maritime coalition has not, as yet, used military force against Iranian interests or facilities to reestablish deterrence with regard to the sponsors of these proxy attacks.  Certainly, these attacks serve to increase open-market prices for oil and gas; this helps Russian economic prospects.  Also, China is likely paying fixed prices for sanctioned Iranian oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz; this likely helps explain why the Red Sea is being closed (to all but Chinese and Russian aligned shipping) but Hormuz has thus far remained open.

  What is of utmost importance here is this: the earlier a prediction, the more difficult it is to specify the date and location of any adversarial event, particularly a military attack.  The fact that the Iranians have instigated attacks by Houthis at the Bab al Mandab instead of launching a campaign at Hormuz is less important than having correctly predicted Iran’s intentions amid a multi-front war.  We advanced the claim that the Iranians would once again disrupt international shipping, which they have done through a proxy.  Attacks at any major maritime choke point have consequences for supply chains across the world economy.    

  China and the Taiwan Front

  The jury is still out regarding a final geopolitical prediction:  Will Communist China resort to armed force to integrate Taiwan?  Recently, the Chinese regime has sent war ships into the seas near Taiwan to demonstrate a capacity to blockade that island.  In addition, Chinese fighter jets have tested Taiwanese aerial defenses, prompting Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng to state, in October of 2022, that “[We] will view any crossing of aerial entities (into Taiwan’s territorial airspace) as a first strike.”  Kuo-cheng subsequently threatened to respond with force. 

  CNN recently reported that President Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden, during their summit held near San Francisco on November 15, 2023, that “China’s preference was for peaceful reunification and laid out conditions under which use of force would be utilized.”  CNN failed to report on those conditions or may not have been privy to the specifics; nevertheless, CNN also reported that an unnamed U.S. official indicated that, when Biden suggested that “peace and stability” were U.S. goals for the region, “President Xi responded: Look, peace is all well and good, but at some point we need to move towards resolution more generally[.]” In the run up to the recent election in Taiwan, Beijing urged voters to choose “peace over war.”  The candidate who Beijing perceived as advocating for Taiwanese independence won, and now Xi may believe that China has to make good on the many threats (here, here, here, here, and here) issued regarding the Taiwan issue.

  Such threats should not be ignored; rather, they must be understood as occurring during an ongoing confrontation with the United States, one that could erupt into another front in a global war should the United States continue dealing ineffectively with the seemingly separate conflicts in Ukraine, the Levant, and at the Bab al-Mandab.  As our prediction indicated, the greater the number of fronts in this emerging global conflict, the more difficult it will be for the United States to prioritize where to send depleted treasure – due in part to the rising national debt – and scarce weaponry – due in part to the failure to maintain an adequate industrial base to produce military hardware. 

  Four Fronts, One War

  At this point, the Russo-Ukraine war, Hamas’ attack on Israel and the Israeli response, the Houthis’ war against international shipping, and the 100 or more Iranian proxy attacks on American outposts in the Middle East would all suggest that a multifront war has been launched.   Was this multi-front war coordinated, sequenced, or merely the result of opportunism? 

  Historians may one day be able to make a definitive determination.  For purposes of figuring out what to do next, this is a distinction without a difference: The perception among the enemies of the West is that the present moment is one in which they have an opportunity to exploit Western distraction and weakness.  What is known now is this: Russia, Iran and China have signed a series of bilateral economic agreements rendering their economies, including weapons acquisitions, more interdependent (here, here, here, here and here).  Such economic understandings often undergird emerging alliances. 

  For further evidence that the prediction of four fronts is in fact one war, consider the following mutually reinforcing consequences.  The shipments of Ukrainian exports through the Suez Canal have fallen off since the Houthis compromised transport that passes through the Bab al Mandab.  Ukraine’s financial ability to prosecute its war against Russia is thus being impaired.  Russian and Chinese freighters have reportedly been given a free pass through the Red Sea by the Houthis (here), a preferential policy conferring a time and distance advantage over competitors who, to avoid the war zone, transport their cargoes round the Cape of Good Hope to European markets.  Meanwhile, Russian Defense Ministry has reportedly announced a soon-to-be-signed, anti-American, and pro-multipolar pact with Iran.  Meanwhile, the delivery of U.S. military hardware to Ukraine and Israel reduces available equipment for Taiwan.

  Will Xi Jinping take advantage of America’s lack of preparedness for a multifront war across the Eurasian rimland?  For our prediction of a four-front war to be fully realized, Communist China would have to blockade or attack Taiwan even as these other conflicts take place, or in their immediate aftermath – once it becomes apparent that the United States lacks the will and/or the capability to respond effectively to yet another threat to the existing order.  At some point, these separate fronts may be perceived as a single world-wide war, though not, as the Israeli Foreign Minister claimed, a world war between the West and radical Islam.  Instead, this world-wide four-front war should be perceived as Eurasian land-power autocracies attacking maritime democracies and their allies, led by the United States. 

  Geopolitical Theory of the Heartland

  Beyond an intuition born of having read strategic history, what theory informs our understanding of strategic history and the relevant geography?  We rely on geopolitical theory, most notably Halford Mackinder’s theory of the Heartland, to assess the trajectory of events across Eurasia.  Despite differences across Mackinder’s three geopolitical statements (1904, 1919, and 1943), the essential feature of his geopolitical theory is this: With the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the economic isolation imposed on interior Eurasian settlements by virtue of the cost of overland transportation had come to an end.  Until that moment, a vast stretch of territory reaching from the Arctic in the north to the Iranian plateau in the south, from the Lena, Indigirka, and Kolyma River basins in the east and beyond Moscow to the west, was characterized by a shared geographic feature: the rivers in this area flowed north to the frozen Arctic Ocean or south to land-locked seas such as the Caspian Sea.  As a result of this landlocked situation, naval power, exercised by Great Britain or other seafaring nations, had little if any military impact on the course of events in the region Mackinder labeled ‘the Heartland.’  But with the completion of the Railway, Tsarist Russia – and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – alone or in an alliance with European or Asian powers, might profoundly influence the course of global events due to access to new sources of minerals, the presence of virgin soil, and demographic expansion.  Ultimately, interior lines of transport and communication for the movement of armies overland across the expanse of the Heartland would enable whichever power occupied the Heartland to project power westward to the European Coastlands, southwestward to Arabia, and south and eastward into the Monsoon Coastland – three of the six natural regions of Eurasia (here and here).

  Even more critical was Mackinder’s recognition that World War I led to a potential reshaping of the Heartland as one of these natural regions.  Mackinder posited that the region he labeled the “Strategic Heartland” included contested seas and river basins, as well as land routes suitable for invasion.  Hence, the Strategic Heartland encompassed the natural Heartland, and in Europe, it extended to the Danube Basin, the Black Sea littoral, the eastern stretches of the Northern European Plain, and the Baltic Sea littoral.  For Mackinder, the maritime outposts of naval power, the Black and Baltic Seas, might be turned into “lakes,” should the power occupying the Heartland capture a sea’s littoral through the successful domination by land power. 

  Learning From Geopolitical Theory

  We learned three lessons from Mackinder’s geopolitical theory.  First, Mackinder’s argument pertaining to the Baltic and Black Seas revealed that threatening or capturing the maritime chokepoints near the Bosporus and Dardanelles or the Kattegat and Skagerrak – the straits north of Denmark connecting the Baltic to the North Sea – was essential to controlling these seas.  By way of a geographic analogy, Mackinder’s theory enables the observer of geopolitics to appreciate how control over the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab compromises freedom of the seas in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea approach to the Suez Canal and may eventually lead to control over the relevant coastlines.  However, modern missile technology requires only proximity to a strategic strait or narrow body of water for sea denial to be effective against commercial shipping (here).

  Second, Mackinder’s 1920 Report on the situation in South Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution revealed the strategic importance of Ukraine’s territory.  A major invasion into the Russian cultural and demographic core around Moscow was launched north from Ukraine by the White Russian forces.  In addition, one glance at a “strategic map” of Europe, viewed from high above the Urals, reveals not only the importance of the Northern European plain as an invasion route into Russia but also the southern invasion route from the Crimea.  Before the recent outbreak of war, the United States allegedly began modernizing a Ukrainian naval base located east of Odessa  to accommodate larger warships.  Russian geostrategic planners must consider threats from both directions, particularly if the Baltics and Ukraine are aligned with what they consider to be an adversary.  For restoring the Russian empire and reestablishing Russian status as a great power, the conquest and incorporation of Ukraine is perceived as critical.  Russia seeks to dominate Ukraine for its manpower, its on-shore mineral and off-shore hydrocarbon deposits, its industrial base, its agricultural productivity, and its strategic location.  In geo-economic terms, the ongoing division of the world-economy into a sphere of maritime and the land-based Eurasian territorial powers puts Ukraine in the cross hairs.

  Third, America, as the recent holder of the baton of thalassocracy, failed to forestall the formation of a proto alliance of the Heartland Power, Russia, with two powers that straddle the Heartland and the maritime rim, Iran, and China.  In Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919), Mackinder warned of the danger of the Heartland Power gaining control over the Baltic and Black seas and then, at some future date, securing power over Eurasia and Africa:

  What if the Great Continent, the whole World-Island [i.e., Eurasia and Africa] or a large part of it, were at some future time to become a single and united base of sea-power?  Would not the other insular bases be outbuilt as regards ships and outmanned as regards seamen?  Their fleets would no doubt fight with all the heroism begotten of their histories, but the end would be fated.

  Mackinder feared that the Heartland Power, alone or in alliance with powers controlling portions of the maritime rim of Eurasia, might go to sea, and become an amphibious power. 

  Currently, in Ukraine, Russia seeks to reassert control over the northern Black Sea littoral, from Crimea to Moldova, thereby gaining control over the offshore hydrocarbons (here).  China and Iran, with their long coastlines, have decided to become amphibious powers while developing and deploying drones and land-based anti-ship missiles for sea control and denial.  Iran makes modern weapons systems for their Houthi proxies.  China threatens to reintegrate Taiwan, by force, if necessary, perhaps by blockade, even as it asserts exclusive control over the passage of shipping and offshore hydrocarbon deposits in the South China Sea.

  NOW WHAT?

  What of the near future?  Will there be any further challenges to the United States?  Venezuela placed a referendum in front of its citizenry questioning whether contested territory currently held by Guyana should be reincorporated into Venezuelan territory.  The response was in favor of reincorporation, with Venezuela reportedly mobilizing contingents of its military.  Guyana and Brazil have responded.  A nuclear armed North Korea continues to issue threats in response to alleged American and South Korean provocations.  The Russian regime has imperial ambitions beyond Ukraine.  Should Putin or his successor believe that the conquest of the Baltic States is achievable, it will certainly be attempted.  And there is a final point grounded in a comparative geopolitical speculation: In addition to compromising passage through Bab al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz, and the threat to shipping via the Strait of Gibraltar, Iran or another power may mobilize a proxy near another maritime choke point – the Strait of Malacca.  Certainly, the autocracies of the world are engaged in gray-zone warfare aimed at undermining Western support for Israel and Ukraine and aimed at mobilizing political extremists of all stripes.  With the very large number of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, any instability in the Middle East can easily produce crippling riots and insurgent or terrorist activity, especially with financial and logistical support from Iran and other regional powers.  Western leaders are beginning to recognize that weakness in dealing with the threats that are already on the table will prompt new challenges in new locations (here and here).

  Despite these ominous developments, the United States and its allies have generated one significant success and several potential successes in their attempt to thwart the designs of these autocratic Heartland regimes.  In response to the war in Ukraine, Finland has joined NATO and Sweden’s accession has recently been approved by a parliamentary committee in Turkey (though not yet by the Turkish state).  The anticipated consequence is to turn the Baltic Sea, but for the Russian naval base at Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, into a NATO dominated lake.  In addition, should Ukraine manage to reverse Russian territorial conquests, secure its independence from Russia, and then join NATO and the EU, these events would represent an extension of European power.  Meanwhile, Ukraine has had great success in driving the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea and into home ports further from Ukrainian missile launching sites; we have argued that before the war is over, the Ukrainians should be furnished with the means to sink the remainder of the fleet and destroy the shipyards.  Ukrainian successes in attacking the Black Sea fleet have led the Russians to consider building a naval base in Ochamchire, Georgia.   In the Middle East and Arabia, the United States almost succeeded in fostering an extension of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia.  Finally, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) is a potential maritime alliance of India, Australia, Japan, and the United States that may, in the coming years, act to secure the free passage of shipping in the South China Sea and defend Taiwan.  In short, across the maritime rim of Eurasia, the United States is slowly mobilizing partners and allies that are threatened by the revisionist and revanchist regimes of the Heartland.

  Conclusion: Strategy and the Geopolitical Advantage

  Our horrifying prediction, which may yet be fully realized, of a four-front war was made by attending to geopolitical theory, strategic history, and an intuition for how events might unfold.  Regardless of whether China undertakes kinetic action against Taiwan, the United States and our allies now need to rush preparations for such a war at the highest possible priority.  As we pointed out in the earlier article, being ready to fight a global, multi-front war is the only way to avert one.

  Geopolitics provides the observer of international relations with several advantages.  First, it is an interdisciplinary and integrative field of study that aims to capture aspects of reality that impinge on the evolution of international crises.  Second, it juxtaposes persistent geographic structures, such as landed and maritime locations and activities, with trends and events, placing the ephemeral in the context of the enduring (here).  Third, geography and geopolitics deploy particularizing and generalizing methods to understand the relationships of places to spaces, locations to regions, and nation-states to the international system.  Fourth, geopolitics uses maps, including those generated by geographic information systems, to develop an appreciation of how states transform terrain into more favorable environments for the projection of power amid adversarial relationships, both potential and realized. 

  Geopolitics is as old an approach to international conflict as Thucydides, Sun Tse, and Kautilya.   It may be that geopolitical analysis, if properly deployed, gives insight reminiscent of Galadriel’s Mirror, “For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.”

  However, despite the advantages offered by geopolitical thought for the development of strategy, Mackinder is explicit (here): “Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until compelled to do so for purposes of defense.” After at least a generation, now is the moment for Americans to once again use geopolitics to formulate strategy.

  *  *  *

  Acknowledgements:  The authors thank the speakers and participants in the Mackinder Forum seminars and lectures for sharing their insights.  Professors Brian Blouet, Athanasios Platias, Geoffrey Sloan, and Paul Rahe commented on an earlier draft of this paper.  We are grateful for their thoughtful suggestions.  Errors and misinterpretations remain ours.

  Michael Hochberg earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech and is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.  He is the President of Periplous LLC, which provides advisory services on strategy, technology, and organization design.  He co-founded four companies, representing an exit value over a billion dollars in aggregate, spent some time as a tenured professor, and started the world’s first silicon photonics foundry service.  He co-authored a widely used textbook on silicon photonics and has published work in Science, Nature, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Fast Company, Naval War College Review, etc.

  Leonard Hochberg taught at Stanford University (among other institutions), was appointed a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (i.e., STRATFOR).  He has published in Social Science History, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Naval War College Review, Orbis, etc.   Len Hochberg earned his PhD in political theory and European history at Cornell University.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and serves as the Coordinator of the Mackinder Forum-U.S.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:45

• Porn Star Allowed Into Hardline Islamic Iran Because She's 'Pro-Palestine' 
  Porn Star Allowed Into Hardline Islamic Iran Because She’s ‘Pro-Palestine’ 

  The words Islamic Republic of Iran and “porn star” aren’t two concepts one typically hears coupled in the same sentence, but this week controversy and confusion has been unleashed after adult film actress Whitney Wright made a bizarre visit to Iran.

  Wright, whose real name is Brittni Rayne Whittington, also deems herself a pro-Palestinian activist, and presumably that is how she was allowed into Iran. At the start of this week she posted multiple photos of herself wearing – ironically enough – an Islamic hijab during her trip to tour the capital of Tehran.

  

  “I’m extremely disappointed that the attention surrounding my visit [seems] to overshadow Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Wright has told Newsweek, addressing the significant backlash online that followed her photos. The porn star says she’s “not backing down”.

  According to EuroNews, Iranian opposition activists were especially outraged:

  US-based activist Masih Alinejad, who faced assassination attempts by Iran, condemned Wright for making the trip and for alleged remarks where the actress said “if you respect the law, you will be safe in Iran.”

  Alinejad took to X to point out that “American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves.”

  Also controversial were her posts seeming to glorify the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution which resulted in the long-running US hostage crisis. In one Instagram post…

  She said she “HAD to visit” the embassy where Iranian students held staff members hostage for 444 days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

  

  She’s been accused also by pro-Israel pundits of being a willing propagandists on behalf of Tehran, and for issuing anti-American statements and images at a moment US forces have come under attack in the Middle East.

  Engaging in pornography can bring the death penalty in the hardline Islamic Republic. So how did this supposed “influencer” line up the strange junket which involved taking snaps (fully clothed) in and around the capital? Also did she have government-assigned minders to escort here (as is sometimes the case)?…

  American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves.
  Whitney has published several photos on herself completely covered up on Instagram. On her post she called me a warmonger and tells… pic.twitter.com/MwBBsVorBJ

  — Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 4, 2024

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

  Strangely, even though there’s no doubt Iranian foreign ministry authorities deeply vet especially Americans and other Westerners who wish to enter, Iranian officials are claiming “they didn’t know” about her role in pornography:

  In Tehran, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani denied any knowledge of her trip, but noted that despite the political tensions “it is not forbidden” for Americans to visit Iran.

  A source told the Tasnim news agency that she was not invited by any organization in Iran and the visa system “was not aware of the nature of her immoral and obscene occupation”.

  

  At this point Wright has moved on in her travels and is safely out of Iran.

  The whole spectacle of a porn actress inside Iran certainly does not seem very in keeping with old fashioned hardline Iranian ‘Islamic Revolution’ principles.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:25

• Why Are Woke Pro Sports Leagues Lobbying Congress For Gun Control?
  Why Are Woke Pro Sports Leagues Lobbying Congress For Gun Control?

  Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

  As the United States prepares for its most-watched sporting event of the year, anti-gun senators are pushing for a reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 in Congress.

  Thanks to the support of our grassroots membership, Gun Owners of America and our allies in Congress were successful in removing a permanent reauthorization of the UFA from a must-pass military funding bill.

  But the anti-gun lobby isn’t going to give up without a fight, especially with the law set to expire in just under a month.

  In drumming up support for reauthorizing the UFA, anti-gun politicians have found some new allies: Professional sports leagues.

  The NFL, NHL, NBA, and even NASCAR have written a letter to Congress in support of the reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act.

  While the letter states that the leagues “urge you to reauthorize this critical law so that our organizations can continue to keep our fans safe,” the evidence is that the UFA is an arbitrary and capricious law that only serves as a ticking time bomb for future gun control.

  Under current law, all that a criminal would have to do to violate the Undetectable Firearms Act would be to 3D Print a gun and not epoxy the legally required amount of metal to the frame.

  Believe it or not, criminals and terrorists have been committing crimes in the United States this past decade, but they’re not choosing fully plastic or 3D-printed guns.

  Watch: Ben from GOA Demonstrates how a simple Garrett Security Wand can detect a .22LR bullet through layers of 3D-printed plastic and clothing.

  How do we know criminals aren’t using “undetectable” guns? Well, we searched every criminal indictment, prosecution, and conviction since the 1990’s and no one has ever been charged—let alone convicted—of violating the Undetectable Firearms Act.

  If Professional sports leagues were concerned about these types of firearms being snuck into their events, they could upgrade their security systems instead of relying on an unconstitutional law that criminals easily ignore. 

  Millimeter Wave Scanners and other modern detection devices can detect non-metal—such as plastic guns. And common metal detectors like this garret hand scanner can easily detect metal weighing far less than the archaic 3.7oz of metal requirement from the 1980’s.

  Professional sporting leagues like the NFL should stick to entertainment and stop attempting to infringe on their customer’s rights.

  Gun Owners of America stands with our allies in Congress in opposition to the reauthorization of the archaic Undetectable Firearms Act. Please call your elected representatives and demand they do the same. 

  *   *   *

  We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 23:05

• "My Memory Is Fine" Biden Fumes, Before Confusing Egypt's Sisi With The President Of Mexico
  “My Memory Is Fine” Biden Fumes, Before Confusing Egypt’s Sisi With The President Of Mexico

  In less than 15 minutes, President Biden proved Special Counsel Robert Hur right and confirmed all concerns about his fitness for office.

  As we detailed earlier, Hur wrote in his report that he would not suggest bringing charges against the president for his mishandling of classified documents because, “Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

  The president, having ‘seen dead people’ numerous times this week, was apparently displeased with the report, and decided the correct course of action was a (rare) press conference to set the world straight on his mental acuity.

  

  It did not go well.

  He welcomed the special counsel’s decision not to bring charges:

  “The bottom line is the matter is now closed,” Biden asserted, with respect to the report.

  But, then proceeded to throw his staff under the bus:

  “I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” he said.

  “Things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved, were moved not by me, but my staff, but my staff,” he continued.

  Then he took issue with the special counsel report’s questioning his mental acuity around the timing of his son’s death, and angry-old-man mode was unleashed:

  “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it was none of their damn business,” Biden thundered.

  Biden started to say he wore his son’s rosary every day since the day Beau died, but stopped, when he appeared to forget where the rosary came from.

  “Every Memorial Day we hold a service remembering him, attended by friends and family and the people who loved him,” Biden continued, after a pause. “I don’t need anyone. I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”

  The mumbling continued as opened up the press conference to questions – not a great idea in hindsight.

  Constantly defending himself against allegations of failing memory, Biden appeared to snap when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Biden, “How bad is your memory?”

  “My memory is so bad I let you speak,” Biden said.

  “My memory is fine. Take a look at what I’ve done since I’ve become president.”

  Doocy pressed, pointing to the Special Counsel’s description of Biden as an “elderly, well-meaning man.”

  “I am well-meaning. And I’m an elderly man. And I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden reacted.

  “I’ve been president – I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation.”

  Biden’s rage reached its zenith when a CNN reporter began to ask a question about the American people’s concerns about his mental state (a perspective that is widely held according to many polls). “The American people have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age,” the reporter said.

  “That is your judgement! That is your judgement! That is not the judgement of the press!” Biden shouted back at her.

  

  Biden also bizarrely claimed that he had vowed to be a “president” for everybody “whether they were from a red state or a green state.”

  And then, as his piéce de resistance, after initially walking out, the president called Israel’s response in Gaza “over the top” and then mistakenly referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the President of Mexico.

  “Initially, the president of Mexico — Sisi — did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate.”

  He did not correct himself.

  Egyptian drug lord. pic.twitter.com/4qrDcUgNGu

  — Orda (@TheChaosEngine1) February 9, 2024

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  So to summarize:

  In a press conference trying to prove that he is not senile and thus competent enough to stand trial.

  Wild stuff. pic.twitter.com/8ugZNmDfbx

  — Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) February 9, 2024

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  Watch the full (15 minutes from start to finish) shitshow here:

  And believe it or not, it got worse as even CNN refused to provide cover for the president:

  CNN’s Elie Honig on Biden’s denial he shared classified documents with his ghostwriter:

  “He’s ON TAPE — after he’s out of the vice presidency — saying to his autobiographer, ‘the classified documents are in the basement.’ He knew it!” pic.twitter.com/pft2PbQ9oC

  — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 9, 2024

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  Of course, the ultimate irony of all of this is that it occurred within minutes of Tucker Carlson releasing an unedited, wide-ranging two-hour long interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:45

• Water Level Projections Threaten Future Panama Canal Transits
  Water Level Projections Threaten Future Panama Canal Transits

  By Tony Mulvey of FreightWaves

  Dry season in Panama is in full swing, and the impacts to trade through the Panama Canal will remain challenged in the months to come. The situation in the canal, after a wetter-than-expected November, wasn’t as dire as many believed, allowing the number of daily transits to increase in January.

  

  The Panama Canal forecast 24 daily transits in January, up from 20 previously expected for January and 18 previously expected for February. Throughout fiscal year 2023, 12,638 vessels traversed the canal, a daily average of 34 oceangoing vessels moving through the canal. 

  In the first four months of the canal’s fiscal year 2024, there were 3,233 transits across all vessel types, with the vast majority being Panamax vessels. The run rate for fiscal year 2024 of vessels through the canal is 9,700, 23% lower than the 2023 fiscal year throughput.

  While container traffic receives a lot of attention, the tanker and dry bulk market will be heavily impacted as well. Through the first four months of fiscal 2024, chemical tankers have made up 25.6% of Panamax-class vessels that have traversed the canal. Liquefied petroleum gas carriers made up 25.5% of the Neopanamax traffic through the canal.

  The water levels within the Panama Canal are largely to blame, but any hope for a significant rebound in water levels to boost throughput will likely be met with a harsh reality over the next few months.

  

  The water levels are going to remain a challenge that has the potential to continue to derail vessel throughput. Gatun Lake, the manmade lake that vessels must traverse, had water levels at 81.2 feet as of Tuesday. Water levels in this critical portion of the canal have started 2024 at the lowest level on record, dating back to 1965.

  Projections are for even lower levels over the next two months, falling below 80 feet in early April.

  Three of the largest five ports in the U.S. rely on shipments that navigate through the Panama Canal: the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Savannah, Georgia, and Port Houston. Over the past month, these three ports combined to handle 30% of total twenty-foot equivalent unit throughput. For reference, the two largest ports in the country: the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, accounted for 32% of the total U.S. throughput.

  Import demand has picked up steam ahead of the Lunar New Year, which will provide a boost to overall imports that are trending above last year’s levels. This boost is being felt by the East Coast ports, like Savannah, where the Ocean TEU Volume Index is up over 40% in the past month.

  The water crisis is creating increased delays as backlogs around the canal remain.

  

  The limiting effects of the low water levels have created an additional six-day delay on average to the Port of Savannah from all ports around the globe. These delays are adding an extra day and a half to the scheduled transit times, which have also increased — nearly four days longer than they were this time last year.

  These delays are even more impactful the further up the Eastern Seaboard you go. The Port of New York and New Jersey is having similar delays, around the six-day mark, but are over three days longer than they were last year.

  Comparing these East Coast ports to their West Coast counterparts, the port pair delays for the Port of Los Angeles are under three days and nearly a day less than they were this time last year.

  Mother Nature is outside human control, and if the water level projection holds true, the next couple of months could add to the ongoing crisis.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:25

• US Trade With Mexico Surges To No. 1 Position
  US Trade With Mexico Surges To No. 1 Position

  Mexico was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. in 2023 and the biggest source of the country’s imports ahead of China.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchhoz details below, trade with Mexico – both imports and exports – totaled close to $800 billion last year as efforts to source closer to home and reduce dependence on China are ongoing in the U.S. and other Western countries.

  The U.S. has also intensified trade with its neighbor to the North.

  Canada is currently the country’s top 2 trade partner and top 3 source of imports, only slightly behind China for the latter metric.

  Trade with two more close allies, Japan and Germany, also grew over the last couple of years.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  China has traditionally bought fewer goods from the U.S. than Mexico and Canada so when its imports to the U.S. dropped last year, so did its overall trade balance with its North American partner.

  China was the biggest trade partner of the U.S. between 2015 and 2018.

  Canada and Mexico then became top partners at the height of the U.S.-China trade war in 2019.

  2020 and the outbreak of the coronavirus caused a trade slump in the U.S. and saw China reemerge as the country’s biggest partner since the pandemic affected it only from a later date.

  When the pandemic subsided in 2022 and 2023 and critique of China soared, first Canada and then Mexico got ahead, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 22:05

• South Dakota Forced To Apologize To Transgender Activists, Pay $300,000
  South Dakota Forced To Apologize To Transgender Activists, Pay $300,000

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  South Dakota has issued an apology to a transgender advocacy group and must pay $300,000 under an agreement that settles a lawsuit against Gov. Kristi Noem and the state health secretary over a terminated contract.

  

  The Transformation Project, a nonprofit that provides suicide prevention and other services to transgender people in South Dakota, sued Ms. Noem and Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt last year after the state canceled a contract to hire and train a community health worker to connect members of the LGBT community to health services.

  The contract included a $136,000 state-administered federal grant, of which the transgender group received roughly $39,000, according to its attorneys.

  Lynne Valenti, South Dakota Deputy Health Secretary, alleged in the contract cancellation letter that the transgender group failed to perform certain contractual obligations.

  Attorneys for the group accused Ms. Valenti of having canceled the agreement for political reasons.

  U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier ruled on Feb. 5 to dismiss the lawsuit after the parties jointly asked for a dismissal after entering into a settlement.

  As part of the settlement, South Dakota is required to pay $300,000 and issue a public apology.

  “This settlement marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to civil rights advocacy,” Brendan Johnson, lead attorney representing the Transformation Project, said in a statement.

  Ms. Noem’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

  Background

  South Dakota’s contract with the Transformation Project was canceled on Dec. 16, 2023, after a reporter from The Daily Signal contacted her office to inquire about it.

  “In a statement provided to The Daily Signal, Governor Noem stated ‘South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,’” the transgender advocacy group wrote in its lawsuit, alleging that the contract cancellation was “based purely on national politics.”

  According to the cited report from The Daily Signal, Ms. Noem terminated the contract after a reporter from the news outlet reached out to her office with questions about a “Gender Identity Summit” that South Dakota’s largest employer, Sanford Health, was set to jointly host with the Transformation Project.

  The Daily Signal report cited in the complaint noted that the project “celebrates controversial medical interventions for minors and hosts events in which people ritually ‘burn’ their ‘old name or pronouns.’”

  Ian Fury, a spokesperson for Ms. Noem, told The Epoch Times in December that the contract had been signed without the governor’s knowledge or approval.

  

  South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks during the National Rifle Association annual convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, on May 27, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

  The Department of Health, which had originally awarded the contract, said in the cancellation letter that the group had violated contract terms.

  The group disputed this claim, leading to the lawsuit, which alleged violations of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in the administration of federal grants.

  The transgender advocacy’s attorneys also accused South Dakota of having violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

  The lawsuit led to a settlement, under which South Dakota Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt issued an apology letter, though the state did not have to admit to discrimination.

  “On behalf of the State of South Dakota, I apologize that the Transformation Project’s contract was terminated and for treating the Transformation Project differently than other organizations awarded Community Health Worker contracts,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

  Transformation Project Executive Director Susan Williams said in a statement that she feels vindicated and the settlement sends a “clear and strong” message that “discrimination against transgender people will not be tolerated in South Dakota.”

  Noem Sigs Law Banning Trans Surgery for Youth

  Ms. Noem, a Republican, has been a vocal opponent of transgender procedures for young people.

  In February 2023, she signed the “Help Not Harm” bill into law, banning certain medical and surgical interventions, such as puberty blockers and genital surgery, for minors.

  “South Dakota’s kids are our future. With this legislation, we are protecting kids from harmful, permanent medical procedures,” Noem said in a statement.

  “I will always stand up for the next generation of South Dakotans.”

  According to the text of the bill, health care professionals are prohibited from prescribing or administering certain medical and surgical interventions for minors to attempt to alter their appearance or perception of their sex.

  These interventions include prescribing drugs to delay puberty and administering hormones in amounts greater than what is typically produced naturally in a healthy individual of the same age and sex, such as testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone.

  The law also blocks doctors from performing sterilization surgeries or surgeries that artificially construct genitalia differing from the minor’s sex, and procedures that remove healthy or non-diseased body parts or tissue.

  The law prohibits health care providers from violating the ban at risk of having their medical license revoked, and possible legal action.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 21:45

• Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Director Calls For Expanding Detection Of 'Silent' COVID Vaccine Risks
  Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Director Calls For Expanding Detection Of ‘Silent’ COVID Vaccine Risks

  Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Dr. Gregory Poland, the director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, has called for more rigorous detection of vaccine adverse events after suffering a COVID-19 vaccine adverse event.

  

  “While vaccines have an overwhelmingly positive safety profile, it’s essential to address concerns about potential adverse events comprehensively and compassionately,” Dr. Poland and his co-author Dr. Steve Black of the Global Vaccine Data Network wrote in their commentary published in the journal Vaccine.

  “Some of these reactions are immediate and easily observable or measurable … Others however are not immediately obvious, or are even clinically ‘silent’ or cryptic, making them challenging to identify and link directly to a vaccine.”

  Dr. Poland, the lead author, suffered from what he deemed a “cryptic” adverse event.

  In 2021, soon after his second Moderna shot, Dr. Poland was driving back from the clinic when he suddenly heard a whistling sound in his ears.

  “It was like someone suddenly blew a dog whistle in my ear,” he told MedPage Today. “It has been pretty much unrelenting.”

  He has since attributed his tinnitus to the COVID-19 vaccine and become vocal in advocating for better vaccine adverse event surveillance programs.

  “It is critical to be vigilant about rare, silent, or subtle reactions. Public health agencies and healthcare providers can play a much more favorable and vital role in establishing vaccine trust by enlarging the current vaccine safety paradigm,” Dr. Poland wrote.

  Spectrum of Vaccine Adverse Events

  Dr. Poland said a spectrum of adverse events exists; some are easily detectable, while others are far more hidden.

  Swelling at the injection site and immediate fever, for example, are immediate, easily observed, and measurable. These are thus far easier to detect and link to the vaccine if the symptoms come on soon after vaccination.

  Dr. Poland reasoned that an adverse event’s detectability differs by whether it can be measured or imaged, if biomarkers are present, and if the condition is responsive to treatment.

  Guillain-Barré syndrome, for example, has a long history of being associated with vaccine adverse events. The condition may be detected using a spinal tap during the acute phase and looking for elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) protein levels.

  Myocarditis can be detected by looking for biomarkers and taking X-rays.

  Hearing loss, while it cannot be imaged or tested for using biomarkers, can be demonstrated by running hearing tests.

  However, Dr. Poland considers tinnitus a cryptic adverse event since it is inherently subjective, lacks biomarkers, can be psychosomatic, and may be caused by an underlying condition other than the vaccine.

  But just as tinnitus is difficult to quantify, it can also be highly disabling, Dr. Poland wrote.

  React19 co-founder Dr. Joel Wallskog, who was not involved in the commentary, said that people have been driven to suicide as a result of their tinnitus. React19 is an advocacy group for those injured by COVID-19 vaccines and sufferers of long COVID.

  Ways to Detect Vaccine Adverse Events

  Vaccine adverse events were first detected in the earlier vaccine clinical trials. However, some adverse events were missed.

  Dr. Poland gave the example of menstrual irregularities, which have been strongly linked to COVID-19 vaccines but were not reported during the vaccine trials.

  “Had investigators actively solicited information on such issues or symptomatology, it would have been detected and quantifiable,” he wrote.

  He also suggested monitoring new symptoms discussed on social media to detect possible trends. This may help detect new symptoms that people have not yet linked to the vaccine.

  After a vaccine rolls out, average citizens can report their adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  VAERS is a public database that allows anyone to check and report a vaccine adverse event. The system also has interventions put in place to reduce false reporting. For instance, the lengthy reporting process deters false reports. It is also a direct violation of federal law to make a false report, and those caught doing this may be fined or even imprisoned.

  “Most adverse reactions are transient and self-limiting, although some may be serious or life-threatening. In my experience, however, even ‘transient’ conditions such as facial palsy may extend for months, if not years,” dentist and professor Dr. Nicola Cirillo at the University of Melbourne said in a statement on oral-facial adverse events post-COVID vaccine.

  “It is important to inform vaccine recipients about these possible consequences,” he added.

  Hundreds of Adverse Events Linked to COVID-19 Vaccines

  Since July 2022, Freedom of Information Act-released documents from the CDC showed at least 770 safety signals have been detected by CDC researchers in the VAERS database.

  These include myocarditis, tinnitus, death, and increased instances of health checkups.

  Dr. Wallskog said that many VAERS reports have also become hidden.

  In 2022, React19 surveyed 126 people who submitted VAERS reports. It found that only around 60 percent of VAERS reports are made available to the public.

  Twelve percent of the VAERS reports were deleted, and 22 percent do not have permanent IDs and, therefore, could not be accessed by the public. The remaining 5 percent of would-be VAERS reporters could not file a report, or their report numbers were unknown.

  Dr. Peter McCullough, cardiologist and a vocal critic of the COVID-19 vaccines, expressed disappointment that authors Drs. Poland and Black said that vaccines have an “overwhelmingly positive safety profile” in their conclusion, adding that safety data systems have recorded injuries, disabilities, and deaths related to the COVID vaccines.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 21:05

• US Warns Against Impending Israeli Assault On Refugee-Packed Rafah
  US Warns Against Impending Israeli Assault On Refugee-Packed Rafah

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he has voiced “concerns” to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) impending ground operation against the far southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

  Hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees have until this point sought out the greater ‘safety’ of Rafah. But Al Jazeera observes that “Panic is growing in Rafah over an imminent ground invasion after Israel’s prime minister ordered his military to prepare to enter the city in the southern Gaza Strip that is sheltering 1.2 million people with nowhere else to go as he rejected Hamas’s truce plan and rebuffed US efforts to reach a deal.”

  

  Initially almost the entire population of the northern half of the Strip moved south to the Khan Younis area, but after in past weeks it came under massive assault – as the IDF has sought to root out Hamas’ command structure from there – throngs of Palestinian refugees were forced further south, to the border with Egypt.

  According to Axios, “Blinken also expressed concerns about the failures of communication between the IDF and international organizations and insufficient deconfliction, which led to the targeting of UN personnel who were delivering aid, the sources said.”

  The report further indicates Blinken communicated the following to the Israelis:

  • The U.S. is concerned that an Israeli Defense Forces operation in the city without evacuating the civilian population to safe areas will lead to mass casualties.
  • It also fears that such an operation will push tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt. The Egyptian government has already warned the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt would lead to a rupture in its relations with Israel.

  Of course, Israel has accused some of these organizations, especially the largest – the UNRWA – of being compromised by Hamas members and alleged associations with terrorists.

  The White House on Thursday also issued statements saying truce negotiations are still “ongoing” – but the reality is that PM Netanyahu fully rejected the “delusional” Hamas demands, in particular the condition that Israeli troops must first completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

  Both sides are still offering the other ‘non-starters’ which means the process in reality hasn’t gone anywhere. And from Hamas’ perspective, Israel is now only widening the war by bringing it to Rafah. According to the latest words of Netanyahu via the NY Times:

  Israel’s prime minister said the military would soon go into to an area of Gaza near the border with Egypt where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled, something the United Nations has said would be catastrophic.

  Gazan health officials say that more than 27,000 people — many of them women and children — have been killed in Israel’s bombardment and ground assault of Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israeli troops had been directed to deploy in Rafah, near the southern border, and in camps in central Gaza, calling the areas “Hamas’s last remaining strongholds.”

  Below: Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council…

  An Israeli ground offensive on overcrowded Rafah in #Gaza would be a bloodbath, and a stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms.

  We need an immediate ceasefire to reach the women, children, families who are at breaking point, with lifesaving aid. pic.twitter.com/XHsL2NdgLE

  — Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) February 8, 2024

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

  The United Nations is still pressing for urgent ceasefire. “It is time for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said.

  Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, warned against a Rafah assault: “We can make clear what the law says. Under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes,” he told reporters in Geneva.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 20:45

• Pentagon Secretly Institutionalized DEI In Its K-12 Public Schools
  Pentagon Secretly Institutionalized DEI In Its K-12 Public Schools

  By Adam Andrzejewski of Open The Books Substack

  In a Congressional hearing last spring, Gil Cisneros, then-Under Secretary for Military Readiness, announced that the Pentagon was closing its newly formed Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within its K-12 school system and reassigning its controversial DEI chief after a ten-month internal investigation.

  

  The Pentagon’s climb-down was a big win for OpenTheBooks.com. We had worked alongside whistleblowers, journalists, other investigative non-profits, and ranking members of Congress to expose alleged conflicts of interest, violations of military ethics policies, and radical ideologies being forced on the kids of servicemen and servicewomen.

  Today, we are announcing Cisneros was actually faking. The radical curriculum was not dismantled. Instead, it was stealthily embedded into the lesson plans and classrooms throughout the entire school system.

  The Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is preventing details of their DEI policies from coming to light by abusing the Freedom of Information Act. They bamboozled the public with window dressing in Congressional hearings while forcing woke extremism on the roughly 70,000 children of our military service members.

  It’s critical that taxpayers understand the scope of the DEI philosophy within the DoD’s schools – deployed servicemembers often have no alternative but to use the Pentagon-run school system, called the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

  Troubling Curriculum

  DOD relentlessly promotes DEI-ideologies to school children of serving families through educational contractors with millions of dollars of taxpayer funding.

  Here are some examples of what’s happening in the Pentagon’s schools:

  • Chat rooms to facilitate teacher-student conversations that are closed off to parents about sexuality and gender, and likely without their knowledge or consent.

  • Engaging four-year-olds in LGBTQ+ conversations. Elementary schools are the “perfect time” to “really show students the diversity of the gender expression and gender activity.”

  • Solidarity with the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter organization to encourage teachers to “challenge our beliefs, examine our own biases, and reflect on how we need to evaluate the structures and systems in our classrooms.”

  • Video content on “dissent” and “equity” to “help educators facilitate classroom conversations and much-needed discussions about implicit bias and systemic racism, human rights, equity, social justice, dissent, protest, and empathy.” 

  • Marxist activism to dismantle systems of “power” and “privilege.” Suggesting a refusal to teach a “white-washed” curriculum and instead teach “social justice rather than heroes, holidays, and celebrations.”

  • A teaching handbook that recommends “critical conversations” with students about race, identity, and privilege and the way “injustice” affects our lives and society. These “explicit conversations” provoke “strong emotions” and crying students are expected.

  Read the details about these vendors, their payments, and the full background dossier on our investigation here.

  

  Transparency Problems

  The Pentagon is assiduously attempting to hide its biased left-wing extremist curriculum from public view.  It is deleting public access to links, driving DEI infrastructure underground, and liberally redacting the most basic Freedom of Information Act requests.

  For example, OpenTheBooks.com filed a FOIA request for the agency payroll just as we have at nearly 13,000 public schools across America. Stunningly, the DoDEA refused to disclose the individual salaries of its staff, unlike public schools nationwide and almost every other federal agency. No names, job titles, or compensation details on the $1.4 billion payroll.

  It’s not just our organization having problems.

  In September 2022, The Claremont Institute published a groundbreaking report on left-wing extremism in DoDEA classrooms, called “Grooming Future Revolutionaries.” The report highlighted content from dozens of video presentations from staffers at a 2021 “Equity and Access Summit” discussing what they were doing to turn schoolchildren into social justice activists.

  Days later, all videos were taken down from the publicly available links and are no longer accessible. While the agency originally refused to release relevant documents via our FOIA request, we appealed, and the subsequent production confirmed that the videos were taken down in response to the report.

  Last spring, at the Congressional hearing, Gil Cisneros announced that the Pentagon was dissolving the DoDEA’s DEI department and reassigning its chief. However, key documents we captured via FOIA suggest that DEI-ethos is still at the core of agency mission.

  Here is what we were able to find out:

  The Pentagon “integrated” DEI specialists into “four key divisions” in the agency last March while also launching a DEI Steering Committee. The committee is comprised of top executives including the agency’s CEO Thomas Brady, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Academic Officer, and twelve others.  

  We sought more information on the steering committee, but our DoD redacted, or, “hid”: 1. member names; 2. agendas, materials, minutes and discussions; and 3. impact the committee is having on the whole education environment at the Pentagon.

  The extent of these redactions is so ridiculous that almost every slide from the 14-page slide-deck presented at a committee meeting had been redacted except for the title page and a page defining DEI. 

  The only non-executive staffer we can confirm attended these meetings is DEI Specialist Michelle Woodfork. See her redacted slide deck and calendar information here. 

  

  Key Quote

  During the agency’s 2021 Equity and Access Summit, Woodfork made her devotion to the Pentagon’s DEI initiatives abundantly clear in her presentation:  

  “When headquarters published their initiative for REDI [an earlier name for DEI at DoDEA] I got heart palpitations because it felt so affirming of the work I’ve been doing for so long.”

  Woodfork’s presentation centered on her then-role as a principal at a Pentagon school, where she led “equity audits” on school materials and practices. 

  The background and ideological orientation of Woodfork only underscores the need for the public and DoDEA parents to know who exactly is on this committee, and how much power they have over system-wide education.

  

  Background

  DoDEA made headlines in recent years for practices like hiding “gender transitions” from parents, forcing children into “difficult conversations” about race, class, gender, and sexuality, and the antics of a self-described “woke” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chief who allegedly hawked her own books to her colleagues.  

  DoDEA’s focus on DEI, Thomas Brady said, is compelled by President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14035, which among other items charges all agencies with “assessing the current state of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within their workforces.”

  But even before EO 14035, Brady strived to inculcate DEI ideology at the agency, announcing on Juneteenth 2020 that DEI must be “embedded in everything we do.” 

  In December 2024 the National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden. The law delineates “rights” for the parents of children attending DoDEA schools, authored by Representative Elise Stefanik (NY-21) which will go into effect in two years.

  The parental rights include, among other items: 

  • The right to review the curriculum of the school 
  • The right to review all instructional materials used by their students 

  While these measures are certainly progress for military families, much can still be obfuscated. Teacher training, such as the Equity and Access Summit, should be included as well. And it is not clear if the full spectrum of tools included, such as the secret LGBT chatrooms, would be disclosed as “instructional materials.”

  Moreover, if extremist materials are disclosed, there does not seem to be a recourse for opting children out of these lessons.  

  

  Conclusion

  Secretary Austin and then-Under Secretary Cisneros devoted themselves to hiding their DEI bait-and-switch.

  With the fanfare of a Congressional platform, Cisnero sought credit for shutting down DEI. But under our scrutiny, we found DoD instead made DEI a stealth weapon against the kids of our fighting men and women in service to an anti-American neo-Marxist ideology.

  We have further found that DoD under Secretary Austin is leveraging public record laws to the hilt to prevent parents and the public from knowing details of its efforts, while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on objectionable content for school children.  

  DoDEA did not dismantle its DEI efforts. It redoubled those efforts and added deceit and dissembling to its mix. 

  Given DoDEA’s recent history and press regarding extremist content in schools, heads must roll, and the agency must provide full transparency of teaching methods and its DEI-related policy operations.

  Parents, taxpayers, and the kids themselves deserve no less.  

  Note: We reached out to DoDEA and all educator employees who were quoted or gave presentations as referenced in this article. If they are no longer employed by DoDEA, we couldn’t reach them. We will update our piece if we receive a response.

  Furthermore, no employee or vendor is accused of any breach or violation of statute, military policy, or agency policy. In fact, they just might be abiding by agency rules or Biden’s executive order, if anything.

  Will Griffin, DoDEA Director of Communications responded to our comment request:

  DoDEA remains committed to maintaining a school system where military-connected students can excel and prepare for success in college and careers and where all employees are treated with dignity and respect. We will continue to comply with all applicable Federal laws, Department of Defense policies, and applicable executive orders.

  Additional Reading

  • “Agitate, Agitate, Agitate”— Military’s New Diversity Chief Hawks Books, Advocates “Revolution” In K-12 Schools | Adam Andrzejewski | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com | October 2022 

  • Military Stonewalls Investigation Into Controversial Diversity Official Leading K-12 Schools | Adam Andrzejewski | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com | March 2023 

  • Letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin | Rep. Elise Stefanik, Rep. C Scott Franklin, et al. | September 2022 

  • Grooming Future Revolutionaries | The Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life | September 2022 

  • Kids Must Cry | The American Mind | September 2022 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 20:25

• A Matured MAGA Movement Prepares For Trump’s Return To DC
  A Matured MAGA Movement Prepares For Trump’s Return To DC

  Authored by Nathan Worcester and Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  What would the start of a second Trump term look like—and what sort of opposition would it face?

  

  In search of answers, The Epoch Times interviewed veterans of the first Trump administration, reviewed writings from that time as well as the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47, and talked to those helping to provide a 2025 roadmap.

  It seems the MAGA movement is now older, wiser, and better situated in Washington.

  Preexisting conservative institutions such as The Heritage Foundation have tilted in former President Donald Trump’s direction. The former president will also have a deeper bench of possible appointees and real experience running the show. A more sympathetic Supreme Court and possible gains in Congress could also help him—and, unlike in 2016, the Republican establishment is consolidating behind his candidacy early in the primary season.

  Yet many federal bureaucracies, legacy media organs, and other institutions can be counted on to put up resistance.

  Additionally, the “sanctuary city” phenomenon—and, on the flip side, Republican states’ underreported solidarity with Texas in its battle with federal authorities over the border—offers a foretaste of how the Trump administration might clash with some cities, counties, and states during a second term.

  And, as in the first term, neoconservatives, neoliberals, and other Washington non-neophytes who boast deep backgrounds in government but don’t share the MAGA vision may seek power for their own reasons.

  During late 2016 and early 2017, the outsider whom Americans elevated to the presidency faced multiple challenges as he met with immediate and unprecedented hostility from the establishment, including scrutiny from the outgoing Obama administration and the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation before he was even elected.

  President Trump is still marching into gale-force winds—and if he reaches the Oval Office, he will have little time for rest and almost no room for error.

  The Americans who vote for him will demand the swift, efficient execution of MAGA agenda items that lay the groundwork for a lasting legacy—what Stephen Bannon described to The Epoch Times as the starting point for “50 years of MAGA policies.”
   

  

  The 2nd Transition

  If President Trump is elected on Nov. 5, he’ll have until Inauguration Day—Jan. 20, 2025—to manage the transition from the Biden administration to a second Trump term.

  The first Trump transition was rocky. President Trump came to Washington as an outsider after winning an election he was widely expected to lose.

  New York City was the real estate mogul’s home turf, not “the swamp” along the Potomac River. He and a small group of loyalists were starting from scratch in what, to many of them, was a strange and hostile town.

  “We didn’t have a deep bench,” recalled Mr. Bannon, a member of the transition team in 2016 who later served as the White House’s chief strategist.

  “He [Trump] wasn’t versed in how Washington does business,” K.T. McFarland, a Trump administration deputy national security adviser who previously worked in multiple Republican presidential administrations, told The Epoch Times.

  

  While earlier presidents were comfortable recruiting from prior administrations in the same party, President Trump was hesitant to take in George W. Bush administration veterans, particularly in national security roles. According to Ms. McFarland, President Trump felt the Bush crew had failed on that score.

  As evidence of how President Trump shook things up, she cited his call with the president of Taiwan during the transition period. Much of the establishment was aghast—but, on Ms. McFarland’s account, the president-elect recognized the country’s value as a trading partner.

  In “The Fifth Risk,” journalist Michael Lewis depicts a chaotic transition period. One chapter opens by describing how Department of Energy staff members awaited a Trump team the day after the election, in line with prior administrations. Thirty parking spaces that were cleared for the victor remained vacant all day—the expected delegation never materialized.

  At least some of Mr. Lewis’s sources are Obama political appointees who, a critic might note, count as less than impartial authorities on their political opponents. For instance, he quotes the department’s deputy secretary, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, who is now President Joe Biden’s homeland security adviser.

  Lawyer Paul Dans said that although he wasn’t in the mix during the transition, he was “trying to knock on the door to get on the team.”

  He said he had “a really hard time getting into the federal government” despite his prestigious credentials, which include multiple degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and stints at top law firms such as Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP (later bought out by Locke Lord).

  Mr. Dans ultimately served in multiple roles in the Trump administration, including as chief of staff for the crucial Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—the human resources hub for each presidential administration and the federal government as a whole.

  

  Mr. Dans now leads The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, a coalition of more than 90 conservative organizations seeking to line up the right people, policies, and priorities well ahead of any coming transition period. Project 2025 doesn’t officially endorse any presidential candidate.

  Project 2025 partners include credible, experienced MAGA policy shops such as the Center for Renewing America, a think tank led by former Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought. Stephen Miller’s America First Legal is another coalition member. The coalition’s playbook, “Mandate for Leadership,” is a hefty 920 pages.

  The tome comes alongside other detailed instruction manuals for Republicans hoping to carry out a better presidential transition—for example, “Year Zero” by Chris Liddell, former White House deputy chief of staff under President Trump.

  Mr. Dans’s own struggles hopping on the first “Trump train” have clearly influenced his thinking.

  “It was really important in my view that the next president—and I believe that will be President Trump—needs to be supported by a team who knows day one what the game plan is—that they’re brought in, and they’re trained, and they’re ready to go to work,” Mr. Dans told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Bannon spoke about filling out a new Washington “ecosystem” more in keeping President Trump and his priorities than what came before.

  “You have a broad base of super-competent people that are thinking these ideas through in a self-organizing way and will be there if the president is so inclined, but even if they’re not selected, they become part of this very important ecosystem in Washington,” he said.

  

  Transition Teams

  Mr. Dans described ideal candidates for the “army of conservatives” the project aims to train as, among other things, “personable” and “willing to keep driving and problem-solving.”

  The first Trump transition may have been heavier on generals than foot soldiers—and many of the strong personalities clashed over difficult problems.

  More than a few current foes of President Trump were left in the wake of those early days and months.

  “The transition would become a breeding ground for creatures who would inhabit the Washington Swamp,” Anthony Scaramucci wrote in “Trump: The Blue-Collar President.” Mr. Scaramucci, who served little more than a week as White House communications director in 2017, is now an outspoken supporter of President Biden.

  Mr. Bannon recounted that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, now another intractable Trump foe, assembled the initial transition team after President Trump’s 2016 election.

  The resulting work product was “a joke” and easily discarded, Mr. Bannon said. Incoming Vice President Mike Pence, now also a Trump critic from time to time, replaced Mr. Christie at the helm of the transition effort.

  “Ivanka, Jared, and I were really pulling together to run the transition,” Mr. Bannon said. “The Obama administration was not particularly helpful in the transition.”

  

  President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner became fixtures of the Trump White House.

  “There’s no question that Jared was very involved,” Sean Spicer told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Spicer, who after working on the transition team served as the first press secretary, noted Sen. Bill Haggerty’s (R-Tenn.) involvement in making key appointments.

  Mr. Spicer was among the more politically experienced people in the room, having previously served as the Republican National Committee’s communications director. But multiple memoirs covering the transition and early administration took aim at Mr. Spicer, including Trump official Cliff Sims’s “Team of Vipers” and journalist Jonathan Karl’s “Front Row at the Trump Show.”

  Mr. Bannon is also criticized by some memoirists. Mr. Karl noted he was a “surprisingly accessible source.”

  For his part, the former White House chief strategist said the clash of personalities early on was a positive, comparing it to the “team of rivals” in President Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet.

  An anonymous Trump administration insider told The Epoch Times that the involvement of the Boston Consulting Group in the first transition was particularly jarring. The company is one of the Big Three management consulting firms and, like both McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company, a potent symbol of the establishment.

  

  “It was ridiculous. It was the biggest fraud of the Trump presidency,” the insider said of the consulting group’s involvement, claiming that “the political loyalists had to defer to them.”

  Mr. Spicer told The Epoch Times he hadn’t heard of any firm affiliates’ involvement in the transition. Yet reporting from the time identifies Boston Consulting Group staff on the transition team.

  The group was also a part of the Trump–Biden transition.

  A joint report from the group and the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition claims the two parties “played crucial roles in assisting all three of the major stakeholder groups throughout the 2020–21 transition.”

  “Throughout 2020, we were able to build trusted relationships and provide critical support to three main audiences—the Biden transition team, Trump administration, and career agency officials,” a more detailed report from the Center for Presidential Transition reads. It describes Boston Consulting Group as the center’s “anchor partner on the transition.”

  The 1st Days in Power

  Kicking off the first term was President Trump’s inauguration speech.

  A comparison between Mr. Kushner’s account of the speech and Mr. Karl’s version reveals just how differently the same few words resonated with different audiences.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:45

• Democrats Fail America's Youth As Dozens Of Schools In Illinois & Maryland Have Zero Kids Proficient In Math
  Democrats Fail America’s Youth As Dozens Of Schools In Illinois & Maryland Have Zero Kids Proficient In Math

  “Democrats always congratulate themselves on being the only party truly concerned with education, especially of the underprivileged, and regularly attack conservatives and Republicans for their “callous indifference.” The Democratic Party Platform, presenting itself as a savior of the underclass, calls for billions of dollars in “bold new investments” by federal and state governments to make good public schools available to every child, “no matter what zip code they live in,”” an excerpt from the “Shame of the Schools” book read. 

  Despite Democrats plowing tens of billions into public K-12 education, schools across the nation are failing in their core mission to educate. 

  

  The answer by Democrats for failing schools is to spend, spend, spend. However, the evidence of Democrats spending into oblivion on education, yielding positive results for the future generation, has yet to materialize: 

  “The average test scores for U.S. 13-year-olds have dipped in reading and dropped sharply in math since 2020, according to new data from National Assessment of Educational Progress.

  “The average scores, from tests given last fall, declined 4 points in reading and 9 points in math, compared with tests given in the 2019-2020 school year, and are the lowest in decades. The declines in reading were more pronounced for lower performing students, but dropped across all percentiles,” NPR reported. 

  In Maryland and Illinois, two states controlled by radical Democrats, evidence is mounting that progressives are failing to educate the youth. 

  Independent research firm Wirepoints found that, shockingly, 53 schools in Illinois had zero students proficient in math at grade levels. The state spends $40.6 billion on K-12 education or $21,750 per student – some of the highest in the nation. 

  Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. pic.twitter.com/LMYxvD7oGq

  — Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) February 6, 2024

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

  And also read. 

  Not a single student can read at grade level in 30 Illinois schools.

  I bet they can name a dozen genders though and explain why white people are evil. pic.twitter.com/0fIfgDyzaJ

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 6, 2024

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

  Similarly, investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore found last year that 23 Baltimore City schools did not have a single student proficient in math at grade level. Again, another school district with a massive education budget but higher spending doesn’t result in better student outcomes. 

  BREAKING: 23 Baltimore City Schools had ZERO students test proficient in math during the most recent Maryland state testing. This includes 10 high schools. “Take your kids out of these schools,” one community activist told @FOXBaltimore @Project_Bmore https://t.co/MSyOLKEhf7

  — Chris Papst (@chrispapst) February 7, 2023

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

  This is very sad for the future of this nation. 

  23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, per state test results.

  Baltimore County Public Schools spends $14,883 per student each year. It has an annual revenue of $1,891,725,000, yet kids can’t do math at their grade level.

  Reminder Baltimore is Democrat run… pic.twitter.com/6LfJLQqO3J

  — I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) February 9, 2023

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

  Meanwhile, “Leftwing Democrats work overtime to establish the idea that the failure of our inner-city schools is wholly the responsibility of mean-spirited, tight-fisted, and outright racist Republicans ready to consign minority children to the social ash heap,” an excerpt from the Shame of the Schools book noted. 

  Democrats need a rescue plan to save America’s failing public K-12 education system that they oversee. It probably doesn’t help when leftists inject toxic CRT and DEI into education curriculums. 

  Let’s get back to actual learning and critical thinking, something Elon Musk is pushing with his new private K-12 school in Texas. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:25

• US Asset Or US Adversary? Why Qatar Looks Worryingly Like Both
  US Asset Or US Adversary? Why Qatar Looks Worryingly Like Both

  Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClear Wire,

  After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, one of the terrorist organization’s chief financial sponsors, hosts of its leaders, and backers of its propaganda found itself singled out by America’s leaders – not for condemnation, but praise.

  “The U.S.-Qatar partnership could not be stronger, and Qatar could not have done more than it did in 2023 to play an indispensable role on the world stage,” U.S. ambassador to Qatar Timmy Davis wrote on X last December.

  

  The Biden administration, from the president on down, has lauded the emirate throughout the Israel-Hamas war, especially for its shepherding of negotiations between the two sides for a ceasefire and hostage releases – a role Qatar is singularly capable of filling in part because it maintains Hamas’ “political office” in its capital city, Doha.

  At the annual Qatar-led Doha Forum last December, Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham echoed the Democratic administration, while also thanking Qatar for its assistance evacuating Americans during the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal – a success attributed in part to its harboring of another terrorist group, the Taliban.

  Graham too thanked Qatar for accommodating “10,000 American airmen who live better than [at] any air base in the … world” – a reference to Al Udeid, the largest such facility in the region

  House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Jack Bergman, a Michigan Republican, highlighted the irony of this bipartisan praise, noting, “Our brave men and women in uniform who have served out of Al Udeid … have gone on missions to combat terrorist groups funded by Qatar.”

  Even Qatar’s critics acknowledge that its role as both a valued U.S. ally and supporter of some of America’s deadliest foes represents a remarkable diplomatic feat. 

  To understand how this tiny but rich, theocratic and terror-tied nation has become “indispensable” to Washington – elevated by the Biden administration to major non-NATO ally status on par with Australia, Japan, and Israel – RealClearInvestigations analyzed thousands of pages of congressional testimony and correspondence, other research and news articles, and conducted interviews with policymakers and scholars.

  The analysis suggests how Qatar has wedded the leverage of the Pentagon’s operational demands, and policymakers’ desire to negotiate with adversaries, with a sprawling multi-billion-dollar campaign to “buy power and influence wherever possible,” as Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it.

  The upshot is that Qatar’s ruling House of Thani has executed what Goldberg told RCI is a “kind of terror-finance double game” transcending Hamas.

  Energy Windfall, Outsized Power

  The Connecticut-sized state with a population the size of Houston punches above its weight with a war chest built on vast liquefied natural gas reserves. After the U.S., Qatar is the second largest exporter of the commodity in the world. Its position could improve not just because of the Biden administration’s recent bow to its domestic anti-fossil-fuel base in curbing U.S. LNG exports, but also as the gulf state capitalizes on the growing energy needs of China and a Europe seeking alternatives to Russian gas.

  The LNG-rich nation has used its energy windfall to project outsized global power and influence. “Billions of Qatari dollars permeate all aspects of our lives without us even knowing it,” says Goldberg.

  Defense cooperation is core to the U.S.-Qatar relationship. U.S. officials cast Al Udeid, U.S. Central Command’s headquarters, as its key asset in the Middle East. Built in 1996 by Qatar at a cost of $1 billion, the U.S. transitioned its major air operations there from Saudi Arabia in 2003, in part due to security threats. 

  The base, in which Qatar has invested billions more to revamp, enables the U.S. “to support a range of critical missions in the region and respond to challenges to our shared security” according to the Pentagon.

  Critics see it differently. “Far from being an American strategic asset in the Arabian Gulf, Al Udeid is, in fact, a Qatari asset in Washington,” national security analyst David Reaboi wrote in his 2021 book, “Qatar’s Shadow War.”

  “As long as the U.S. military advocates on behalf of the base’s continued use,” he argued, “… nearly any amount of trouble and mischief Qatar creates will be accepted, excused or contextualized.”

  The emirate has deepened influence with the U.S. military by lavishing sometimes lucrative contracts on over a dozen former high-ranking defense officials. One implicated official is retired Marine Gen. John Allen. The former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan came under federal scrutiny for alleged illegal foreign lobbying for Qatar when, in 2017, he counseled the country as it faced a blockade from neighbors over its support for Islamists.

  Investigators alleged Gen. Allen traveled to Doha to confer with top Qatari officials on how to influence U.S. policy, and promoted Qatar’s view to U.S. lawmakers – including its opposition to a resolution linking Doha to terror financing. “At the same time he was lobbying U.S. government officials on behalf of Qatar,” the government alleged, “Allen pursued at least one multimillion-dollar business deal with the Qatari government on behalf of a company on whose board of directors he served.”

  Prosecutors dropped their probe last year, but not before Allen stepped down as president of the prestigious Brookings Institution.

  U.S. think tanks, including Brookings, are another strategically significant area Qatar has cultivated for influence.

  The Brookings Connection

  Brookings established its satellite Doha Center in 2007 to “undertake research on the socio-economic and geopolitical issues facing the Muslim world, and encourage more understanding between U.S. and Muslim policy-makers” – in consultation and coordination with Qatar, and with $5 million in Qatari funding.

  In 2014 the New York Times reported that one year prior, the emirate agreed to donate an additional $15 million to the liberal think tank in part for the center. The report suggested the Qatari cash may have come with strings attached – scholars were not to criticize Doha.

  Brookings is adamant Qatari funding has not compromised its work.

  But the affiliation undoubtedly bought Qatar a prestigious partner – and proximity to a roster filled with prominent policymakers and thought leaders. At times they would take positions consonant with Doha or those of its Islamist acquaintances.

  The center was formed under the leadership of, among others, the then-head of Brookings’ Middle East center and later director of its Foreign Policy Program, Martin Indyk.

  The Obama administration would tab the former Clinton administration diplomat as its Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations in summer 2013 – the year the Doha Center secured the massive Qatari cash infusion – where he would lead talks to which Qatar-sponsored Hamas was central. Indyk would reportedly blame Israel for the collapse of those talks, and return to Brookings in 2014.

  Hady Amr led the Doha Center as its first director, a position he held until 2010. Then, he too joined the Obama administration, including serving under Indyk and later as Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations for Economics. After returning to Brookings, President Biden would tab Amr Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs before elevating him to Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs. Amr, who wrote a year after September 11, 2001 that he “was inspired by the Palestinian intifada,” has drawn the ire of pro-Israel critics for such rhetoric, and support for related policies they see as hostile towards the Jewish state and favorable to its foes, including Hamas.

  Shadi Hamid served as the Doha Center’s research director from 2009 to 2014 and continued as a senior fellow at Brookings. Hamid would argue during a Qatar-sponsored 2009 debate that Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are “committed to a moderate path” and “clearly” pose no threat to the West. When Trump administration officials suggested they would consider designating the Muslim Brotherhood – which spawned Hamas – as a terrorist group, Hamid argued vigorously against it. In a 2017 Brookings explainer, he warned that targeting the “mainstream” organization would “open[] the door for repressive regimes abroad to crack down on Islamist groups,” “feed[] into ISIS propaganda,” and promote “a false narrative” that U.S. Muslim organizations have ties to the group. “Not a single American expert” supports such a designation, he would argue then, and again as designation talk intensified in 2019.

  Proponents of the policy would note that Qatar is a leading patron of the Islamist group. Fox News reported on Jan. 20 that recently revealed documents suggest Qatar’s efforts to defeat a congressional measure aimed at achieving the designation also included using a firm run by former CIA officer Kevin Chalker “to discredit Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex … because he had sought to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Reports allege that in recent years Qatar has targeted a number of high-level American critics via such surreptitious efforts, as well as through lawfare.

  Hamid did not reply to RCI’s request for comment.

  Brookings would rake in at least $22 million from Qatar from 2013 to 2017, when it “elected not to renew funding,” according to a FAQ that appears to have been published amid bipartisan congressional scrutiny, including regarding whether Brookings violated the Foreign Agent Registrations Act.

  Brookings maintained the center until 2021. Then it ended its affiliation, ceding authority to Qatar. Still, critics, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), say the Doha Center relationship “appears to have significantly compromised the organization’s independence.”

  Another recipient of Qatari largesse to come under scrutiny is the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, a Santa Fe-based group established to carry on the work of the late New Mexico governor and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson to “promote international peace and dialogue.”

  In 2019, the organization announced that it had received a “substantial commitment” – later reported to be $900,000 – from Doha for its efforts to secure the release of hostages detained abroad. Qatar would contribute $900,000 again in 2020 before tapering off its donations to $250,000 in early 2023. In December, Jewish Insider reported that the Richardson Center had “advised the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza not to criticize the Gulf state,” as it engages with Qatar in what’s been described as an “under-the-radar role” to free hostages held captive by Hamas.

  Facing criticism over the group’s conciliatory posture towards Qatar – compounded by a report that Richardson Center Vice President and Executive Director Mickey Bergman had counseled Jewish community officials that Israel’s caving to Hamas’ demands was the only way to quickly secure the release of hostages – Bergman took to X to respond. “For those of us who’ve been working on getting hostages home for years & the families that experienced this tragedy, there are two cardinal truths: 1) the deals to bring them home never get better with time; 2) the chances of survival never get better with time,” he wrote.

  Bergman added: “The deal last month was better than today’s. Unfortunately, it was not taken & several hostages killed since. ‘If your goal is to bring hostages home, you do what you need to, today. If your goal is different, you criticize those who r trying to bring them home.’”

  The Richardson Center is not alone among Qatari-funded American entities advising the families of hostages held in Gaza. On January 31, Politico reported that former special assistant to President Bill Clinton Jay Footlik’s ThirdCircle Inc. has also been counseling such families. It has been a registered foreign agent since 2019, facilitating trips for U.S. officials to Qatar on behalf of its embassy for $40,000 per month.

  Robert Malley, Accused Iran Appeaser

  Another influential recipient of Qatari funds is the Washington, D.C.-based International Crisis Group. Financial records show the emirate made two grants to the group totaling $5 million from 2018 to 2021. This period largely overlapped with Robert Malley’s tenure as the organization’s president.

  Seen by critics as an Iran appeaser and apologist for its proxy Hamas, Malley rose to national attention in 2008 when the Obama presidential campaign removed the diplomat as an adviser for having met Hamas’ leaders while running International Crisis Group’s Middle East program. Ultimately, President Obama would bring Malley back into the fold as lead negotiator on his Iran nuclear deal team.

  Malley returned to government in January 2021 to help the Biden administration reprise that deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which President Trump had withdrawn. Qatar helped mediate indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran. Qatar also helped mediate America’s exchange with Iran last September of five Iranian detainees plus $6 billion in unfrozen Iranian funds – panned by critics as a ransom payment – for five detained Americans. After Iran-backed Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack, Qatar reportedly agreed with the U.S. to withhold the funds – which are held in Doha bank accounts – though Iran’s foreign ministry recently released a statement suggesting otherwise.

  Last year, Malley was stripped of his security clearance, suspended, and reportedly put under FBI investigation for allegedly mishandling classified information while serving as President Biden’s special envoy to Iran.

  Evidence would emerge suggesting Malley “and members of his negotiating team may have had compromising ties to the Iranian regime,” per congressional investigators. They noted that Ariane Tabatabai, whom Malley would recruit to that team, was part of the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI). The Iranian government launched this apparent influence operation in 2014 to cultivate a network of U.S. and European scholars to promote the regime’s favored positions on global security matters. Two International Crisis Group employees have also been implicated in this effort.

  In response to questions about Qatar funding, International Crisis Group told RCI, “Donations from the Government of Qatar accounted for less than 5% of our total funding during the relevant period and were constructed to preserve our full independence.”

  Direct Investments in America

  Money lubricates the U.S.-Qatar relationship in other ways. Qatar’s Investment Authority is one of the ten largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. It has pumped over $30 billion into the U.S., sometimes in concert with major U.S. financial firms like Apollo, Blackstone, and KKR.

  Qatar plans to commit $45 billion more to the U.S.

  Recently, Qatar reportedly became the first foreign country to use its sovereign wealth fund to make a direct investment in American’s sports teams when it bought a 5% stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars into an entity holding Washington, D.C.’s professional basketball and hockey teams.

  Qatar also owns stakes in numerous landmarks including iconic New York properties such as the Empire State Building, The Plaza, and St. Regis hotels.

  The U.S.-Qatar Business Council aims to foster bilateral commercial relations. It counts among its members major oil companies like ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, some with which it has engaged in joint energy projects; defense contractors including Boeing – from which Qatar Airways purchased $37 billion in 737 Max planes in a massive 2022 deal – General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin; and financial services companies such as MetLife and Visa.

  Recently, the Washington Examiner reported that Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves represented the Qatari government, a Qatari charitable organization alleged to have backed Al-Qaeda, and the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera Media Network when he was a partner at DLA Piper law firm in D.C. Critics charge that Graves, who is now overseeing many Jan. 6 prosecutions, has by contrast gone soft on pro-Palestinian rioters in the nation’s capital. 

  Bankrolling Higher Ed

  Qatar’s influence extends to the higher education institutions that seed America’s most influential sectors as well.

  The emirate has been the largest foreign donor to American universities since 9/11, contributing at least $4.7 billion from 2001 to 2022 according to the National Association of Scholars (NAS).

  A large chunk of the funds has gone to Virginia Commonwealth University, Cornell, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and Northwestern to establish American campuses in Doha’s “education city.”

  Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, has said the funds “could translate to an implicit bias amongst university graduates, which is probably why … most of the top recipients of funding from countries in the Middle East are universities that produce some of the top foreign policy minds in the U.S.”

  A 2023 Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy study suggests these funds correlate with both “the erosion of free speech norms” and “increased levels of campus antisemitism.”

  Middle East Studies departments, often funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, NAS found, “have repurposed critical theory to galvanize activism on Middle East issues,” which some link to the eruption of pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic sentiment at colleges after Oct. 7.

  Other reporting suggest Qatari funds may not only compromise the work of its recipients, but raise national security concerns.

  Doha’s Direct Lobbying – for Hamas?

  Qatar’s direct lobbying operation is also formidable.

  From 2016 to 2023, Qatar spent $240 million based on Foreign Agent Registration Act filings alone – sixth most of any country. China ranked first, at $378 million.

  These efforts mushroomed during the Trump years as the emirate sought to fight the economic, diplomatic, and travel blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

  The stated reason for the row was Qatar’s support for both Sunni and Shia Islamists, which the emirate’s neighbors felt threatened their authoritarian but anti-Islamist regimes – particularly during the Arab spring.

  The parties to the blockade demanded that Qatar curb its ties to Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that it cease backing and designate as terrorist organizations the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah. The Gulf states also demanded that Qatar shutter the Al-Jazeera media network, whose programming, they said, promotes terror. (Former Vice President Al Gore reportedly netted $100 million when Qatar bought his struggling Current TV in 2013, and turned it into the since-shuttered Al Jazeera America.)

  Members of Congress have characterized Al-Jazeera’s often pro-Islamist programming and platforming of jihadists as “anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel” – something critics say is even more prevalent in its Arabic-language content.

  The blockading states treated Qatar’s backing of Al-Jazeera – which reaches more than 400 million people in some 150 countries – as tantamount to its waging of information warfare against them.

  The Justice Department wrote in a September 2020 letter that Al-Jazeera and its affiliates were foreign agents of Qatar.

  These entities have refused to register accordingly, prompting Rep. Bergman to push Speaker Mike Johnson to revoke House Press Gallery credentials from the 136 Al-Jazeera employees who have received them – nearly double that of those provided the New York Times – some percentage of whom he is concerned could be influence agents or spies.

  Qatar’s lobbying efforts aimed to undermine the blockade, including by countering prominent critics and targeting hundreds of influencers in Trump world. In addition to hiring the likes of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to advocate on its behalf, Qatar enlisted lobbyists to change the hearts and minds of national security-focused American Jews weary of Qatar’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations, some of whom it flew to Doha and feted.

  One specific aim of the lobbying effort, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, was to kill legislation aimed at sanctioning state sponsors of Hamas, including Qatar.

  Rep. Bergman told RCI the emirate “single-handedly defeated” a 2017 bipartisan bill specifically fingering Qatar for its Hamas support.

  When colleagues re-introduced the bill in 2019, with “Qatar’s name … removed, and only Iran remain[ing] – Qatar killed it again,” Rep. Bergman emphasized.

  Had America imposed such sanctions, the congressman believes, Hamas might not have been able to execute the Oct.. 7 attack.

  “To go against the Qatar regime for its state sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist terrorism,” said J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, “is to commit political suicide in Washington.”

  A Tough Cost-Benefit Equation

  Despite its connection to terrorist groups and state sponsors of terror, the West and its allies believe the benefits of using Qatar as an intermediary to the world’s pariahs outweigh the costs.

  Even as leaders from both sides of the aisle in both chambers of Congress have pushed the Biden administration to exert pressure on Qatar to squeeze Hamas to return all hostages, expel its leaders, and cease support for the terrorist group, the administration has agreed to extend its stay at Al Udeid for the next 10 years.

  This cemented the U.S.-Qatar alliance at the same time critics had been calling for the U.S. to leverage the air base to influence the emirates’ behavior.

  The White House did not respond to RCI’s inquiries.

  Former Trump deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates told RCI that while the emirate’s Islamist ties pose “a significant problem,” some of the capabilities touted by Doha’s boosters, plus its formidable natural gas position – where Coates believes there could be mutual benefits to cooperation – compel America to carefully consider its approach to the relationship. Between “apologists” and “haters,” Coates asks, “are either of those positions actually what’s in the best interest of the American people?”

  Rep. Bergman is adamant that the U.S. should not allow Qatar to buy influence. “Qatar should not be allowed to infiltrate our universities or buy up half of the lobbyists and PR firms in Washington, let alone to purchase 5% of the NBA and NHL teams in Washington, D.C. … Nor should Qatar be able to covertly fund – and thus exert control over – the think tanks that Congress and the Administration rely on so heavily to set policies.”

  Coates’ former NSC colleague Goldberg put it this way: “Qatar can be with Hamas or with the United States. It can’t be both.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 19:05

• Iraq Closer To Expelling US Troops After Drone Strike In Busy Neighborhood
  Iraq Closer To Expelling US Troops After Drone Strike In Busy Neighborhood

  The fallout continues in the wake of the Pentagon’s assassination by drone strike of at least one or more Kataib Hezbollah leaders in a crowded east Baghdad neighborhood Wednesday night.

  Iraq’s government on Thursday condemned the violation of the country’s sovereignty, and warned it brings political leadership a big step closer to kicking American troops out of Iraq altogether.

  Iraq’s military commander-in-chief condemned the “blatant assassination” of an Iranian-backed militia leader “in the heart of a residential neighborhood” in Baghdad, which could have killed many bystanders.The statement underscored that the US has shown “no regard for civilian lives or international laws.”

  

  “By this act, the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens,” the Iraqi military statement said.

  There were large overnight protests outside the ‘Green Zone’ where the US Embassy is located in Baghdad. These protests will likely persist in the coming days and could grow violent, as has happened in recent years.

  The US Central Command (CENTCOM) statement which was issued within hours after the drone strike on the SUV claimed there were no civilian casualties:

  There are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time. The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people.

  Still, the Pentagon is expected to mount more targeted attacks pm senior Iranian-backed militia commanders in the wake of last month’s drone strike on a US base along the Jordan-Syria border, which killed three US Army soldiers.

  Currently, some 2,500 US troops remain in Iraq, ostensibly still there as part of a ‘counter-ISIS’ mission, though ISIS terrorists have long been driven underground. Likely there are many thousands more US contractors and security operators throughout the country, and especially in the north in Erbil.

  The Iraqi military statement concluded by calling out the ambiguous “mission” and changing rationale for US troops remaining in the country. It said that “even more concerning is that the coalition consistently deviates from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory.”

  #BREAKING
  Drone airstrike targeted a vehicle in Mashtal neighborhood, eastern Baghdad. 🇮🇶 pic.twitter.com/Ymwva2Tpnj

  — Tammuz Intel (@Tammuz_Intel) February 7, 2024

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

  One of the real reasons US troops are still in Iraq is to provide support for the occupation of Syria across the border.

  American outposts on the Iraqi side assists with logistics and staging, and also has come under accusations of supporting the ‘oil theft’ happening in the Deir Ezzor region. In some cases tanker trucks have been seen crossing into Iraq from Syria, laden with Syrian oil.

  Meanwhile in Iraq today…

  A US drone roves the skies of Baghdad as a funeral for Kataib Hezbollah’s senior commander Wissam AlSaedi aka Abou Baqer is held. pic.twitter.com/QDtL94jsDF

  — Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) February 8, 2024

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:45

• Judge Rules Former Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Will Remain In Prison While He Appeals Contempt Conviction
  Judge Rules Former Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Will Remain In Prison While He Appeals Contempt Conviction

  Authored by Ryan Morgan via NTD News,

  A federal judge has rejected a request by former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro to be allowed to stay out of prison while he appeals a conviction for contempt of Congress.

  

  Mr. Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress after defying a pair of subpoenas from the now-disbanded House committee that investigated the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which was controlled at the time by Democrats. He was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced last month to serve concurrent four-month prison terms.

  The former adviser argued throughout the subpoena process, at trial, and again in his appeal that he had a good faith belief that testifying before Congress would have conflicted with President Donald Trump’s executive privilege. On Thursday, Judge Ahmit Meta of the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. ruled that there is no “substantial question of law” for which Mr. Navarro warrants remaining out of prison.

  Mr. Navarro’s legal team has argued that the questions he raised about executive privilege meet the major questions doctrine of legal interpretation. This doctrine states that courts should rely on relevant executive branch agencies to resolve significant regulatory policy questions.

  Judge Mehta had rejected Mr. Navarro’s privilege claims earlier in the case, stating that during his trial, Mr. Navarro’s team never presented evidence that President Trump asserted a privilege claim over his testimony. Mr. Navarro had claimed President Trump had asserted his privilege verbally in a February 2022 phone call, but Judge Mehta ruled that he had “not carried his burden of establishing a formal claim of privilege from President Trump.”

  In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta acknowledged that the exact requirements to invoke executive privilege properly remains an open question before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals but said, “After over a year of litigation, Defendant still has not offered what he thinks is required for a proper invocation of executive privilege.”

  Judge Rejects Political Bias Argument

  In addition to rejecting Mr. Navarro’s arguments about executive privilege, Judge Mehta also rejected the argument made by Navarro’s team during sentencing that his prosecution for contempt of Congress was motivated by political bias.

  Mr. Navarro has argued that there was political bias in his case. He noted that three assistant U.S. attorneys who had organized a letter to then-Attorney General Bill Barr challenging allegations of fraud in the 2020 election ended up on the same prosecution team that investigated and charged him.

  According to Mr. Navarro’s legal team, prosecutors injected an improper bias into his trial. They argued that this was done when the prosecutors associated his prosecution with the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. Additionally, Mr. Navarro’s legal team claimed that the prosecutors continued to cast doubt on his case during the trial by insinuating that it had to do with a refusal to honor the historic U.S. tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

  Judge Mehta ruled Mr. Navarro’s legal team “offers no actual proof to support” their contention that political bias motivated the prosecution. Further, the federal judge argued that the record reflects the opposite of political bias because the Department of Justice had declined to prosecute two other former Trump advisors—former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino—for contempt of Congress.

  “Defendant’s cynical, self-serving claim of political bias poses no question at all, let alone a ’substantial’ one,” Judge Mehta wrote.

  Navarro Could Appeal Conviction Up to SCOTUS

  In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report” last month, Mr. Navarro expressed his belief that his questions about executive privilege could eventually become an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve.

  Mr. Navarro said after he first raised the issue of executive privilege to the Jan. 6 committee, the committee should have reached out to President Trump to clear up any dispute over his privilege claims rather than proceed instead with moving to consider him in contempt and requesting his prosecution by the DOJ.

  “I was more than happy to comply with that subpoena if they simply called the president and asked for a waiver of the privilege,” Mr. Navarro said at the time.

  “And I think it tells the lie, in this whole case, that they never made one phone call, they never lifted a finger to call him to get the information they claimed they needed to have. Had they made that one phone call, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  It remains to be seen how Mr. Navarro’s efforts to appeal his criminal conviction will play out. Whether he should remain out of prison during the appeal process is being treated as a separate issue for the court. In his Thursday ruling, Judge Mehta said unless the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacates his ruling, Mr. Navarro shall report to prison on time.

  NTD News reached out to Mr. Navarro’s legal team about whether he will seek an appeals court ruling to remain out of prison while he appeals his underlying case. The attorneys did not respond by press time.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:25

• Tucker Carlson: The Putin Interview
  Tucker Carlson: The Putin Interview

  Last week, Tucker Carlson traveled to Rusia to interview President Vladimir Putin. This sent the left into hysterics – some of whom have called for the journalist to face sanctions, or worse.

  

  Prior to the interview – which can be seen right now in its entirety at tuckercarlson.com, Carlson explained that it’s his job as a journalist “to inform people,” as “most Americans are not informed” as to what’s happening in Ukraine.

  To that end, let’s get into it.

  Tucker starts the interview by asking Putin why he invaded Ukraine, “and the answer we got shocked us.”

  Putin proceeded to delve into the history of Ukraine, going back to the middle-ages. Tucker pushed back, saying “I’m not sure why it’s relevant to what happened two years ago,” to which Putin continued with the history lesson.

  “But why didn’t you make this case for the first 22 years as president, that Ukraine wasn’t a real country?” Tucker asked.

  “The Soviet Union was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea region. At some point when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo Turkish wars, they were called New Russia or another Russia. But that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, established Ukraine that way,” Putin replied. “For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR. And for unknown reasons, again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainization.”

  The trigger for the Ukraine war: “Initially, it was the coup in Ukraine that provoked the conflict… They launched the war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started.”

  NATO Expansion

  Getting to the meat of the Ukraine war, Putin told Carlson that “The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and believed that this would be understood by the so-called civilized West as an invitation for cooperation and association.”

  “We were promised no NATO to the east, not an inch to the east, as we were told. And then what? They said, well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.”

  “That is what Russia was expecting, both from the United States and this so-called collective West as a whole. There were smart people, including in Germany, Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they knew security systems should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unified Germany, but a new system should be also established to include the United States, Canada, Russia and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said. If NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once. If, he said, you don’t listen to me, I’m never setting my foot in Moscow once again. Everything happened just as he had said.”

  The state of negotiations:

  Vladimir Putin: I already said that we did not refuse to talk. We’re willing to negotiate. It is the western side, and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US. It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what is happening. The financial support. 72 billion U.S. dollars was provided. Germany ranks second, then other European countries come. Dozens of billions of U.S. dollars are going to Ukraine. There’s a huge influx of weapons. In this case, you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table, rescind this absurd decree. We did not refuse.

  Tucker: Sure, but you already said it. I didn’t think you meant it is an insult because you already said correctly, it’s been reported that Ukraine was prevented from negotiating a peace settlement by the former British Prime Minister acting on behalf of the Biden administration. So, of course they’re a satellite. Big countries control small countries. That’s not new. And that’s why I asked about dealing directly with the Biden administration, which is making these decisions, not President Zelensky of Ukraine.

  Vladimir Putin: Well if the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume they did it under the instruction from Washington. If Washington believes it to be the wrong decision, let it abandon it. Let it find the delicate excuse so that no one is insulted. Let it come up with a way out. It was not us who made this decision. It was them. So let them go back on it. That is it. However, they made the wrong decision. And now we have to look for a way out of this situation to correct their mistakes. They did it, so let them correct it themselves. We support this.

  Tucker: So I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you’re saying. I don’t think that I am. I think you’re saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

  Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Lt me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?

  Watch Putin explain that he had a signed peace deal (before BoJo arrived) here: 

  Vladimir Putin wanted peace and a settlement in Ukraine
  Tucker Carlson interview#TuckerPutin #TuckerCarlson pic.twitter.com/Gt8DY2dSRy

  — Michael Smith 🇺🇸 Ceo of nothing. (@Shotgunhunter1) February 8, 2024

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

  More: 

  • On the negotiation process and its failure: “There have been [talks] they reached a very high stage of coordination of positions in a complex process, but still they were almost finalized. But after we withdrew our troops from Kiev… the other side threw away all these agreements.”

  • On his last conversation with Joe Biden: “Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the special military operation, of course… I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.”

  • On the possibility of global conflict: “It goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war and a global war will bring all humanity to the brink of destruction.”

  • On the concept of de-nazification: “De-nazification… means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements… We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it.”

  • On Russia’s territorial ambitions: “We simply don’t have any interest [in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else]. It’s just threat mongering.”

  Elon Musk and Neuralink

  Putin then suggested that Elon Musk is unstoppable, saying “He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person. I truly believe he is. So you’ll need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules. Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest development in genetics or in AI? One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen.”

  Even more:

  • On the Nord Stream explosion: “People always say in such cases, look for someone who is interested. But in this case, we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has capabilities… Who is interested and who is capable of doing it?”

  Tucker: “Who blew up Nord Stream?” Putin: “You for sure.” Tucker: “I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream.” Putin: “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.“

  • On presenting evidence of NATO’s involvement: “In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media… We can simply shine the spotlight on our sources of information and we will not achieve results.”

  • On Germany’s silence regarding Nord Stream: “Today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests.”

  • On global alliances and security: “Security should be shared rather than meant for the golden billion. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable, and predictable.”

  • On the use of the US dollar as a political tool: “To use the dollar as a tool of foreign policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the US political leadership.”

  • On the impact of sanctions and the shift away from the US dollar: “Even the United States allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves… It wasn’t us who banned the use of the US dollar. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in U.S. dollars.”

  • On the relationship with China: “China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive. Its idea is to always look for compromise.”

  • On potential for change in US-Russia relations: “It is not about the personality of the leader. It is about the elites’ mindset, leader deal. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change.”

  • On the nature of power in the US: “It is very difficult for us to sort it all out. Who makes decisions in the elections? Each state regulates itself… There are two parties that are dominant: the Republicans and the Democrats.”

  • On Christianity and violence: “It is very easy when it comes to protecting oneself and one’s family, one’s homeland. We won’t attack anyone… And we were protecting our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future.”

  Tucker also asked about imprisoned WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich:

  Tucker: I just gotta ask you one last question. And that’s about someone who is very famous in the United States. Probably not here. Evan Gershkovich who’s the Wall Street Journal reporter. He’s 32. And he’s been in prison for almost a year. This is a huge story in the United States. And I just want to ask you directly, without getting into the details of it or your version of what happened, if, as a sign of your decency, you would be willing to release
  him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.

  Vladimir Putin: We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them. We have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps. When I talk about the partners, I first of all refer to special services. Special services are in contact with one another. They are talking about the matter in question. There is no taboo to settle this issue. We are willing to solve it but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached.

  Watch the full interview here on X:

  Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview pic.twitter.com/67YuZRkfLL

  — Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 8, 2024

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  Full transcript available here at TuckerCarlson.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 18:08

• Diesel Prices Primed To Rise Sharply In 2024
  Diesel Prices Primed To Rise Sharply In 2024

  By John Kemp, senior market analyst

  Global stocks of diesel and other middle distillates are below normal and prices could start to rise quickly if the industrial economies of North America and Western Europe emerge from their lingering recession in 2024.

  

  Inventories of diesel, heating oil and gas oil were below the prior ten-year seasonal average across North America, Europe and Singapore in January, which has begun to exert upward pressure on fuel prices. Investors have already noticed and amassed a position equivalent to 56 million barrels in the two major futures and options contracts tied to middle distillates up from 20 million barrels in the middle of December.

  Diesel and other distillate fuel oils are the workhorse of the industrial economy, widely used in manufacturing, freight transport and construction, and therefore the most sensitive fuels to the condition of the business cycle.

  Recent data has confirmed manufacturers in the United States are poised to return to growth after a prolonged though shallow cyclical downturn in 2022/23.

  European manufacturers have experienced an even longer and much deeper downturn caused by the surge in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But in Europe too there are signs the worst of the downturn is now over and the sector will return to growth before the end of the year.

  Traders anticipate both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will cut interest rates this year which would turbocharge the cyclical upswing. As a result, global distillate inventories are likely to remain below average and could easily tighten further, intensifying the upward pressure on prices.

  In the United States, distillate fuel oil stocks amounted to 114 million barrels at the end of November 2023…

  

  … the lowest for the time of year since 1951, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

  

  U.S. distillate inventories were 22 million barrels (-16% or -1.42 standard deviations) below the prior ten-year seasonal average (“Petroleum supply monthly“, EIA, January 31, 2024).

  

  

  

  Since then inventories have become more comfortable but they were still 10 million barrels (-7% or -0.54 standard deviations) below the seasonal average near the end of January.

  In Europe, inventories were 20 million barrels (-5% or -0.80 standard deviations) below the prior 10-year average at the end of December, the most recent data available.

  

  

  In Singapore, distillate stocks were an average of 3 million barrels (-33% or -1.95 standard deviations) below the 10-year average in January.

  

  There has been no sustained accumulation of inventories in any of the regions despite depressed industrial activity over the last year.

  Distillate supplies have been disrupted by Ukraine’s drone attacks on petroleum refineries in Russia and by Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden which have disrupted east-west flows.

  Re-routing east-west tankers from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the much longer route around Africa has tied up millions of barrels of diesel and gasoil as extra inventories on the water.

  Benchmark crack spreads for gasoil delivered in Northwest Europe in April 2024 have averaged $214 per tonne over Brent crude so far in February up from a premium of $174 in December.

  

  More generally, gasoil cracks have been rising since the start of 2024, reversing the steady decline in the fourth quarter of 2023.

  

  So far the impact on end-users has been muted because crude prices, which account for most of the total cost, have been fairly flat since the start of the year.

  Gasoil cracks for April 2024 have surged 37% since the start of the year but crude prices have increased by just 2%; the combined impact has been an increase in gasoil prices of 9%.

  

  But if gasoil inventories tighten further as the cyclical upswing proceeds, and Saudi Arabia and its OPEC⁺ allies finally obtain some traction over crude stocks and prices, there is potential for a sharp rise in diesel prices in 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:40

• Zelensky Fires Top General, Appoints New Commander, In Major Shake-Up
  Zelensky Fires Top General, Appoints New Commander, In Major Shake-Up

  It’s official: as we predicted even starting last month Ukraine’s top general and commander of the armed forces is now out.

  President Zelensky has confirmed that Gen. Valery Zaluzhny has been dismissed, in what appears part of a broader shake-up of top military and government leadership. Zelensky said it is “time for renewal”.

  

  Zelensky said Thursday he met with his army chief and that while it’s time for significant “changes” – Zaluzhny should remain “on his team”. Though the decision had been rumored and reported for over a week, presumably the stall was to negotiate and ensure peaceful transition of the top defense post. There were also widespread reports that Zaluzhny had refused to step down.

  “We discussed what renewal the Armed Forces of Ukraine need. We also discussed who could be in the renewed leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The time for this renewal is now,” Zelensky announced in an English statement on X and Telegram.

  Zaluzhny had just before the announcement confirmed he had an “important and serious conversation” with Zelensky which focused on changing battlefield tactics and strategy.

  The now former top commander has huge popularity among military ranks and especially far-right, ultranationalist and neo-Nazi elements. Will his firing result in mutiny or rebellion among some units? 

  Very quickly on the heels of news of Zaluzhny’s dismissal, Ukraine announced the appointment of Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new commander-in-chief the armed forces. Until now, Gen. Syrskyi was Ukraine’s ground forces commander.

  ‼️ Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially announced that he appointed Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. pic.twitter.com/zNidGclLiD

  — NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 8, 2024

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

  According to Ukraine’s FT correspondent:

  Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov thanked Zaluzhny for his “achievements and victories,” saying that the general “had one of the most difficult tasks – to lead the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the Great War with Russia.”

  A new military leadership team is expected to take over as of today. President Biden just yesterday acknowledged Ukraine is in “dire straights” right now, after Zelensky has struggled to attract more weaponry, and amid war weary Western publics, and European nations which have seen their own stockpiles drained.

  Zelensky is likely hoping this major change and shake-up could once again attract and renew Western defense support and aid. To illustrate just how dire the situation is, most might have missed this subtle detail in The New York Times days ago…

  ‘They Come in Waves’: Ukraine Goes on Defense Against a Relentless Foe (archived) – New York Times, Feb 4 2024
  …At the hot spots of the eastern front line, Ukrainian troops are outmanned, outgunned and digging in.

  “They come in waves,” said Lt. Oleksandr Shyrshyn, 29, the deputy battalion commander in the 47th Mechanized Brigade. “And they do not stop.”

  The geopolitical blog Moon of Alabama was the first to highlight it, and accurately observed the following days ago [emphasis ZH]:

  A Lieutenant at age 28 is likely a seasoned one. But in the role of a ‘deputy battalion commander’?

  What happened to the S3, the Major and nominal deputy battalion commander? What happened to the six Captains the battalion is supposed to have? All of them should be better trained and qualified to take on the role of a deputy battalion commander than a mere Lieutenant.

  This small detail, a Lieutenant as deputy battalion commander, tells me more about the battalion’s state that any flowery description of casualties.

  Likely it is too late for any major turn-around for Kiev forces, though the Zelensky administration has lately been teasing the potential for a large new military mobilization of hundreds of thousands, which is sure to be hugely unpopular and controversial among the Ukrainian population.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:25

• Hawaii Ignores US Supreme Court, Strikes Down Right To Carry Firearms In Public
  Hawaii Ignores US Supreme Court, Strikes Down Right To Carry Firearms In Public

  Hawaii’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state doesn’t have to adhere to a constitutional right to carry firearms in public, deviating from a 2022 US Supreme Court decision affirming such a right.

  

  “Article I, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Supreme Court of Hawaii wrote. However, “we read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”

  In doing so, the justices reversed a circuit court decision siding with a gun owner who was charged with a felony for violating three Hawaiian gun laws. The lower court had dismissed the charges, citing the 2022 “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen” in which the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense is covered under the 2nd Amendment.

  In December, Christopher Wilson was charged with a felony for violating three gun laws in Hawaii. Two of these laws restrict the possession of firearms and ammunition to the owner’s residence or business. A third law, HRS Section 134-9, authorizes the chief of police in each county to issue licenses for carrying firearms.

  Mr. Wilson’s legal team moved to have the charges dismissed, arguing that prosecuting him for possessing a firearm for self-defense purposes outside his home violated his right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution.

  In August 2022, a circuit court judge granted Mr. Wilson’s motion to dismiss the charges. It agreed that regulations restricting firearms to Mr. Wilson’s business or residence violated his right to keep and bear arms. -Epoch Times

  In its ruling, the Hawaiian Supreme Court claimed that the Bruen decision “snubs federalism principles.”

  The Hawaii Supreme Court held that while Wilson has standing to challenge the two laws restricting firearms, they wrote “we reject Wilson’s constitutional challenges.”

  “Hawaii’s historical tradition of firearm regulation rule out an individual right to keep and bear arms under the Hawaii Constitution … The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.”

  As the Epoch Times further notes:

  ‘Anti-Gun’ Court

  The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision was criticized by Kostas Moros, an attorney with Michel and Associates representing the California Rifle & Pistol Association.

  “I hope the poor guy dealing with all this nonsense files a cert petition. What a preposterous ruling by a bench of antigun activists,” he said in a Feb. 8 post on X (formerly Twitter). A cert petition seeks to have a higher court review the decision of a lower court.

  “At the time this man was charged, no one had ever gotten a CCW (concealed carry weapons) permit in Hawaii. It’s completely abdication of the judicial role to ignore this, unless the petitioner never brought it up, which I find unlikely.”

  Mr. Moros also criticized the Hawaii Supreme Court’s statement in its opinion that it makes “no sense for contemporary society to pledge allegiance to the founding era’s culture, realities, laws, and understanding of the Constitution.”

  “Sounds like the Hawaii Supreme Court doesn’t even want to be a part of the United States, in this rejection of not just the Second Amendment but their culture and understanding of the Constitution,” he said.

  In June last year, Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, signed bill SB1230 into law that prohibits carrying guns at many places, including beaches, nursing homes, hospitals, restaurants serving alcohol, movie theaters, stadiums, courthouses, and public parks.

  At the time, Mr. Green justified the bill by stating it would prevent injuries and deaths. “We’re taking action on gun violence … because most important to us as a family is to keep our keiki safe, and those that we love safe,” he said. In Hawaii, “keiki” refers to children.

  The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action criticized the bill, stating it “massively expands ‘gun-free zones’ where law-abiding citizens are left defenseless and also prohibits carrying firearms on private property unless the owner gives affirmative permission.” The bill also requires people carrying firearms to other places to have insurance coverage.

  A lawsuit has been filed against the bill that is scheduled for a hearing in San Francisco in April, according to attorney Alan Beck, who is litigating the case. A fundraiser has been created to cover the expenses of the lawsuit, which has received close to $8,000 in donations out of the targeted $20,000.

  In a Jan. 8 Facebook post, Mr. Beck said that the lawsuit would be heard by judges who will “at least be open to the Second Amendment arguments. That is good news for Hawaii gun owners.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/08/2024 – 17:20

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• 2024 Is The New 1984: Big Brother & The Rise Of The Security Industrial Complex
  2024 Is The New 1984: Big Brother & The Rise Of The Security Industrial Complex

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Big Brother is Watching You.”

  – George Orwell, 1984

  2024 is the new 1984.

  Forty years past the time that George Orwell envisioned the stomping boot of Big Brother, the police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state.

  Fueled by a melding of government and corporate power—the rise of the security industrial complex—this watershed moment sounds a death knell for our privacy rights.

  An unofficial fourth branch of government, the Surveillance State came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military.

  It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

  This is the new face of tyranny in America: all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful.

  

  Tread cautiously.

  Empowered by advances in surveillance technology and emboldened by rapidly expanding public-private partnerships between law enforcement, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector, the Surveillance State is making the fictional world of 1984, Orwell’s dystopian nightmare, our looming reality.

  1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”

  Indeed, in our present age of ubiquitous surveillance, there are no private lives.

  Everything is increasingly public.

  What we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is the creation of a new class system comprised of the watched (average Americans such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and private corporations).

  We now find ourselves in the unenviable position of being monitored, managed and controlled by our technology, which answers not to us but to our government and corporate rulers.

  This is the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction lesson that is being pounded into us on a daily basis.

  In this way, 1984, which depicted the ominous rise of ubiquitous technology, fascism and totalitarianism, has become an operation manual for the omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state.

  There are roughly one billion surveillance cameras worldwide and that number continues to grow, thanks to their wholehearted adoption by governments (especially law enforcement and military agencies), businesses, and individual consumers.

  Surveillance cameras mounted on utility poles, traffic lights, businesses, and homes. Ring doorbells. GPS devices. Dash cameras. Drones. Store security cameras. Geofencing and geotracking. FitBits. Alexa. Internet-connected devices. 

  Stingray devices, facial recognition technology, body cameras, automated license plate readers, gunshot detection, predictive policing software, AI-enhanced video analytics, real-time crime centers, fusion centers: all of these technologies and surveillance programs rely on public-private partnerships that together create a sticky spiderweb from which there is no escape.

  With every new surveillance device we welcome into our lives, the government gains yet another toehold into our private worlds.

  As the cost of these technologies becomes more affordable for the average consumer, an effort underwritten by the tech industry and encouraged by law enforcement agencies and local governing boards, which in turn benefit from access to surveillance they don’t need to include in their budgets, big cities, small towns, urban, suburban and rural communities alike are adding themselves to the surveillance state’s interconnected grid.

  What this adds up to for government agencies (that is, FBI, NSA, DHS agents, etc., as well as local police) is a surveillance map that allows them to track someone’s movements over time and space, hopscotching from doorbell camera feeds and business security cameras to public cameras on utility poles, license plate readers, traffic cameras, drones, etc.

  It has all but eliminated the notion of privacy enshrined in the  Fourth Amendment and radically re-drawn the line of demarcation between our public and private selves.

  The police state has become particularly adept at sidestepping the Fourth Amendment, empowered by advances in surveillance technology and emboldened by rapidly expanding public-private partnerships between law enforcement, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector.

  Over the past 50-plus years, surveillance has brought about a series of revolutions in how governments govern and populations are policed to the detriment of us all. Cybersecurity expert Adam Scott Wandt has identified three such revolutions.

  The first surveillance revolution came about as a result of government video cameras being installed in public areas. There were a reported 51 million surveillance cameras blanketing the United States in 2022. It’s estimated that Americans are caught on camera an average of 238 times every week (160 times per week while driving; 40 times per week at work; 24 times per week while out running errands and shopping; and 14 times per week through various other channels and activities). That doesn’t even touch on the coverage by surveillance drones, which remain a relatively covert part of police spying operations.

  The second revolution occurred when law enforcement agencies started forging public-private partnerships with commercial establishments like banks and drug stores and parking lots in order to gain access to their live surveillance feeds. The use of automatic license plate readers (manufactured and distributed by the likes of Flock Safety), once deployed exclusively by police and now spreading to home owners associations and gated communities, extends the reach of the surveillance state that much further afield. It’s a win-win for police budgets and local legislatures when they can persuade businesses and residential communities to shoulder the costs of the equipment and share the footage, and they can conscript the citizenry to spy on each other through crowdsourced surveillance.

  The third revolution was ushered in with the growing popularity of doorbell cameras such as Ring, Amazon’s video surveillance doorbell, and Google’s Nest Cam.

  Amazon has been particularly aggressive in its pursuit of a relationship with police, enlisting them in its marketing efforts, and going so far as to hosting parties for police, providing free Ring doorbells and deep discounts, sharing “active camera” maps of Ring owners, allowing access to the Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal, which enables police to directly contact owners for access to their footage, and coaching police on how to obtain footage without a warrant.

  Ring currently partners with upwards of 2,161 law enforcement agencies and 455 fire departments, and that number grows exponentially every year. As Vice reports, “Ring has also heavily pursued city discount programs and private alliances with neighborhood watch groups. When cities provide free or discounted Ring cameras, they sometimes create camera registries, and police sometimes order people to aim Ring cameras at their neighbors, or only give cameras to people surveilled by neighborhood watches.”

  In November 2022, San Francisco police gained access to the live footage of privately owned internet cameras as opposed to merely being able to access recorded footage. No longer do police even have to request permission of homeowners for such access: increasingly, corporations have given police access to footage as part of their so-called criminal investigations with or without court orders.

  The fourth revolutionary shift may well be the use of facial recognition software and artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics, clothing, behavior and car, thereby synthesizing the many strands of surveillance video footage into one cohesive narrative, which privacy advocates refer to as 360 degree surveillance.

  While the guarantee of safety afforded by these surveillance nerve centers remains dubious, at best, there is no disguising their contribution in effecting a sea change towards outright authoritarianism.

  For instance, as an in-depth investigative report by the Associated Press concludes, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.

  As the AP reports, federal officials have also been looking into how to add “‘identifiable patient data,’ such as mental health, substance use and behavioral health information from group homes, shelters, jails, detox facilities and schools,” to its surveillance toolkit.

  These cameras—and the public-private eyes peering at us through them—are re-engineering a society structured around the aesthetic of fear and, in the process, empowering “people to not just watch their neighborhood, but to organize as watchers,” creating not just digital neighborhood watches but digital gated communities.

  Finally, there is a repressive, suppressive effect to surveillance that not only acts as a potentially small deterrent on crime but serves to monitor and chill lawful First Amendment activity.

  As Matthew Feeney warns in the New York Times, “In the past, Communists, civil rights leaders, feminists, Quakers, folk singers, war protesters and others have been on the receiving end of law enforcement surveillance. No one knows who the next target will be.”

  No one knows, but it’s a pretty good bet that the surveillance state will be keeping a close watch on anyone seen as a threat to the government’s chokehold on power.

  After all, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the Surveillance State never sleeps.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 23:55

• Panama Canal Traffic By Shipment Category And Tonnage
  Panama Canal Traffic By Shipment Category And Tonnage

  Daily Panama Canal traffic has been steadily restricted to start the year, with an expected peak reduction of over 40% by February 2024 due to severe drought. The problem is already affecting supply chains for U.S. and Asian importers.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach illustrates the number of shipping crossings by market segment at the Canal and the net tonnage carried during the Annual Fiscal 2023 (October 2022 to September 2023). Data is from the Panama Canal Authority.

  

  About the Panama Canal

  The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway that connects the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean, built between 1904 and 1914.

  The Canal locks at each end lift ships to Gatun Lake, an artificial freshwater lake 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level. The shortcut dramatically reduces the time for ships to travel between the two oceans, enabling them to avoid the route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage or Strait of Magellan.

  The Panama Canal moves roughly $270 billion worth of cargo annually–it’s the trade route taken by 40% of all U.S. container traffic alone and handles about 5% of all global maritime trade.

  The Driest October in 70 Years

  Last October, however, Panama received 41% less rainfall than usual, leading to the driest October in 70 years in what was supposed to be Panama’s rainy season, bringing the level of the Gatun Lake almost six feet below where it was a year ago. Additionally, infrastructure constraints led the Panama Canal Authority to restrict the number of ships that could pass each day.

  The principal commodity groups carried through the Canal are motor vehicles, petroleum products, grains, coal, and coke.

  

  According to the Panama Canal Authority, most of its traffic came from containers and dry bulk like soybeans. The world’s largest operator of chemical tankers (Stolt-Nielsen) typically also uses the Canal. However, due to the drought and the backup at the crossing, the operator has decided to reroute its fleet to the Suez Canal.

  Although representing the smaller number of crossings, the Canal is also an important route for passengers, with many ocean cruise lines offering popular Panama Canal itineraries that sail through the Canal in the approximately 8-hour passage to their next destination in the opposite ocean.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 23:35

• Matt Taibbi Warns 'Financial Big Brother Is Watching You'
  Matt Taibbi Warns ‘Financial Big Brother Is Watching You’

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News substack,

  A few weeks ago, Ohio congressman and Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan’s office released a letter to Noah Bishoff, the former director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, an arm of the Treasury Department. Jordan’s team was asking Bishoff for answers about why FinCEN had “distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution,” detailing how other private companies might use MCC transaction codes to “detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters.’”

  The slide suggested the “financial company” was sorting for terms like “Trump” and “MAGA,” and watching for purchases of small arms and sporting goods, or purchases in places like pawn shops or Cabela’s, to identify financial threats.

  Jordan’s letter to Bishoff went on:

  According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of “extremism” indicators that include “transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,” or “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”

  During the Twitter Files, we searched for snapshots of the company’s denylist algorithms, i.e. whatever rules the platform was using to deamplify or remove users. We knew they had them, because they were alluded to often in documents (a report on the denylist is_Russian, which included Jill Stein and Julian Assange, was one example).

  However, we never found anything like the snapshot Jordan’s team just published:

  

  The highlighted portion shows how algorithmic analysis works in financial surveillance.

  • First compile a list of naughty behaviors, in the form of MCC codes for guns, sporting goods, and pawn shops.

  • Then, create rules: $2,500 worth of transactions in the forbidden codes, or a number showing that more than 50% of the customer’s transactions are the wrong kind, might trigger a response.

  The Committee wasn’t able to specify what the responses were in this instance, but from previous experience covering anti-money-laundering (AML) techniques at banks like HSBC, a good guess would be generation of something like Suspcious Activity Reports, which can lead to a customer being debanked.

  If Facebook, Twitter, and Google have already shown a tendency toward wide-scale monitoring of speech and the use of subtle levers to apply pressure on attitudes, financial companies can use records of transactions to penetrate individual behaviors far more deeply. Especially if enhanced by AI, a financial history can give almost any institution an immediate, unpleasantly accurate outline of anyone’s life, habits, and secrets. Worse, they can couple that picture with a powerful disciplinary lever, in the form of the threat of closed accounts or reduced access to payment services or credit. Jordan’s slide is a picture of the birth of the political credit score.

  There’s more coming on this, and other articles forthcoming (readers who’ve noticed it’s been quiet around here will soon find out why). While the world falls to pieces over Tucker, Putin, and Ukraine, don’t overlook this horror movie. If banks and the Treasury are playing the same domestic spy game that Twitter and Facebook have been playing with the FBI, tales like the frozen finances of protesting Canadian truckers won’t be novelties for long. As is the case with speech, where huge populations have learned to internalize censorship rules almost overnight, we may soon have to learn the hard way that even though some behaviors aren’t illegal, they can still be punished with great effectiveness, in a Terminator-like world where computers won’t miss anything that moves.

  

  The U.S. Treasury might be the state’s next major surveillance player.

  What a crazy time we live in! See you from the Nevada caucus, and watch this space for other news soon.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 23:15

• 5.5 Tons Of Radioactive Water Leaks Out Of Damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant
  5.5 Tons Of Radioactive Water Leaks Out Of Damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant

  Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant has been discharging batches of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean for six months. A new report, however, has brought to light a newly discovered leak that caused tons of contaminated water to seep into the ground. 

  Local media Kyodo News reports that on Wednesday morning – at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear power plant – workers found water leaking from an exhaust port on the outer wall of a high-temperature incinerator building. 

  According to the plant operator, TEPCO, the contaminated water treatment equipment connected to the exhaust vent inside the building was being cleaned, and water containing radioactive materials leaked out.

  TEPCO estimates that 5.5 tons of water, with over 22 billion becquerels of radioactive material, leaked into the soil outside the building. 

  

  The leak brings to mind the large amounts of radioactive wastewater accumulated at the facility since the plant was damaged in 2011 by a massive earthquake and tsunami. Since August, TEPCO has been releasing treated radioactive water into the ocean, which is expected to take decades. 

  Local fishing groups and neighboring countries, including China, have been concerned about the dischargers. Beijing has banned all imports of Japanese seafood. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 22:55

• Federal Judge Denies Jack Smith Request To Keep Officials' Names, Departments Sealed
  Federal Judge Denies Jack Smith Request To Keep Officials’ Names, Departments Sealed

  Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times,

  On Feb. 6, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon ordered the unsealing of some names and information about government officials, granting in part a motion by former President Donald Trump to unseal a partially redacted version of his motion to compel prosecutors to hand over evidence.

  “The parties are reminded of the strong presumption of public access in criminal proceedings,” the judge wrote, ordering that no unclassified material in the case be filed under seal going forward.

  All filings under full or partial seal will require approval from the judge in the future, unless there are “clear and supported cases of risk to personal safety or national security.”

  

  The case, prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith, has been dominated by a battle for documents, extending the pre-trial motions stage and delaying what would have been a May 20 trial. Last year, President Trump pleaded not guilty to 40 counts related to allegedly mishandling classified documents.

  On Jan. 16, President Trump filed multiple motions to compel discovery and attached several exhibits under seal. Some of these were emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and containing names and identifying information about government officials, which defense attorneys argue show that the prosecution and the Biden administration have colluded to target President Trump.

  The defense attorneys have asked to unseal this information, and a coalition of news media companies have sought to intervene to request the same, both arguing that court filings are “matters of public record.”

  The special counsel’s office has opposed both requests, arguing that there are witness safety and intimidation concerns.

  Referencing the First Amendment, Judge Cannon found that “the Special Counsel has not set forth a sufficient factual or legal basis warranting deviation from the strong presumption in favor of public access to the records at issue.”

  She found the prosecutors’ arguments “sparse and undifferentiated” and lacking the facts she needed to weigh their arguments.

  “The Special Counsel also alludes, again in general terms, to the concern that ‘public disclosure of witness identities or their statements in advance of trial also risks infecting the testimony of other witnesses or unnecessarily influencing the jury pool,’” she wrote. “Even accepting those rationales for sealing, the Special Counsel’s submission offers nothing in the form of concrete factual support for those rationales.”

  “A party seeking to seal or redact court filings, including pretrial motions, carries a heavy burden,” the order reads.

  The U.S. Supreme Court has established that the press and public have a right to access criminal trial proceedings, which include the court records.

  The defense, prosecutors, and judge agreed that certain information should remain redacted, such as personal phone numbers and home addresses, birth dates, and Social Security numbers.

  However, the judge decided that much of the remaining information could be released, sometimes in partially redacted form. For example, the full email address of an official would be redacted to show only the server address, which would identify the department.

  The FBI code name of a separate investigation can also be unsealed, as the special counsel didn’t give a reason why it shouldn’t be, the judge ordered.

  “The Special Counsel fails to identify the information at issue, provide any explanation about the nature of the investigation, or explain how disclosure of the code name would prejudice or jeopardize the integrity of the separate investigation (assuming it remains ongoing),” the order reads.

  The media request to intervene was thus dismissed as moot, and the judge declined to weigh in on whether the press has legal standing.

  On Feb. 7, attorneys for President Trump filed a separate motion to adjourn some upcoming motions deadlines, noting that the resolution of this motion to compel—which can now be unsealed, but is still being litigated—may inform several new motions they plan to file.

  Defense attorneys revealed they plan to file motions, including to dismiss the indictment, relating to “presidential immunity, the Presidential Records Act, President Trump’s security clearances, the vagueness doctrine, impermissible preindictment delay, and selective and vindictive prosecution” on Feb. 22.

  The public version of the Jan. 16 motion to compel discovery accused the special counsel of covering up cooperation between executive branch departments and staff leading up to the indictment of President Trump, but most of the 22 emails referenced were redacted or not included.

  “Though the Special Counsel’s Office has suppressed these communications, we know from FOIA releases that NARA started to coordinate with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community by Jan. 25, 2022,” the defense wrote.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 22:35

• Only 3 In 10 Americans Were Aware US Had Troops In Syria Prior To Deadly Attack
  Only 3 In 10 Americans Were Aware US Had Troops In Syria Prior To Deadly Attack

  Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

  A recent poll of Americans found that only 30% were aware that US troops were deployed to Syria before three US soldiers were killed just across the border in Jordan. The results of the survey show Americans are generally unaware of the attacks against US forces in Syria and the reason for the deployment.

  Defense Priorities commissioned YouGov to poll Americans from January 8-15 about the deployment of 900 US troops in Syria. Three in ten Americans responded that they were aware US troops were deployed to Syria. The three US soldiers killed at Tower 22 in Jordan were supporting the US base in southern Syria. 

  

  US troops in Iraq and Syria have come under attack over 160 times from Shia militias that operate in the region. The YouGov poll found only a quarter of Americans were aware of the attacks that left scores of US soldiers injured. 

  The Shia militias say they are targeting American soldiers occupying Iraq and Syria with drones, rockets, and missiles because of US support for the ongoing genocide Israel is conducting in Gaza.

  The poll found that a majority of Americans are concerned about a larger war breaking out in the region because of the US troops’ presence. 

  The outcome may be playing out. In response to the death of three members of the Georgia National Guard in Jordan, President Joe Biden ordered a massive bombing operation in Iraq and Syria. The White House will not rule out hitting targets inside Iran and has pledged future strikes. 

  Poll finding: Opposition to maintaining a presence in Syria grows if U.S. troops there were to be killed.

  

  President Biden has refused to reverse his unconditional support for Israel even as his approval rating has dipped. An NBC News poll released on Sunday found the President’s approval rating at the lowest of his term, 37%.

  Weighing on his approval is likely the war in Gaza. Only 29% of Americans approve of the way Biden has handled US support for the Israeli onslaught. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 21:55

• NBC Gives 'Libs of TikTok' Free Advertising With Pretzel-Logic Hit-Piece
  NBC Gives ‘Libs of TikTok’ Free Advertising With Pretzel-Logic Hit-Piece

  The absolute morons at NBC – specifically tech reporter David Ingram, has just given a massive boost to one of the largest conservative voices exposing leftist degeneracy. 

  

  In a hit-piece divorced from logic, Ingram claims that hugely popular X influencer Chaya Raichik – aka Libs of TikTok, is responsible for 33 instances in which “people or institutions” she highlighted for mentally ill, abusive, disgusting, or otherwise abhorrent behavior, “later reported bomb threats or other violent intimidation.”

  The threats, which on average came several days after tweets from Libs of TikTok, targeted schools, libraries, hospitals, small businesses and elected officials in 16 states, Washington, D.C., and the Canadian province of Ontario. Twenty-one of the 33 threats were bomb threats, which most commonly targeted schools and were made via email. –NBC News

  David, you idiot…

  David, that is like claiming that you are responsible for the death threats that @ChayaRaichik10 is receiving because you are writing ridiculous articles like this.@libsoftiktok is reporting on what is happening in the world. Just because you support groomers and child porn in…

  — Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) February 7, 2024

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  Hi @David_Ingram @NBCNews, if I get any death threats or hateful messages as a result of this article, is that your fault?

  — Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) February 7, 2024

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  Oh…

  NBC News is inciting violence against me. https://t.co/DID2NTuj1Q

  — Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) February 7, 2024

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  Ingram earned quite the ‘ratio’ (more comments than ‘likes’, indicating a really stupid tweet).

  

  The replies have been epic:

  How are those Covington kids doing? pic.twitter.com/GRfVUNnz60

  — Chris Nodima 🍄 (@chrisnodima) February 7, 2024

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  Round 2 incoming… pic.twitter.com/KsiB9LAuKH

  — steve smith the anti-communist (@stevesmithsnoq) February 7, 2024

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  This is stochastic terrorism by @David_Ingram and anything that happens to Chaya is his fault.

  — 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) February 7, 2024

  This is beyond slanderous

  — Charlie Vigon (@CharlieVigon) February 7, 2024

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  “ThE FbI ReSouRceS aRe BeInG TiEd uP!!”.

  According to FBI whistleblowers, the FBI pulled agents off child sex trafficking cases to hunt down anyone within a mile of the Capitol on January 6,

  Spare me your righteous indignation and report on that. pic.twitter.com/RKbuyCsxwY

  — The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) February 7, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 21:35

• "Innovating Ways To Resist, Heal, & Liberate": California Defends $250,000 Contract For 'Woke Kindergarten' Program
  “Innovating Ways To Resist, Heal, & Liberate”: California Defends $250,000 Contract For ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Program

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A low-performing Bay Area elementary school introduced a “Woke Kindergarten” program centered on “abolitionist education” that instructs teachers how to remove barriers to learning by fighting racism and oppression—only to see children’s test scores drop.

  Two years ago, Glassbrook Elementary School in Hayward entered into a three-year $250,000 contract with Woke Kindergarten to help kids perform better by teaching educators how to remove learning barriers like oppression, racism, and white supremacy, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

  Woke Kindergarten calls itself a “global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem” that advocates “abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation” by training teachers how to use “abolitionist” educational concepts and curricula.

  The for-profit company was founded by non-binary early educator Akiea Gross, who uses they/them pronouns and self-describes as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”

  Gross has long been an advocate for extreme views. She has declared that “I believe the United States has no right to exist. I believe every settler colony who has committed genocide against native peoples, against Indigenous people, has no right to exist. Y’all the demons. Y’all are the villains. We’ve been trying to end y’all. Get free of y’all.”

  

  But two years into the Woke Kindergarten program, Glassbrook student’s test scores have not only failed to show much improvement—they’ve actually plummeted to new lows, per the Chronicle.

  English and math scores each fell four percentage points to record lows as of last spring—with less than 4 percent of students proficient in math and less than 12 percent proficient at English.

  The Hayward Unified School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it thinks the $250,000 on the program was money well spent.

  Hayward Unified School District Superintendent Jason Reinmann told the Chronicle that the Woke Kindergarten program was backed by parents and teachers alike at the Bay Area school.

  Mr. Reinmann added that the program raised classroom attendance by nearly 20 percent, which he suggested was more of a program aim than boosting test scores.

  However, some Glassbrook teachers have expressed concern that the program is too progressive, with teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley telling the Chronicle that he was told a key objective of the program was to “disrupt whiteness” at the school.

  ‘Abolitionist Education’

  Zeus Leonard, an education professor at UC Berkeley, told the Chronicle that Woke Kindergarten is based on a relatively new concept called “abolitionist education.”

  In a podcast, Mr. Gholdy Muhammad, a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, described abolitionist education as a teaching approach centered on dismantling parts of the current educational system and moving towards “ideas and practices of equity and anti-racism, anti-oppression and love of humanity.”

  Mr. Muhammad explained that there are five core pillars to abolitionist education: identity, skill development, intellectualism, criticality, and joyfulness.

  Identity includes the basic categories of race, class, and “gender” but Mr. Muhammad said it should be seen more broadly from the abolitionist education lens, hinting at a kind of “intersectionality” associated with the oppressor-oppressed dynamic in social justice movements.

  “Criticality is helping your child to name, understand, and disrupt oppression, putting your learning in the context of the state of the world, social problems, to problem-solve, to understand issues of power, justice, and equity,” the professor explained.

  This suggests a possible link to “critical theory,” which James Lindsay, author of “The Marxification of Education” and co-author of “Cynical Theories” described on an episode of Chris Williamson’s podcast as a way of viewing the world through the lens of power dynamics and the oppressed-oppressor dualism.

  “At its very bottom, it’s a way to view the world where everything relevant in terms of at least social relations, has to do with the power dynamics that are in society between some group with power and other groups who don’t have as much power,” Mr. Lindsay explained.

  “And the object of critical theory is to say that the groups that have power carry certain assumptions and biases and the likes, and they bake that into the systems that they create without realizing that they’re doing it,” he continued.

  “So the critical theorists job is to expose those biases and uncover those assumptions, so that they can be critiqued and re-examined and usually discarded, dismantled, subverted or otherwise overthrown,” he added.

  Mr. Lindsay said there’s a potentially positive aspect to critical theory, in the sense that it can be helpful to adopt a “useful skepticism” regarding various phenomena and identify areas for improvement.

  However, Mr. Lindsay said critical theory has been misused by the social justice movement to look for systemic injustices without any or much attempt to understand why certain differences in outcomes exist, reducing explanations to simplistic diagnoses like “systemic racism.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 21:15

• Medvedev Warns Russia Has 'No Choice' But To Unleash Nuclear 'Apocalypse' If Attacked By NATO
  Medvedev Warns Russia Has ‘No Choice’ But To Unleash Nuclear ‘Apocalypse’ If Attacked By NATO

  Not for the first time, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned that a direct war between Moscow forces and NATO would lead to nuclear apocalypse.

  The current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council issued the warning on Telegram Wednesday, in response to recent statements and reports that some European leaders are telling their populations to ‘prepare for war’. For example, just last month UK Army chief General Patrick Sanders called on authorities to “mobilize the nation” to prepare for war with Putin, and that the population needs a “shift” in thinking to be ready.

  Medvedev mocked this and other examples of NATO leaders accusing Moscow of seeking a broader war as but “dangerous drivel”. He said that this all about trying to bolster support for sending more weapons to Kiev amid what’s become war fatigue among Western publics.

  

  According to Russian media translation of his words, Medvedev said this is part of efforts to prop up Ukraine—”a dying country that is foreign to taxpayers”—while ignoring problems at home. “Therefore, every day the leaders of these countries broadcast: We need to prepare for war with Russia and continue to help Ukraine,” he wrote.

  That’s when he said that people in the West have to be told the blunt truth. Medvedev underscored that the Russian response to attack by NATO would without doubt be “asymmetrical”. He explained:

  “Since our military capabilities are incomparable, we will simply have no choice. The response will be asymmetrical. To protect the territorial integrity of our country, ballistic and cruise missiles with special warheads will be used… This will be the proverbial Apocalypse. The end of everything.”

  This is certainly not the first time that Medvedev, known for this bellicose and hawkish rhetoric, has warned of nuclear apocalypse. But it is the clearest he has ever spelled out that the Kremlin would not hesitate to activate its nuclear arsenal if Russian territory is directly threatened by NATO. 

  His comments also come at a very dangerous moment where Ukraine security services are increasingly targeting oil refineries on Russian soil with drone and missile attacks, sometimes at long ranges.

  Below: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says Britain ready for war….

  If Russia turns its guns in our direction, is Great Britain ready to defend itself?

  “Yes. And my task is to ensure everyone’s safety.”

  ‼️🇬🇧🇷🇺 Unelected UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says rainbow flag waving #Britain is ready for war with #Russia

  If Russia turns its guns in our direction, is Great Britain ready to defend itself?

  “Yes. And my task is to ensure everyone’s safety.” pic.twitter.com/7Vba4ClzEd

  — Maimunka News (@MaimunkaNews) February 6, 2024

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  Moscow has accused Western and NATO intelligence services of assisting with such attacks. Recently it has accused France of maintaining mercenaries in the northern city of Kharkiv, in order to mount attacks on nearby Belgorod Oblast. There are rising fears that this ‘indirect’ fighting or proxy war could drift into direct ‘live fire’ between Russia and NATO countries, but so far this has been narrowly avoided.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 21:11

• 'A Republican Leader Should Actually Lead': Ted Cruz Savages Mitch McConnell After Border Bill Quagmire
  ‘A Republican Leader Should Actually Lead’: Ted Cruz Savages Mitch McConnell After Border Bill Quagmire

  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the crappy border deal, suggesting on Tuesday that McConnell should step down from his leadership position.

  

  “A Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans,” Cruz said during a press conference, responding to a question over whether McConnell should step aside, the Daily Caller reports.

  .@LeaderMcConnell: “We can all agree that Senator Cruz is not a fan.”

  Sen. Ted Cruz, pointing to what he called the mismanagement of a border security and Ukraine funding package, said Tuesday it’s time for Sen. Mitch McConnell to step down as the Senate GOP leader.

  Cruz was… pic.twitter.com/xLQqhZJ7uj

  — The Hill (@thehill) February 6, 2024

  Republicans in both chambers slammed the bill, which would allow 1.5 million illegal immigrants into the country per year, shift legal disputes over the border to courts in Washington DC, and sends around $80 billion to Ukraine and Israel.

  “The Senate Amnesty Bill literally would force President Trump to let in illegals well into his term,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in a Sunday post on X. “Any Republican who votes for this is no better than a Democrat!”

  The Federalist‘s Sean Davis chimed in on X with some inside baseball over the issue:

  There’s a LOT going on in this statement from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), one of Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants and the head of the Senate Republican conference.

  Barrasso and McConnell are in a real jam here, because it was Mitch McConnell who actually negotiated the abominable amnesty bill with Chuck Schumer, and it was Mitch McConnell who enlisted James Lankford to sell it. The entire exercise was a disaster, and now McConnell is trying to wash his hands of the whole mess. So who to blame?

  That’s the key question Republican senators are trying to answer. In this statement from Barrasso, it’s obvious that McConnell has decided to cast Lankford as the victim and Joe Biden, who doesn’t even know what decade it is, as the mastermind behind the amnesty bill debacle.

  What’s really going on here is members feel bad for Lankford, who they genuinely like, and are not happy with McConnell for making them nearly walk the plank on one of the worst immigration bills this century. McConnell has been slowly losing control of his conference due to his poor health, which his staff are unable to hide, and his increasingly poor decision making. McConnell is losing his grip on power, everyone in the Capitol knows it even if they won’t say it out loud, and this is causing an existential crisis among incompetent McConnell staff and hangers-on whose entire livelihoods depend on the ability of McConnell to browbeat industry interests into hiring them and giving them money. Without him, they are nothing, so he must be propped up and protected at all costs.

  Meanwhile, a group of moderate senators trying to figure out how this whole thing went sideways so quickly has formed what Senate insiders have dubbed the “Poor James” caucus: Poor James didn’t have a chance. Poor James was put in an awful situation. Poor James deserved better than this. They feel sorry for him, but they don’t want to blame him for the whole mess.

  So what do McConnell’s lieutenants do when it becomes obvious even to them that no one is going to support this bill they desperately wanted to pass? They can’t publicly blame McConnell, even though deep down they know it’s his fault, that he’s really not up to the job anymore, and it’s probably time for him to move on. Easy: they blame Biden, who is such an obvious political mastermind operating at the top of his game, for tricking poor James Lankford into shilling for a bill everyone knows was written by McConnell and Schumer.

  They know nobody normal is going to believe this.  All they care about is convincing 5-10 dumb GOP senators that this is totally not Mitch McConnell’s fault for nearly destroying his conference over an insane gambit to cost Trump (and Republicans) the 2024 election by giving Democrats political cover for a toxic crisis they deliberately created, voting for a bill that does nothing to fix the border, and giving another $60 billion to the only nation Mitch McConnell actually cares about protecting: Ukraine.

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 20:55

• What Would JFK Think?
  What Would JFK Think?

  Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  The meme below perfectly captures the downfall of a once thriving nation, before the Deep State/CIA murdered John F. Kennedy, ushering in the welfare/warfare state, built upon debt, consumerism, egotism, and technological distraction.

  

  The image is sad, deeply disturbing, and accurate.

  The ongoing degradation and decay are a consequence of the nation turning its back on personal responsibility and service to community as reflected in JFK’s viewpoint of, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”.

  LBJ’s Great Society encouraged the destruction of the family – particularly black families, while setting in motion the accumulation of current and unfunded welfare debts.

  What can your politicians give you to buy your vote. The selling of feminism to females further destroyed the traditional family and has resulted in the state raising our kids in their indoctrination centers, to the detriment of society.

  The credit card was introduced in the late 1960’s and has enslaved generations in unpayable high interest debt, as citizens devolved into consumers through propaganda spewed incessantly by the mainstream media, convincing the masses to keep up with the Joneses by buying today and paying tomorrow.

  The masses have been programmed to buy fast food, liquor, smokes, etc. using credit cards.

  Americans now owe more than $1 trillion and delinquencies are currently soaring. An enormous percentage of Americans have no ability or desire to defer gratification by saving for what they need or want.

  During JFK’s presidency, Americans were forced to defer gratification.

  In today’s bizarro world, JFK’s political positions would classify him as a far right demagogue by the now far left media. 

  The Wall Street cabal, and their puppets at the Federal Reserve, promoted and encouraged the financialization of the world, resulting in a debt enslaved class and a debt enriched class.

  The printing of fiat (Fed issued debt) has allowed politicians to wage endless wars, deficit spend to infinity, create inflation to benefit themselves, and enrich the bankers and billionaires pulling the strings of society.

  The gap between the Haves and Have Nots has never been greater.

  As millions of lawless diverse savages swarm across our southern border; the diverse savages already occupying our urban shithole cities storming and looting the fast food joints and few remaining retail outlets; corrupt politicians militarizing the judicial system, rigging elections, provoking and funding wars across the globe, and accelerating the nations spiral towards bankruptcy; and an apathetic, dumbed down, sickly, obese, indoctrinated, igadget distracted public allows it to happen, our nation in no way resembles the nation on November 22, 1963 when they murdered JFK.

  

  We will never return to Camelot.

  *  *  *

  To support Jim’s site, donate via Stripe, click here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 20:35

• 1-In-5 Deaths In The US Caused By Heart Disease
  1-In-5 Deaths In The US Caused By Heart Disease

  Even though new cancer cases in the U.S. are projected to cross the two-million mark for the first time ever in 2024, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  

  Apart from afflictions related to these diseases, Statista’s Florian Zandt reports that the CDC says Covid-19 claimed the third-highest number of lives in 2021.

  While there is more recent data, 2021 is currently the latest year with full, final data on mortality in the country.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Other prevalent causes of death in the U.S. include accidents, strokes and respiratory diseases, which were responsible for 64.7, 41.1. and 34.7 deaths per 100,000 of the population, respectively.

  Alzheimer’s disease, which might become more significant in aging societies over the next couple of decades, ranked seventh with 31 deaths per 100,000 population and a share of 3.4 percent in overall deaths registered by the CDC.

  In total, around 3.5 million deaths were registered in the United States in 2021, up by 80,000 compared to 2020.

  This increase in number of deaths comes on the heels of a drop in life expectancy in the country. According to CDC data, life expectancy at birth in 2021 dropped by 0.6 years for women and 0.7 years for men year-over-year.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 20:15

• 12 Absolutely Insane Examples That Show Just How Far The US Has Fallen
  12 Absolutely Insane Examples That Show Just How Far The US Has Fallen

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

  When I was young, I often wondered what it must have been like to live during the fall of the Roman Empire.  Unfortunately, now I have a pretty good idea.  Just like the Roman Empire, the United States is falling.  Every day our decline gets even more pronounced, and you can see evidence of this all around us.  Virtually all of our major institutions are crumbling, and virtually all of our most critical systems are failing. 

  We tend to blame our problems on our politicians, but the truth is that the rot that is rapidly spreading throughout our society runs a lot deeper than that. 

  Millions upon millions of us have completely rejected the values that this nation was founded upon, and so now we have a giant mess on our hands. 

  

  The following are 12 absolutely insane examples that show just how far the U.S. has fallen…

  #1 A social media influencer that returned a couch to Costco after using it for more than two years is telling her followers to buy all of their furniture from Costco because “you can return it when you don’t like it anymore”…

  A woman named Jackie shared she bought a couch from Costco over two and a half years ago, in a video posted last week to TikTok that’s attracted nearly 3 million views.

  Jackie admits she was nervous to return the large item to the warehouse store and felt intimidated by other shoppers staring at her while waiting in line.

  “But who cares. Return it. They have an awesome return policy,” she tells her followers. “Buy your furniture from Costco, girl. You can return it when you don’t like it anymore.”

  #2 The U.S. Navy is having a really difficult time recruiting young people, and so they have decided that a radical new approach is needed.  From now on, a high school diploma will no longer be necessary…

  “We get thousands of people into our recruiting stations every year that want to join the Navy but do not have an education credential,” said the branch’s chief of personnel Vice Admiral Rick Cheeseman. “And we just turn them away.”

  Now the Navy will accept some of those potential recruits lacking a high school diploma or GED, assuming they’re able to score 50 or above on a qualification test.

  The move comes after the service previously lowered their qualification requirements in 2022, again amidst recruitment challenges. The Navy is the only branch of the US armed forces that admits applicants who score below 30 out of 100 on the qualification test. Officials say some positions, such as in maintenance or food preparation, don’t require a conventional education.

  #3 Three years ago, the city of Portland decriminalized the possession of all drugs.  Let’s check in and see how that is working out…

  Oregon leaders have declared a 90-day state of emergency in Portland to battle the city’s debilitating fentanyl crisis three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.

  Governor Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration and are directing their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.

  #4 Western Oregon University has found a way to keep students from failing.  D- and F grades will no longer be earned by anyone because they are being abolished…

  Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students.

  They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

  The public university announced in a news release this month the changes would start in the fall.

  #5 From this point forward, every police officer in El Paso, Texas will be forced to ask for the preferred pronouns of every person that they encounter…

  The policy, called “Constitutional Policing,” was introduced in December 2023; however, it was not implemented until January 2024 and will require officers to ask every person they encounter, “How would you like to be referred to?”

  The gender-inclusive policy was created with the help of the Borderland Rainbow Center, an “LGBTQ Community Center,” in El Paso, Texas, and exists so that LGBTQ “people and their allies can heal, grow, and empower themselves and others.” The director of the center, Amber Perez, told a local news station, “This is just the start.”

  “The most important thing is that we can’t change the past,” Perez said. “[B]ut what we can do is take this first moment and run with it and continue the conversation and be able to speak to each other with respect.”

  #6 A group of migrants that was caught on camera physically attacking cops in Times Square was shocking released without even having to post bail…

  Police officers and other critics are slamming Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for refusing to seek bail for the rowdy migrants arrested after allegedly being caught on camera attacking NYPD cops in Times Square.

  Veteran police officers fumed to The Post Saturday that Bragg made a mockery of the entire justice system by letting five migrants walk after they were arraigned Wednesday on charges of second-degree assault on a police officer and obstruction of governmental administration in the shocking Jan. 27 beatdown.

  “Alvin Bragg just showed all New Yorkers that the Police Department doesn’t matter to him,” said an NYPD detective with more than two decades on the job.

  It has been reported that the migrants were seen getting on a bus to California, and so hopefully someone can track them down before they disappear completely.

  #7 A group of pro-life activists in Tennessee face 11 years in prison for praying and singing outside of an abortion clinic…

  Nearly three years ago several pro-Life activists held a prayer rally at a Tennessee abortion clinic.

  The Christian protesters prayed and sang hymns.

  They were sitting peacefully in the lobby of the abortion center.

  The protesters included: Chester Gallagher, 73, of Lebanon, Tennessee; Heather Idoni, 58; Calvin Zastrow, 57; and Caroline Davis, 24; all of Michigan; Coleman Boyd, 51, of Bolton, Mississippi; Dennis Green, 56, of Cumberland, Virginia; and Paul Vaughn, 55, of Centerville, Tennessee.

  #8 The 24-year-old aide to U.S. Senator Ben Cardin that was filmed having gay sex in a Senate hearing room will not be charged with breaking any laws…

  As reported earlier – The United States Capitol Police have concluded their investigation into a controversial incident involving Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a 24-year-old former aide to Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland.

  Maese-Czeropski had been embroiled in a scandal after a sexually explicit video recorded in the Senate hearing room surfaced online.

  The video, which depicted Maese-Czeropski and his partner engaging in anal sex inside the Senate Hearing Room, sparked nationwide controversy. Clad only in a g-string jockstrap, Maese-Czeropski was seen atop the senator’s desk, a setting traditionally reserved for grave legislative deliberations and Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

  #9 Violent carjackers are fearlessly roaming the streets of Washington D.C., and anyone that resists one of those young carjackers can end up dead.  Sadly, that is precisely what just happened to an official that worked in the Trump administration…

  Former Trump Administration official Mike Gill has died after being shot in front of his wife during a carjacking in Washington DC.

  Gill, a married father of three, was shot by Artell Cunningham on K Street NW about 5.45pm last Monday and died in hospital on Saturday.

  He was collecting his wife, an education lawyer, when he was shot inside the car by the attacker. He stumbled outside the vehicle and collapsed.

  #10 The Chinese and other foreign buyers are purchasing millions of acres of U.S. farmland, but nobody knows exactly how much farmland they now own and very few of our politicians are interested in stopping this practice…

  America is seeing more and more of its most fertile land snapped up by China and other foreign buyers, yet problems with how the US tracks such data means it’s difficult to know just how much, according to a report.

  Foreign ownership and investment in property such as farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40% from 2016, according to the US Department of Agriculture data. But an analysis conducted by the US Government Accountability Office — a non-partisan watchdog that reports to Congress — found mistakes in the data, including the largest land holding linked with China being counted twice. Other issues include the challenge of enforcing a US law that requires foreigners to self-report such purchases, the report said, citing USDA.

  #11 So many radical Muslims have moved into Dearborn, Michigan that the Wall Street Journal is referring to it as “America’s Jihad Capital”…

  A Michigan suburb with the largest Muslim population in the US has upped its security in fear of hate attacks after it was branded America’s ‘jihad capital.’

  The headline of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Friday read ‘Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital’ – a title given to the city by the publication because of its residents’ pro-Palestine stances.

  #12 A teacher in Massachusetts that had a spotless record for 23 years was fired after she revealed the truth about what was really going on in her school…

  “Bonnie Manchester had a spotless record in 23 years as a teacher at Baird Middle School. She laid it all on the line when she saw what was now happening to vulnerable children,” the organization reported. “Bonnie Manchester is a Christian middle school teacher who was fired from her job in 2021. Her ‘crime’ was informing a father and mother that school officials were referring to their daughter as a boy and keeping it secret from them.”

  How are people supposed to have faith in a system that is this broken?

  Unfortunately, things are only going to get worse.

  As a society, we are the most divided that we have been in modern times, and with each passing day more foreigners that have come into this country illegally pour into U.S. cities that are already overwhelmed by crime, drugs, violence, homelessness and depravity.

  The stage is being set for chaos on a scale that most Americans never even dreamed would be possible.

  The election of 2024 is going to be the most divisive election that any of us have ever seen, our economic problems are rapidly accelerating, and global events threaten to turn all of our lives completely upside down.

  So I hope that you have been getting prepared, because things will soon start breaking loose in a major way.

  *  *  *

  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
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 19:55

• Family Of Native American 'Blackface' Kid Sues Deadspin
  Family Of Native American ‘Blackface’ Kid Sues Deadspin

  The family of a 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan falsely accused of wearing blackface by a race-baiting Deadspin reporter are now suing the outlet for “maliciously and wantonly” attacking the child, according to a complaint filed Tuesday.

  

  Deadspin senior writer Carron Phillips wrote that the child, Holden Armenta, had “found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time.”

  Why is @Deadspin @carronJphillips trying to ruin this little kid’s life? They’re accusing him of blackface but conveniently left out his full face which was painted for the game https://t.co/kFfgAL4aDH pic.twitter.com/750u5sfETE

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 28, 2023

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  Following publication of the article, Holden’s parents – Shannon and Raul Armenta, hired law firm Clare Locke LLP. The firm previously won a $787.5 million settlement against Fox News for Dominion Voting Systems (resulting in Tucker Carlson’s ouster). The Armentas accused the outlet of having a “race-drenched political agenda,” according to the complaint – which states that the accusations caused “enormous damage” to their family, and that they’ve received death threats and a “barrage of hate,” the Daily Caller reports.

  “By selectively capturing from the CBS broadcast an image of H.A. showing only the one side of his face with black paint on it—an effort that took laser-focused precision to accomplish given how quickly the boy appeared on screen—Phillips and Deadspin deliberately omitted the half of H.A.’s face with red paint on it,” reads the complaint.

  The complaint clarified Armenta did not wear blackface, pointing out that the boy neither knows what blackface is nor wore the faceprint or headdress to symbolize racism. The complaint reiterated previous reports that Armenta is Native American. The headdress the boy wore resembles the traditional logo from the 1960s and early 70s.

  “H.A. did not wear a costume headdress because he was ‘taught hate at home’—he wore it because he loves the Kansas City Chiefs’ football team and because he loves his Native American heritage,” the complaint reads.

  The suit further alleges Deadspin and Phillips knew the boy did not wear blackface, but decided to write an article “viciously race-baiting” a young boy to “generate clicks.” -Daily Caller

  The family initially threatened to sue Deadspin and its owner, G/O Media, unless they retracted the story. Instead, the outlet added an editor’s note which called out the NFL’s alleged “failure” to extend anti-racist rules across the league.

  “Deadspin did not retract the Article, and it did not apologize,” reads the complaint. “Rather, it published a series of further ‘updates’ that not only failed to correct the record, but instead established that Deadspin fully understood the Article’s highly damaging and defamatory nature—while maliciously refusing to back down. And Deadspin’s lawyers threatened the Armenta family with counter-legal action should Raul and Shannon attempt to hold Phillips and Deadspin accountable for their false and defamatory Article.”

  BREAKING: The parents of 9-year old Holden Armenta are threatening to sue Deadspin for slandering their son by saying he wore “Black face.”

  Do it! 🔥

  Shannon and Raul Armenta have hired Clare Locke LLP, demanding that they issue a retraction of the viral story.

  It gets better:… pic.twitter.com/gJShq1MFKW

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 4, 2023

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  What’s more, the family claims that Armenta’s grades have fallen, and that his father, Raul, is now a “pariah” at work. Armenta has also suffered a “devastating loss” of his “innocence of youth,” and an “encumbered love for his favorite football team and its players.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 19:35

• Proposition 1: Politics And Policy As Usual In Newsom’s California
  Proposition 1: Politics And Policy As Usual In Newsom’s California

  Authored by Michele Steeb via RealClear Wire,

  Gov. Gavin Newsom and his legislative allies whisked Proposition One onto the March 5 primary ballot in the nick of time. If approved, it will authorize $6.4 billion in state bonds to fund mental health facilities and housing for the homeless.

  

  In a press conference last week, Gov. Newsom portrayed Proposition One as a new approach. “We can’t continue to do what we’ve done, or we’ll get what we’ve got.”

  Having spent 13 years building and running one of Northern California’s largest programs for homeless women and children, I urge her voters to look beyond the governor’s rhetoric to see this initiative for what it really is … throwing more taxpayer funds at the same failed model.

  First, the good news: the measure would overhaul a 2004 referendum that raised taxes on individuals with incomes over $1 million to fund mental health services. Despite the tens of billions raised and spent since Prop 63 went into effect, it has failed to deliver material results.

  However, two other aspects of Proposition One merit close attention. The measure would authorize bonds dedicated to the building of mental health treatment facilities (up to $4.4 billion) and to the creation of 4,350 beds for the chronically homeless and those struggling with mental health issues (up to $2 billion).

  Every year under Gov. Newsom’s tenure, three circumstances have held true: a significant increase in homelessness, a legislative discussion around the need for Prop 63 reform, and a budget surplus that could have funded such an initiative.

  So why now?

  What’s more, how will the state execute on the mental health facility expansion given their shortage of trained personnel required to operate these facilities? And what about the remaining 97.5% of the state’s homeless population who will not receive housing under Prop One?

  Further folly is woven deep into the details of the 69-page law. “Housing interventions shall comply with the core components” of the state’s “Housing First” law … hardly a radical departure from business as usual asserted by the governor.

  He and his allies have long argued that Housing First – the placement of homeless individuals in housing as the be-all and end-all objective of social services efforts – is working.

  However, pre and post-pandemic data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development emphasizes its failure at the federal level and in California, the only state to fully adopt Housing First (starting in 2016). HUD’s latest data shows that nationally, homelessness is at its highest level since the homeless count began in 2007 and that California is home to 30% of the nation’s homeless population and 50% of its chronically homeless population.

  “Housing First” law in Californiaexplicitly endorses a “philosophy that recognizes drug and alcohol use and addiction as a part of tenants’ lives” and that tenants should be able to self-determine as to whether to accept treatment services.

  Thus, under Proposition One’s requirement that counties allocate 30% of the funds received on “housing interventions,” nearly 1/3 of the measure’s resources will be dedicated to supplying housing where “the use of alcohol or drugs in and of itself is allowed and not a reason for eviction.”

  Half of those dollars would be dedicated to housing the chronically homeless, “with a focus on those in encampments.” Bearing in mind that 78% of this population struggles with mental illness and substance use disorder, voters would be wise to review this 14-year study out of Boston to understand the outcomes of such an approach. Only 36% of the chronically homeless placed directly in housing retained that housing for five years and almost half (45%) died during that time span.

  With meager prospects for impact and bigger prospects for accumulating more public debt, voters should recognize Proposition One for what it really is – politics and policy as usual.      

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 19:15

• "X" Tops App Store Downloads Ahead Of Historic Tucker Carlson Interview With Putin
  “X” Tops App Store Downloads Ahead Of Historic Tucker Carlson Interview With Putin

  Ahead of Tucker Carlson’s interview with President Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk’s “X” social media platform, known for upholding free speech, has seen a surge in downloads by iPhone and iPad users on Apple’s App Store. This anticipation for the interview, which has the potential to break the internet (and only exclusive on X and Tucker’s website), has already caused a stir among neoconservatives and the legacy media outlets that oversee the censorship-industrial complex, especially since Carlson was seen in Moscow this week. 

  𝕏 is now the #1 most downloaded app of any kind! pic.twitter.com/TeqWxcmZfs

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2024

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   “X is the number 1 free app in the App Store right now, beating out ChatGPT, Threads, and TikTok,” X user Whole Mars Catalog said. 

  Congratulations X team and @elonmusk

  X is the number 1 free app in the App Store right now, beating out ChatGPT, Threads and TikTok

  Tell your friends to sign up for X and let’s keep it going pic.twitter.com/u6AfagH9zS

  — Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) February 7, 2024

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  X user DogeDesigner pointed out that no matter how many misinformation campaigns (read: here) legacy media runs against X, the reality is: “𝕏 is the #1 app in the AppStore.” Musk chimed in by quoting the post: “It’s almost as though you can’t trust the media.” 

  It’s almost as though you can’t trust the media 🤔 https://t.co/NwN2PwkE4F

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2024

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  Research firm SensorTower also showed X soaring to the top of the App Store ahead of Tucker’s interview with Putin, which is expected to be released late Thursday afternoon. X now ranks number one in all free categories and news.

  

  While legacy media in the free world melts down over the upcoming interview.

  

  …Europeans, supposedly in the free Western world, want to sanction the journalist. 

  If true, this would be disturbing indeed.

  One may agree with Tucker or not, but he is a major American journalist and such an action would greatly offend the American public. https://t.co/IYqOzfWHf9

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2024

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  Why didn’t the EU want to sanction these corporate media journos?  

  

  As a journalist, Trucker has the autonomy to interview Putin without needing to justify his actions. He is not bound by the Biden administration, the censorship-industrial complex, or any corporate media outlets, and corporations, which means those on X are about to receive diverse viewpoints about Urakine from the other side that might allow folks to wake up about how NATO and Russia are on the cusp of WW3. 

  Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s efforts to suppress diverse viewpoints and inhibit critical debate are eroding the foundational principles of democratic societies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 18:55

• 1-In-7 Americans Have Unclaimed Money Or Financial Assets – Here's How To Redeem
  1-In-7 Americans Have Unclaimed Money Or Financial Assets – Here’s How To Redeem

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

  Billions of dollars worth of unclaimed funds are being held by state departments across the United States which can be rightfully collected by their legal owners through a simple online process.

  

  Feb. 1 was Unclaimed Property Day. Unclaimed property refers to “accounts within financial institutions or companies in which there has been no activity generated (or contact with the owner) regarding the property for one year or a longer period,” according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). By law, such properties are turned over to the state.

  For instance, an individual may have rented a property in Texas by putting up a security deposit. If the person moves to New York and fails to collect back the deposit after a set dormancy period, the money becomes an unclaimed property and goes to the state.

  NAUPA estimates that at least one in seven individuals in the United States have unclaimed funds, which at the current population count, comes to roughly 48 million Americans.

  More than $5 billion worth of unclaimed property is returned by states annually, the organization stated. This includes bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, utility security deposits, stocks, uncashed dividends, refunds, trust distributions, traveler’s checks, customer overpayments, certificate of deposit, unredeemed gift certificates or money orders, insurance payments or refunds, life insurance policies, uncashed payroll checks, mineral royalty payments, and annuities.

  NAUPA is a network managed by the bipartisan National Association of State Treasurers. The association has a dedicated webpage where Americans can search whether they have any unclaimed funds in their name.

  Each state has its own database, and the NAUPA webpage gives direct links to state websites where individuals can conduct searches. In addition, NAUPA also maintains a missingmoney.com website.

  “Unclaimed property is reported to the state in which the company or organization resides. Therefore, it’s common to have unclaimed property in multiple states, especially if you have moved to another state,” NAUPA states.

  According to Missing Money, 95 percent of all unclaimed property claims are filed online. The average value of a claim comes to $2,080.

  Claiming Process

  The claims process for getting back property varies by state. As a general first step, the individual should initiate the claim per instructions provided by the state holding the unclaimed property.

  Next, the person will have to prove their ownership with relevant documents. For instance, someone seeking to reclaim a security deposit for a rental property may likely have to show the rent agreement.

  The claimant will also have to provide proof of personal identity like a driver’s license, social security number, or passport. Some states allow citizens to submit documentation online while others require mail.

  When all relevant documents have been submitted, the unclaimed property department of the state will seek to verify the individual’s right over the funds.

  Once verified, the department will begin processing the claim. Certain states can complete the verification and processing steps in less than 30 days. Some states may keep a small amount of the unclaimed property as a holding fee.

  If the claim is processed successfully, the state will return back unclaimed funds to the individual. Most states do not usually have a deadline for holding the unclaimed property.

  However, the states could auction them off after a certain period of time. In such cases, the owners typically have a right to claim the value of auction from the state.

  Unclaimed Properties

  The National Association of State Treasurers recommends multiple ways to prevent financial assets from becoming unclaimed properties.

  “The easiest way to prevent unclaimed property is to maintain activity on all financial accounts. This includes accounts such as your checking, savings, and certificates of deposit. For these types of accounts, making a withdrawal or contribution every now and then is essential,” the association stated.

  “Similar activity may be beneficial for brokerage accounts, IRAs, or employer-sponsored plans as well. Even the slightest activity can help keep an account active. This can eliminate the threat of an account becoming inactive and unclaimed.”

  The association recommends that individuals keep their contact information with financial institutions updated at all times. If contact info is outdated, a financial institution may fail to get in touch with an individual regarding any unpaid funds and the amount could turn into an unclaimed property.

  People should also keep in mind that they may have to pay taxes on assets claimed. Certain funds do not attract taxes, like a rental deposit, as the individual may have already paid taxes on their income which was likely the source of the deposit.

  However, unclaimed property like unredeemed gift cards or life insurance policy beneficiary payments can attract taxes.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 18:35

• These Are The Most (And Least) Affordable US Cities For Renters On An Average Salary
  These Are The Most (And Least) Affordable US Cities For Renters On An Average Salary

  In 2023, 34% of the 131 million households in the U.S. lived in rented homes.

  But which U.S. cities are the most affordable to rent in? The question isn’t just about cost, but about the average salary in each city, and some cities in expensive-seeming states turn out to be relatively affordable.

  To answer the question, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao introduces the graphic below.

  CashNetUSA found rental price data (as of August 2023) from Zillow.com and compared it to city salary data to calculate the percentage of properties available to rent for 30% or less of the local average income.

  

  Ranked: Most Affordable American Cities for Renters

  Ranked first, nearly 97% of the available rentals in Hartford can be rented for an affordable rate, based on average income.

  This might be a surprising statistic. Connecticut was the richest U.S. state (by per capita income) for nearly three decades till 2019, and has one of the highest costs of living in the U.S.

  However, it’s important to note that this data deals with averages instead of medians. For example, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage for a Hartford resident—across all occupations—is slightly more than $33/hour, or close to $70,000 a year. Its median wage is almost $8/hour lower, which comes in at $53,000 a year.

  Richer residents, with higher incomes might be skewing the apparent affordability of available rentals.

  Note: Data current as of August, 2023.

  Toledo and Akron, ranked second and third, have similar rates of affordability, with 95% of their available rentals falling within 30% of the city’s average wage. In fact Ohio has the most number of cities in the top 20, with Waterbury ranked 17th.

  Detroit and Rockford round out the top five most affordable cities in the U.S. for renters. Both cities have affordable housing markets, after the Great Recession caused the local economies to tank, in turn causing an increase in crime and decline in population. Post-pandemic, however, both cities are on the rebound with an influx of industries, jobs, and people.

  But which U.S. cities are the least affordable to rent in?

  With runaway housing prices and local salaries struggling to keep up, some of America’s largest metros feel quite unaffordable.

  To answer the question more concretely, CashNetUSA found rental price data (as of August 2023) from Zillow.com and compared it to city salary data to calculate the percentage of properties available to rent for 30% or less of the local average income.

  

  It turns out that plenty of places are shockingly unaffordable for renters. In Miami, Cambridge, and Boston, fewer than 10% of the rental listings are affordable on a the average salary.

  For context, Miami’s annual mean salary is close to $59,000, and the Boston-Cambridge area comes in at $80,000 a year. These places are also expensive for homeowners, with both Boston and Miami being in the 10 most expensive cities in the U.S. to buy a home in.

  Joining Boston and Miami in the most unaffordable cities is Chula Vista in California, where exactly one in 10 the rental listings could be classified as affordable. That’s fewer than New York’s results (11.63%).

  California has four of the top 20 most unaffordable cities for renters, and ranks fifth in the list of states by income inequality.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 18:15

• Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Artificial Intelligence
  Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Artificial Intelligence

  Authored by Tristan Greene via CoinTelegraph.com,

  A recent physics breakthrough that could serve as a proof-of-concept for the development of nuclear fusion reactors capable of producing near-unlimited energy has finally passed its official peer-review successfully. 

  

  On Dec. 5, 2022, a team of researchers at the United States National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California recorded data indicating that it had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction that created more energy than it took to produce. The reported results were the first of their kind.

  In physics, this is sometimes colloquially referred to as a “free lunch,” meaning a nuclear fusion reactor could one day be scaled to the point where it is capable of producing near-unlimited energy.

  If the NIF team’s reported results were correct, their breakthrough research could serve as a platform for the future technology that might help us eliminate our dependence on carbon energy and supercharge fields where energy scarcity presents as a roadblock, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.

  But, as science communicator Carl Sagan put it, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” News of the breakthrough was taken with both a measure of optimism and a grain of salt by the physics community. The general consensus, at the time, was that people should wait until peer review before shouting “eureka!” at the findings.

  Eureka time?

  The peer review is in, and according to a report in the APA Physics journal, multiple teams have confirmed and replicated the results.

  Recreating the experiment was no easy feat. To achieve the original fusion reaction, NIF scientists used a technique called inertial confinement fusion. This form of fusion involves bombarding heavy hydrogen atoms with nearly 200 lasers, causing them to superheat and, ultimately, fuse at pressures greater than those found within the sun.

  While this early work has only just been confirmed through peer review, the NIF device could serve as a platform by which practical fusion reactors can be built. It’s currently too soon to predict when a viable fusion reactor might be achieved.

  Next-generation energy

  Once realized, however, the free availability of so-called next-generation energy sources could supercharge the engineering and development of adjacent technologies such as AI and quantum computing. 

  Fields such as those, where energy bottlenecks at play are perceived to be the next great hurdle to scale, could see generational leaps in progress once those roadblocks are removed.

  As Cointelegraph recently reported, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said there’s no way to build the AI systems of the future until there’s a fusion energy breakthrough. It’s possible that this work from the NIF team could be the first confirmed step toward that breakthrough technology.

  OpenAI might be in the best position to understand the energy requirements needed to train systems such as ChatGPT, but it bears mention that Altman is personally invested in a private company working on fusion.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/07/2024 – 17:55

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• The 5 Global Powers That Vie To Crush Each Other And Their Subjects
  The 5 Global Powers That Vie To Crush Each Other And Their Subjects

  Authored by Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In the 1930s, the world had three powers that aspired to dominate the world: the communists of the Soviet Union under Stalin, who sought a worldwide proletariat revolution that redistributed wealth to the masses; the Nazis of Germany under Hitler, who sought to establish a global top-down fascist regime; and the United States under FDR, who sought to spread free-market capitalism throughout the world.

  Although these three powers competed for global dominance with each other, they nonetheless sought alliances of convenience when it served their interests. Stalin tried to form an alliance with the West to counter Hitler’s rise, and when rebuffed he entered into a non-aggression pact with Hitler. Later, the capitalist West and communist Russia allied against fascist Germany.

  Today, the world has five globalist elites with worldwide aspirations—communist China and Islamists have joined refashioned successors of the three of the 1930s. As in the 1930s, the elites form alliances and cooperate in numerous areas, often to crush opposition from their own subjects.

  

  Today’s Socialists

  The fall of the Soviet Union didn’t extinguish Karl Marx’s aspiration to abolish private property and the family in favor of the egalitarian economic model: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Its most visual proponents today are found in the U.S. Democratic Party’s progressive wing, championed by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Democratic Socialists of America.

  Today’s socialists, hueing to cultural Marxism and identity politics, have won over academia, much of the government bureaucracy, and much of the press. They’re anti-family, anti-capitalists who want workers to control and governments to own public utilities and other major industries. Their success in transforming the U.S. culture to intersectionality, gender fluidity, and identity politics can be seen in numerous public opinion polls, such as a recent Harvard Harris poll of attitudes among the coming generation: 79 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds  support the “ideology that white people are oppressors and nonwhite people and people of certain groups have been oppressed and as a result should be favored today at universities and for employment.”

  Today’s Fascists

  The fascist economic model was a hybrid form of capitalism, with a competitive free market at the shop-keeper level and government-supported cartels and oligopolies in major industries—Nazi Germany had 2,100 cartel agreements alone, most famously involving giants such as I.G. Farben in chemicals, Siemens and AEG in electricals, and Krupp in armaments.

  This concentration of industry, which placed big business at the commanding heights of the fascist economy, was also favored by U.S. industrialists. In 1931, General Electric president Gerard Swope, with the endorsement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called for the compulsory cartelization of all major American corporations into federally controlled trade associations for each industry. General Motors president William Knudsen, after meeting Goering, talked of Germany as “the miracle of the 20th century.”

  Today, proponents of a fascist-style economy, or corporatism, are organized under the mantle of the World Economic Forum, which is funded by 1,000 member corporations—typically multinationals with sales of $5 billion or more—and sympathetic governments. It seeks a new model of governance called “Stakeholder Capitalism” that would reduce the influence of the electorate in favor of a Great Reset plan called Global Redesign in which a coalition of multinational corporations in league with governments have an outsized role in managing the world economy. Elected officials would work with corporations and fund them to deliver desirable outcomes without being the ultimate decision-makers.

  Under the paternalistic power structure that it touts, the mandate of corporations would be broadened to include corporate social responsibility, rather than being narrowly limited to earning profits for shareholders. Property would be controlled by managerial elites. The slogan, “You’ll own nothing and be happy,” crystallizes the WEF’s sentiment. Leaders of the WEF include Bill Gates, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, and the heads of Big Pharma and Big Tech, all of whom have demonstrated their ability to set public policy that rewards their organizations.

  American Foreign Policy Hawks

  After John F. Kennedy’s debacle in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s unpopular war in Vietnam, the peace movement in the United States pushed the Democratic Party to shun its traditional use of military force to counter the spread of communism and promote democracy abroad. In reaction, hawkish liberal Democrats and traditional Republicans found common cause in advocating for a strong interventionist military. Known as neo-conservatives, they intervened through the CIA, the U.S. military, and NATO to counter anti-Americanism throughout the world. The muscular presence of today’s foreign policy hawks can be seen in Ukraine, the Middle East, and East Asia.

  Although neocons became known primarily for their stance on foreign policy—Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” encapsulates their ideology—they were best described as establishment centrists who first came together in opposition to the counterculture of the left, which included hippies, peaceniks, and radical social programs such as LBJ’s Great Society. Opposition to Donald Trump within the Republican Party was largely led by the foreign policy hawks, who objected to his brash style as well as his ambivalence toward NATO and his intention to withdraw U.S. troops from overseas bases.

  Islamists

  During World War II, Muslim Turkey was allied with Nazi Germany, as were Arabs under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who in 1941 met Hitler in Germany and attempted to form an Arab Legion allied with the Axis powers. Muslim countries, energized by the revival of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, were focused on regional aspirations during World War II.

  The last half of the 20th century saw jihadism evolve from a regional to a global phenomenon, initially due to the Soviet Union, which in the 1960s invented American “imperial Zionism” and sponsored Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization to counter the West in the Middle East. The 1970s saw the overthrow of the Shah of Iran by Khomeini’s Iranian Revolution, the 1980s the Beirut bombings and the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan, and the 1990s the first attack on the World Trade Center and the beginning of large-scale immigration of Muslims into the United States. The Jihadist goal of global domination became clear and credible to the West after the attacks by al-Qaida on Sept. 11, 2001.

  Communist China

  Over the millennia, China was a regional power, often at war with its immediate neighbors in Russia and Asia, and often inward-looking. At the start of the 21st century, China began its dominance on a global scale with its membership in the World Trade Organization, which created an industrial giant that de-industrialized much of the West. As China’s prowess increased, it infiltrated Western economies by acquiring Western corporations, by populating and funding universities, and by influencing the election of government officials in other countries.

  The new China with global ambitions became especially evident with Xi Jinping’s 2013 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves some 150 countries accounting for two-thirds of the world’s population, and China’s expressed desire to become the world’s largest economy by 2049, the 100th anniversary of Mao’s founding of the People’s Republic of China.

  China is no longer viewed as a benign giant. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that BRI could make partner countries “vassal states,” and many in the United States now view China as America’s number one military and geopolitical threat.

  Strange-bedfellow Cooperation

  The five globalist groups are ideologically incompatible, each seeking the ultimate defeat of the other four. Within the United States, each has a degree of influence through lobbying and public relations activities, but none has the clout to unilaterally impose its will over a skeptical electorate. In response, globalists ally in strange-bedfellow groupings to bend policy to meet their objectives. 

  For example, the de facto open-immigration policy promoted by the progressive wing of today’s U.S. socialists is hugely unpopular with the American public as well as America’s foreign-policy elite because it threatens national security, increases crime, and undermines the country’s social fabric. Yet open immigration persists because it serves the interests of various globalist elites.

  Big business corporatists benefit because the large numbers of immigrants flooding the labor markets lower their labor costs. Islamists benefit because open immigration permits the infiltration of terrorists as well as large numbers of Muslims who can influence domestic politics through protests. Communist China benefits because open immigration enables espionage—according to the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, a majority of the illegal Chinese immigrants are men of military age with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and its military.

  Likewise, climate policies harm the general public but benefit most of the global elites, albeit for different reasons. Socialists and fascists/corporatists, who each have their own brand of world government, promote climate policies because they lend themselves to global criteria for the regulation of industry and human behavior. Communist China, as the chief supplier of renewable energy equipment, benefits economically. Islamists also benefit economically as Western countries curb their own production and lose market share to the Muslim fossil-fuel exporting countries that fund the Islamists. And almost everyone favors climate policies for their virtue-signalling merit.

  Likewise, critical race theory harms the general public but benefits the socialists, for whom it is a raison d’etre; the Islamists, by validating the accusation of Islamophobia; and communist China, by allowing it to point to U.S. moral failings whenever China is accused of violating the human rights of its own ethnic minorities.

  Because radical social innovations in the West—whether gender fluidity or Black Lives Matter or critical race theories—undermine the West’s cohesion, all the enemies of the West support their infiltration into Western society. That, and a distaste for a citizenry exercising individual freedoms, sums up what the five globalist elites have in common.

  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
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 23:50

• Russia Releases $9M In Frozen N.Korean Assets, Alleged To Be Helping Kim Skirt UN Sanctions
  Russia Releases $9M In Frozen N.Korean Assets, Alleged To Be Helping Kim Skirt UN Sanctions

  Russia-North Korea ties have continued to deepen amid the backdrop of the Ukraine war and corresponding US-led sanctions. Already it’s believed Pyongyang has provided Russia with huge shipments of missies and ammunition, especially artillery, likely shipped by train.

  The New York Times reports Tuesday that the Russian government has released $9 million in frozen North Korean assets, following Kim Jong-Un’s delivering on arms for Moscow. While the Russian bank which cleared the release hasn’t been named, it’s believed to be $9 million out of a total $30 million which was frozen.

  

  The move is likely part of broader efforts to implement Pyongyang’s ultimate ‘wish list’ of lasting methods and banking ties to skirt UN sanctions, imposed over past banned nuclear weapons testing.

  The NY Times writes, “In addition, a North Korean front company recently opened an account at another Russian bank, the intelligence officials say, evidence that Moscow may be helping Pyongyang get around U.N. sanctions that prohibit most banks from doing business with North Korea.”

  North Korea has for years been almost completely isolated from the international banking system, and has been lashing out of late in response to increased US military drills on the peninsula, conducting missile tests on a near weekly basis.

  “The new bank account is held in South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed independent state in the Caucasus region that has close connections with Russia, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters,” the Times continues.

  Moscow is still expected to move cautiously and not be too brazen over how it helps North Korea given it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. On this point, the NYT report observes:

  For Russia, the financial transactions may be more palatable than supplying military expertise and nuclear and other technology.

  Even though the two countries “could be friends with benefits now,” said Soo Kim, a former C.I.A. analyst on North Korea, their trust is not so great that Russia would “give away its valued secrets.”

  Back in September, Kim Jong Un met with President Vladimir Putin in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, and even toured weapons and satellite facilities. 

  Kim had issued statements at the time signaling enthusiastic backing for Russia’s resistance to NATO in the context of the war in Ukriane. “We are confident that the Russian army and people will win a great victory in the just fight to punish evil groups who pursue hegemony, expansion, and ambition,” Kim had said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 23:30

• Controlled Instability
  Controlled Instability

  Authored by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

  Would-be rulers embrace a moronic oxymoron…

  The Houthis stymie 12 percent of the world’s shipping. Israel has bitten off more than it can chew and is desperately trying to maneuver the U.S. into a broader Middle Eastern engagement and years of pointless war. In Europe, farmers and truckers are protesting and blocking roads over climate change measures and other grievances. In the U.S., a governor ignores a Supreme Court decision and receives support from 25 fellow governors.

  At the recently concluded confab at Davos, the world’s would-be rulers conferred on how they would rule the world. How quaint. They’re going to rule a world that’s spinning out of their, or anybody else’s, control. A Russian politician, Konstantin Dolgov, coined a phrase for the oxymoronic pipe dream that prevails in Washington, Davos, Brussels, and Tel Aviv:

  “The Americans need controlled instability to realize their own plans.” Dolgov noted:

  “But this instability has long been out of Washington’s control.”

  

  Controlled instability is a futile hope from a bygone age. The instability that manifests daily is anything but controlled.

  Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his fellow governors’ defiance marks an emerging phase: instability and conflict among actors within the political system. It may be posturing, but it still amounts to a middle finger from the governors to the federal government and its once revered Supreme Court.

  The Supreme Court has been rubber-stamping expansion of the federal government’s power since the Constitution was ratified. The most egregious recent examples were National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) and King v. Burwell (2015), the decisions that upheld Obamacare. Nobody protested against the program that hastened the destruction of American health care. Nine years after Burwell, anti-government rage is kindling fires in the U.S. and all over the world. Control is losing; instability is winning, and the game is still in the early innings.

  The control freaks cling to their empire and wars. Empire is untenable, but the U.S. military is being deployed into another Middle Eastern quagmire. The Middle East is particularly unsuited for U.S. imperial ventures. The sum total of Western knowledge of the region is a nanoparticle compared to the Everest of its ignorance.

  The Middle East is tribal; the concept of a nation with a national government is a foreign import. Tribal rivalries date back to Old Testament times and have always undermined the best laid plans of emperors, kings, sultans, sheiks, satraps, and other poobahs. The Islamic religion has been the one quasi-unifying force, but it is split and both the Sunni and Shia denominations are splintered into various sects.

  The secret Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 between Britain and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, drew lines on the map of the Ottoman Empire (allied with the losers in World War I), specified European spheres of influence, and created so-called nations to be dominated by the European victors.

  It was hubristic folly, matched by the Balfour Declaration one year later. In a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish Community, the British government declared its endorsement of a “national home for the Jewish people” in what would become, in 1922, the British Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan. At that time, Jews were only a single-digit percentage of Palestine’s population.

  Outsiders, especially those bent on domination, have never fared particularly well in the Middle East. It’s tough enough for insiders bent on domination. Outsiders can generally find compliant satraps whose ostensible loyalty is secured through bribery and extortion, but the average Mohammad deeply resents his overlords and resists them in his own way. No wonder then, that Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration proved to be recipes for disaster.

  The U.S. threw it and the UN’s weight behind the Zionist project in 1948, when Palestine became Israel and Jews began displacing Palestinian Arabs, an ongoing process that has accelerated since the October 7 Hamas massacre. Pre-October 7 controlled instability in Gaza has given way to all-out war, ostensibly against Hamas insurgents, but the death toll among Palestinian civilians is approaching 30,000.

  The U.S. has long considered Israel its forward base in the Middle East. That imperial projection is now under attack on multiple fronts. Anyone who claims to know how the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and various other insurgent groups in Iraq and Syria—collectively known as the Axis of Resistance—are structured, coordinate with each other, or interact with Iran is lying. However, they are making war on the U.S.-Israel alliance, gradually ratcheting up the pressure, and last week the U.S. lost its first three soldiers since October 7.

  The alliance will lose because it can’t win. The only way an outside power can “win” in the Middle East is to stay out. Occupation is the concomitant of empire, but now the costs of invasion and occupation dwarf the costs of insurgency. It’s no sure thing that the Israelis will be able to expel the Palestinians, their ultimate aim. Even if the do, it will only lead to greater instability over a wider area. The Axis of Resistance is opening new fronts almost daily across the Middle East. The U.S. empire and Israel have neither the military and financial staying power nor the regional support necessary for a lengthy war.

  At Israel’s behest, demented warmongers are urging an alliance attack on Iran, which would exponentially compound its difficulties. An attack would probably bring in Russia and perhaps China. The alliance’s only option would be to take it nuclear, which could lead to humanity’s extinction. That’s apparently what the warmongers have been looking for all these years.

  The West’s rulers and string pullers regard their internal opposition as so many Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iranians. That characterization is more apt than they realize, particularly in the well-armed U.S. Anything those “extremists” can do in the Middle East can be done by what the Biden administration reckons are tens of millions of “domestic extremists” in the U.S. And what the Middle Eastern extremists are in the process of doing is defeating the U.S. government and its allies.

  While much of the Western citizenry remains supine and susceptible to state propaganda and narratives, the ranks of the aware and engaged, fed by the alternative media hydra, keep expanding. Even the Corruptocracy and its media mouthpieces are starting to realize that fundamental change is afoot. At Davos, there were begrudging admissions (and lamentations) that the media no longer controls the narrative and dim recognition that nobody trusts it. Invitees even subjected themselves to Argentinian president Javier Milei’s and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts’ excoriations.

  What the Davos set doesn’t get is that for the next few centuries, change will messily burble up from the bottom, not be neatly imposed from the top. That’s actually the way it’s been for centuries, but the top has gotten all the press. Politics, governments and war are newsworthy, innovation and progress are not. The perpetual war of the former on the latter never gets mentioned at all. Regardless, the top will go on proposing; the bottom will go on disposing.

  The transition in global affairs is hailed as multipolarity, but multipolarity proponents show little recognition that it’s not just the American empire and its confederates in the crosshairs, but all governments. Those coming together in the various not-the-West arrangements are still governments, and are just as tyrannical and corrupt as Western governments, in many cases more so.

  Multipolarity will proceed full steam ahead, but it won’t stop until there are 8 billion plus poles, call it multi-multipolarity. The age of the state and ostensible control is giving way to the age of the individual and instability. That doesn’t mean that order won’t eventually emerge, but it will be order based on individual sovereignty, cooperation, and voluntarily exchange, or as friend of SLL Leif Smith calls it—freeorder—“Order spontaneously emergent from the imaginations and actions of free people.”

  Recognition can come from anywhere. Governments may offer concessions to the new reality, their wiser functionaries realizing that limits on their power are better than no power at all. Argentina’s Milei could turn out to be in the vanguard of a much larger trend. Governments will never abolish themselves, but any moves towards freedom and away from control will be beneficial.

  In the interim, instability will reign, and we ain’t seen nothing yet.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 23:10

• Biden Admin Classifies Martha's Vineyard And Other Elite Enclaves 'Low-Income' To Push EV Charger Subsidies
  Biden Admin Classifies Martha’s Vineyard And Other Elite Enclaves ‘Low-Income’ To Push EV Charger Subsidies

  Some of the wealthiest liberal enclaves in the country are being classified by the Biden administration as “low-income” in order to qualify for an electric vehicle (EV) charger subsidy program contained within the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Daily Caller reports.

  

  The locales includes Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, as well as Montauk and Fishers Island in New York. Yes, the same Martha’s Vineyard that freaked out over a few migrants on their hallowed soil.

  The administration’s EV charger tax credit program — made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill — is specifically designed to route subsidies to “low-income” or “non-urban” areas of the country. The “low-income” emphasis for eligibility aligns in spirit with the Biden administration’s wider pursuit of so-called “environmental justice,” which is effectively the combination of social justice ideology and green policy.

  Numerous elite hangouts and locales — including Montauk and Fishers Island in New York, and parts of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts — are among the areas that the administration has classified as “low-income” and eligible for receipt of EV charger subsidies, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) interactive eligibility map.

  The nationwide charging network is a central plank of the Biden administration’s EV agenda. While plenty of charging stations are located in wealthy areas (where people can afford EVs), the IRA was supposed to blunt the costs of charger construction in non-urban, less wealthy areas of the country that would be less likely to implement them on their own.

  “This tax credit provides up to 30% off the cost of the charger to individuals and businesses in low-income communities and non-urban areas, making it more affordable to install EV charging infrastructure and increasing access to EV charging in underserved communities,” the White House boasted on Jan. 19.

  In order to meet the definition of “low-income,” a given area must have a poverty rate of 20% or more, or, if the median family income is below 80% of the median family income in the wider metropolitan area, or if a given Census tract isn’t attached to any specific metro, according to section 45D(e) of IRS code, the Caller reports.

  But the latter definition for a “low-income” area has enabled many areas, according to the report.

  For example, nearly half of the landmass of Nantucket Island, one of the ritziest summer vacation destinations favored by New England’s elite, is eligible for EV charger subsidies, according to the DOE’s interactive eligibility map.

  The Vineyard Haven area of Martha’s Vineyard, another destination frequented by New England’s upper crust, is also eligible as a “low-income” area, according to the DOE’s map. For context, many of the homes in the covered area are valued at well over $1 million, with several properties valued between about $2 million and $5 million. Former President Barack Obama also owns a massive $11.7 million estate on the island.

  Large pockets of Cape Cod, another pricey locale, are also eligible for “low income” EV subsidies. This includes Hyannis, the longtime home base of the Kennedy political dynasty, and Great Island, which features numerous multi-million dollar properties. -Daily Caller

  Other wealthy areas which can take advantage of this loophole include a three block zone in New York City’s Upper East Side, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (a few miles from Joe Biden’s ‘office’), and Fishers Island, New York – enclave known as a hangout for dynastic families such as the Rockefellers, Roosevelts and DuPonts.

  Large swaths of San Francisco deemed “low-income” also qualify, along with areas of Beverly Hills.

  Not exactly as advertised, is it?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 22:50

• On The Rising Danger Of Democratic 'Lawfare'
  On The Rising Danger Of Democratic ‘Lawfare’

  Authored by Alex Berenson via ‘Unreported Truths’ substack,

  The New York state fraud case against Donald Trump is absurd; and the White House now openly tells its operatives to defy Congressional subpoenas. Democrats seem blind to the risks they’re running.

  

  Even dictatorships have judges.

  Which doesn’t mean they have justice.

  Democrats appear ever-more enamored with “lawfare” — a term that hardly existed before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 — as they try to keep Trump from returning to the White House.

  Left-wing politicians, prosecutors, and lawyers may be sincere when they say they believe Trump is an existential threat to democracy who must be stopped by any means necessary.

  But they would be wise not to become what they fear.

  The Democratic effort to twist the legal system has accelerated in the last few months.

  Trump and his most ardent supporters now face an unrelenting flow of civil and criminal cases, some of which at best stretch legal theories to their limits. But judges in blue cities and states have been notably reluctant to push back on them.

  Meanwhile, as I wrote yesterday, the Biden White House has now openly encouraged its operatives to defy Congressional subpoenas by promising them carte blanche to do so – even as the Justice Department tries to jail Trump’s advisors for similar moves.

  The issue stretches far beyond the four flagship criminal cases and 91 charges that Trump faces. In those, at least, he has the protections that criminal law gives defendants, and the financial resources to use them.

  The Associated Press estimated that Trump has spent $77 million in the last two years defending himself. Even bigger expenses lie ahead as his criminal trials approach.

  Some of Trump’s biggest supporters are not so lucky. In Washington, D.C., prosecutions over the Jan. 6 protests and riot are increasingly unhinged. Even the New York Times admitted last month they have now caught many people who “did little more than walk into — and then out of — the Capitol.”

  In Colorado, the former general counsel of the Democratic Party has led an effort to use language meant for Confederate secessionists to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot.

  And in New York, the reality that Trump cannot count on anything like impartial hearings from neutral judges has been clear for months. Not coincidentally, the actions that have damaged Trump the most were both brought in Manhattan, where Trump is widely hated and Joe Biden won 87 percent of the vote in 2020.

  Most stunningly, Trump faces up to $370 million in fines and the loss of his businesses for a civil “fraud” case brought by the state of New York in which he took out loans – then fully repaid them. 

  Even the Associated Press questioned the ruling, writing that Trump’s companies were:

  the only big business found that was threatened with a shutdown [under the New York law used against Trump] without a showing of obvious victims and major losses.

  Some legal experts worry if the New York judge goes ahead with such a penalty in a final ruling expected within the next couple of weeks, it could make it easier for courts to wipe out companies in the future.

  Then there are the two “defamation” lawsuits from E. Jean Carroll, a woman who was completely unknown until she accused Trump in print of raping her. (Carroll’s suits might more accurately be called “famation” cases.)

  Manhattan juries have already decided against Trump in those suits and awarded Carroll almost $90 million. Trump certainly used nasty language to defend himself against Carroll’s claims, but it is unclear how exactly he could have denied them without incurring a jury’s wrath.

  *  *  *

  Back in Washington, the Biden Administration is now extending its (literal) contempt of the law to Congress, as I wrote yesterday:

  URGENT: Ex-White House advisor Andy Slavitt is refusing to comply with a subpoena over questions about how he tried to censor me and others in 2021

  ALEX BERENSON· FEB 4

  

  Andrew Slavitt, the former Biden Administration operative who in 2021 helped conspire to violate my First Amendment rights and make Twitter ban me, has refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena to testify about his actions. Slavitt’s lawyers told

  Read full story…

  That the White House has told two of its former operatives – Andy Slavitt and Rob Flaherty, the deputy campaign manager of Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign – to ignore a lawful Congressional subpoena is ugly enough.

  But the fact that it has done so while prosecuting two of Trump’s advisors for refusing similar testimony is far worse.

  Of course, none of this has stopped me and James Lawrence from suing the White House for its censorship efforts in Berenson v Biden.

  I remain a believer in the court system – and very optimistic that federal Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke will see the merits of our case. After all, Judge William Alsup – a Clinton appointee – took our arguments in Berenson v Twitter seriously and rejected Twitter’s motion to dismiss the suit.

  But the overall picture is ugly.

  Sure, Democrats are winning tactical victories and costing Trump money. But they’re not considering how these efforts to use the courts look, not just to Trump partisans but anyone who thinks elections should be decided by voters, not judges or juries.

  And Trump’s criminal prosecutions haven’t even gotten to trial yet.

  *  *  *

  Subscribe to Unreported Truths

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 22:30

• New Report Reveals Federal Gov't "Funds Domestic Censorship Superweapons" Against Taxpayers
  New Report Reveals Federal Gov’t “Funds Domestic Censorship Superweapons” Against Taxpayers

  A new report reveals more details about how the Biden administration is plowing millions of dollars of taxpayer funds into woke universities and private firms to fund the “Censorship Industrial Complex.” 

  During the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Tuesday morning, Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) reporter Katelynn Richardson detailed how the federal government used taxpayer dollars to fund numerous projects that censored anyone with a non-government-approved view. 

  “The effort fits within the broader trend of the federal government’s increasing involvement in online censorship, from the Center for Disease Control flagging posts during COVID-19 to the FBI working with social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story,” Richardson said.

  According to a November Foundation for Freedom Online report, the National Science Foundation (NSF) spent $38.8 million on “misinformation” funding efforts since Biden took office in 2021. However, the DCNF found that NSF spent a lot more to target so-called misinformation.

  “The NSF swears it does not engage in censorship and that it does not partner directly with social media platforms,” Richardson said, adding, “But taxpayer dollars spent on projects that do are still troubling, as were the agency’s responses to straightforward questions about its programs.”

  Ahead of the hearing, the Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report titled “The Weaponization Of The National Science Foundation: How NSF Is Funding The Development Of Automated Tools To Censor Online Speech “At Scale” And Trying To Cover Up.” 

  🚨 #BREAKING: New Report Details How the National Science Foundation is Funding AI Tools to Censor and Indoctrinate Americans Online

  Read here: https://t.co/vYBygxvA51

  — Weaponization Committee (@Weaponization) February 6, 2024

  “This interim report details the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) funding of AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools and its repeated efforts to hide its actions and avoid political and media scrutiny,” the report said.

  The report continued: “In the name of combatting alleged misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the 2020 election, NSF has been issuing multi-million-dollar grants to university and non-profit research teams. The purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)- powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others.” 

  

  “But NSF’s taxpayer funding for this potential automated censorship is only half of the story. The Committee and the Select Subcommittee have also obtained, via document requests and subpoenas, nonpublic emails and other documents that reveal a years-long, intentional effort by NSF to hide its role in funding these censorship and propaganda tools from media and political scrutiny,” the report said. 

  It added: “NSF went so far as to develop a media strategy that considered blacklisting certain American media outlets because they were scrutinizing NSF’s funding of censorship and propaganda tools.” 

  The report said the federal government’s funding of the censorship industrial complex “violates the First Amendment.” 

  The Committee and Subcommittee uncovered “serious violations of the First Amendment throughout the Executive Branch,” including:

  • The Biden White House directly coercing large social media companies, such as Facebook, to censor true information, memes, and satire, eventually leading Facebook to change its content moderation policies,

  • Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership (EIP)—created at the request of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—working with the federal government to flag thousands of links and submit recommendations directly to large social media platforms to censor Americans’ online speech in the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. election; and

  • The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) harassing Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X) because of Musk’s commitment to free speech, even going so far as to target certain journalists by name

  In a separate report, Michael Benz, a former Trump admin State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings, posted on X his findings that the “Biden Admin is funding next-generation censorship technologies with millions of dollars in cash infusions to start-up AI censorship projects.”

  Benz’s report is titled “The National Science Foundation’s “Convergence Accelerator Track F” Is Funding Domestic Censorship Superweapons.” 

  The Biden Admin is funding next-generation censorship technologies with millions of dollars in cash infusions to start-up AI censorship projects.

  Their targets are Covid critics and political conservatives. Full report here: https://t.co/glmLDE1V5O

  — Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) January 30, 2023

  Benz said, “*Extremely* proud to have broken this whole scandal open with a series of original reports 18 months ago, followed by nonstop public speaking, in-depth reporting & private briefings on this subject.” 

  *Extremely* proud to have broken this whole scandal open with a series of original reports 18 months ago, followed by nonstop public speaking, in-depth reporting & private briefings on this subject.

  Next step: DEFUND the Weapons Of Mass Deletion. https://t.co/ASPKdNpfWf pic.twitter.com/ja0rT37aGn

  — Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 6, 2024

  “Next step: DEFUND the Weapons Of Mass Deletion,” he said. 

  Also, the report showed how NSF program manager Michael Pozmantier sent a message to universities and firms about the need to hide online videos that showcased their AI censorship tools. 

  

  “The government is not the arbiter of truth. Our Founders understood this, which is why we have a First Amendment,” Richardson said earlier today, adding, “They understood the danger of the government telling people what they should believe and targeting opinions that cut against the official narrative. Pursuing information control by funding outside organizations is no less a threat to free speech and freedom of the press than a tyrannical government.”

  The implications of NSF’s funding of automated censorship tools weaponized against the American people are not entirely shocking since we have covered in great length the censorship industrial complex:

  • Dismantle The Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Westminster Declaration

  • Whistleblower Docs Expose Key Tactics Of The Censorship Industrial Complex: Matt Taibbi

  • The Censorship Industrial Complex Exposes The Kleptocracy’s True Intentions

  • Docs Offer Glimpse Inside Censorship Industrial Complex

  • The Censorship Industrial Complex Is The Revolt Of The Elites

  The government’s efforts to suppress diverse viewpoints and inhibit critical debate are eroding the foundational principles of democratic societies. 

  However, the good news: the matrix is glitching. 

  WSJ Editor-in-Chief Admits ‘We No Longer Own the News’

  “During a WEF discussion at Davos entitled ‘Defending Truth,’ Wall St. Journal EIC Emma Tucker lamented this loss of control over ‘the facts,’” @zerohedge reported.

  She said:

  “I think there’s a very specific challenge for… pic.twitter.com/AhPr8cLWYo

  — Vigilant News (@VigilantNews) January 29, 2024

  Progressive elites and neocons are terrified that people can actually think for themselves. 

  *   *   *

  Here’s the full report titled “The Weaponization Of The National Science Foundation: How NSF Is Funding The Development Of Automated Tools To Censor Online Speech “At Scale” And Trying To Cover Up.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 22:10

• Moderna Scientists Warn mRNA Vaccines Carry Toxicity Risks
  Moderna Scientists Warn mRNA Vaccines Carry Toxicity Risks

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

  The technology used in Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine carries toxicity risks, scientists with the company said in a new paper.

  

  “A major challenge now is how to efficiently de-risk potential toxicities associated with mRNA technology,” the scientists wrote in the paper, which was published by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery on Jan. 23.

  The Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 shots use modified messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology. The mRNA is delivered by lipid nanoparticles (LNP).

  The toxicity risks include “lipid nanoparticle structural components, production methods, route of administration and proteins produced from complexed mRNAs,” the authors of the paper said.

  Authors of the paper include Eric Jacquinet and Dimitrios Bitounis, Moderna employees, and Maximillian Rogers, who was working at Moderna when the paper was being done.

  Moderna didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  The mRNA vaccines have multiple known side effects, including heart inflammation and severe allergic shock. Those may stem from hypersensitivity reactions, which can be elicited by “any LNP-mRNA component” but are most likely triggered by PEGlyated lipid nanoparticles, which is “the most potentially reactogenic component,” the scientists said.

  Polyethylene glycol, or PEG, an ingredient in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, is known to cause allergic reactions. Outside scientists are divided over the mechanism behind the heart inflammation, while Pfizer has posited that the LNPs are behind the issue.

  The new paper drew from prior publications and other data. The authors didn’t carry out any new experiments.

  Some of the papers cited included those that have found mRNA and the spike protein delivered by Moderna’s shot in various parts of human beings weeks or months after vaccination, despite health officials claiming when the vaccines were rolled out that such materials would exit the body within days.

  The scientists said that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is “safe and effective” and hailed the development of an updated shot as “demonstrat[ing] the rapid timeline for modifications with mRNA technology in the clinic.” Due to the “transient nature of mRNA,” though, “repeat administration may be necessary,” they said.

  The scientists added later that reducing risks of toxicities with mRNA-based vaccines and drugs is necessary but “complicated.” That can be accomplished through a multi-pronged approach that includes advanced testing in laboratories and adjusts preclinical, animal trials to better account for “differences in human and animal physiology.”

  Moderna and other companies are currently testing a number of new mRNA products, including influenza vaccines and cancer treatments.

  “Thanks to the mRNA platform we built, we have an exciting pipeline, with up to 15 launches in the next five years,” Stephane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, told investors in the company’s most recent earnings call.

  The paper’s corresponding author, Mansoor Amiji of Northeastern University’s Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemical Engineering, referred a request for comment to Mr. Bitounis, who didn’t provide any answers.

  Dr. Malone Reacts

  Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the mRNA technology, said the paper downplayed the range of risks that have been linked to the mRNA-based vaccines and may be part of a limited hangout, or a propaganda technique.

  That technique, a form of misdirection, involves people offering some information to obscure or prevent the discovery of other information.

  “My most generous interpretation of the overall intent of the article is that this article summarizes and represents information concerning risks and toxicities of this platform technology which Moderna wishes to have disclosed in a manner which puts the firm, its activities and the underlying platform technology in the best possible light,” Dr. Malone, who wasn’t involved with the paper, wrote in his review.

  “A less generous interpretation of intent is that this article represents a subtle form of propaganda strategy commonly referred to as a limited hangout.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 21:10

• Biden Barely Loses To Trump, Beats Haley, In Hypothetical Matchup
  Biden Barely Loses To Trump, Beats Haley, In Hypothetical Matchup

  A new survey from YouGov reveals that President Joe Biden would lose in a hypothetical matchup against former President Donald Trump, but would beat Nikki Haley, if the election were held today.

  

  The survey of 12,000 US adults released Feb. 2 found that 45% of respondents preferred Trump, vs. 44% for Biden. If it’s Biden vs. Haley, however, the president wins 39% to 38%.

  In a separate (but similar) question, respondents were asked who they think will win regardless of their personal preference. This resulted in an 11-point margin for Trump (47% to 36%), while a Biden-Haley matchup would yield a 38-32 victory for Biden.

  The poll also found that Americans feel more favorably towards Trump than Haley, and more view him as a strong leader. In fact, there isn’t a single issue in which Haley polled better than Trump.

  As the Epoch Times notes further, for President Trump, the YouGov poll’s results will surely be welcome—though not unexpected—news. On his Truth Social platform, the former president has touted several polls showing his continued dominance in not only the Republican primary but also the general presidential race.

  One such poll, released on Jan. 31 by Morning Consult, indicated that President Trump currently leads President Biden in all seven swing states, and in most cases, it’s not close.

  In North Carolina—the only swing state President Biden lost in 2020—President Trump holds a commanding 10-point lead, besting his successor 49-39 percent. Meanwhile, in both Georgia and Nevada, his advantage is a slightly smaller, though still significant, 8 percent. In Michigan and Wisconsin, the former president has a 5 percent lead, while in Arizona and Pennsylvania, his edge is just 3 points.

  

  If those numbers hold steady and the rest of the country votes as it did in 2020, President Trump would win in November with 312 Electoral College votes.
  Of course, he would first need to secure the Republican presidential nomination. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows that he has now expanded his support to include roughly 73 percent of Republican voters. Ms. Haley is hovering at around 19 percent.

  Still, the former ambassador to the U.N. is determined to keep up the fight. Opting to forgo the Nevada caucus, she is instead betting it all on her home state of South Carolina. But she faces an uphill climb there as well, down 27 points to President Trump. Brushing off the polls, Ms. Haley told CNN’s Jake Tapper that she was going to work her way to a Palmetto State victory.

  “We’re going to do it the same way we did in New Hampshire,” she said on Feb. 2. “We moved 25 points in New Hampshire the last three weeks before the election. We’re at that same point here. We’re going to be anywhere and everywhere, all over South Carolina.”

  The candidate added that she intends to remind South Carolina voters of her conservative record as governor “and then show them that we could do that same thing as president.”

  But even among those who support the former governor, hope for an upset appears to be fading.

  “Honestly, I don’t think it’s going to be great,” Charleston resident Kelly Wade, who plans to vote for Ms. Haley, told USA Today. “I feel like if there’s a state she could win, it would be our state, but I just think the people who are diehard for Trump, they’re going to carry him all the way to the end.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 20:50

• Ronna Out: RNC Chairwoman Plans To Step Down After Presiding Over 'Party Of Losers'
  Ronna Out: RNC Chairwoman Plans To Step Down After Presiding Over ‘Party Of Losers’

  After years of criticism and a public spat with Vivek Ramaswamy, who said Republicans under her watch have become a “party of losers,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is stepping down.

  

  According to the NY Times, which required four journalists, McDaniel has told former President Donald Trump that she’ll quit shortly after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24, according to two people familiar with the plans (ah yes, ‘people familiar’).

  In her place, Trump is expected to promote Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party – after which an election will take place.

  McDaniel, the longest-serving chair since the 19th century, came under fire in January of 2023 after Republicans had terrible results going back to 2018.

  “We’ve had three substandard election cycles in a row: ‘18, ’20, and ’22,” Florida Governor DeSantis told TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk in an interview. “Given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong direction—that is an environment that’s tailor-made to make big gains in the House and the Senate and in state houses all across the country, and yet that didn’t happen.”

  McDaniel also took barbs from attorney and GOP committee member Harmeet Dhillon, McDaniel’s primary challenger in the Jan. 2023 election for chair, telling Fox News: “But you know, at the end of the day, like I said, this isn’t school. You don’t get a gold star forever. You don’t get to stay in your job forever. If you continuously under perform what you promised your clients, they don’t hire you the next time around.”

  In November, after the GOP lost several races that should have been layups, more people called for Ronna’s head.

  “What, exactly, does Ronna McDaniel do, besides lose?” asked former Trump administration official Monica Crowley on X. “The only thing she SHOULD do is RESIGN. Effective immediately.”

  What, exactly, does Ronna McDaniel do, besides lose?

  The only thing she SHOULD do is RESIGN.

  Effective immediately.

  — Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) November 8, 2023

   “FIRE RINO RONNA MCDANIEL NOW!” tweeted Florida congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini, an Army veteran, adding “Ronna McDaniel will go down as the worst RNC Chair in history.”

  FIRE RINO RONNA MCDANIEL NOW!

  — Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) November 8, 2023

  🚨 Steve Bannon and John Solomon are calling for Ronna Romney McDaniel to resign after the GOP’s performance in elections last night

  pic.twitter.com/yAHjk2Kv3c

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 8, 2023

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

  McDaniel has also come under fire for picking NBC to host a November GOP debate – during which former 2024 presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy suggested she come up on stage and quit during said debate, as the GOP has become a “party of losers” under her watch.

  “…there is a cancer in the Republican establishment… Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017 we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave, that never came.”

  And then the haymaker…

  “We got trounced last night in 2023 and I think that we have to have accountability in our party,” he went on.

  “For that matter, Ronna if you want to come up on stage tonight. You want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign… I will turn over my time to you.”

  Vivek Ramaswamy: “We’ve become a party of losers.”#debatten pic.twitter.com/GUeD2r5Dr5

  — The Watcher 🌎 (@TheWatcherDaily) November 9, 2023

  It took four months, but here we are. 

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

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 20:30

• Seattle Restaurant Has Been Broken Into 5 Times In Past 6 Months
  Seattle Restaurant Has Been Broken Into 5 Times In Past 6 Months

  Even before Biden took over the White House thanks to millions of mailed-in harvested ballots dropping in at 3am in the morning, Seattle had emerged as one socialist America’s liberal meccas. Here are the consequences.

  According to Seattle’s King5 news, Sandia, a Mexican restaurant in the city’s Laurelhurst neighborhood, has been broken into no less than 5 times in the past 6 months, costing the business $10,000.

  “As of today, now we have been broken into five times,” said Nathan Yeager, the owner.

  In the surveillance video provided to KING 5, you can see criminals break the front door with a crowbar, climb over the counter, steal money from the till, and then sneak around while looking in every door for something to take.

  “People are just breaking in our windows blatantly, stealing nothing. I mean, they’re really getting away with nothing,” Yeager said.

  Recently, someone broke in and took their elevator key box, which costs around $2,000 to repair and install.

  Yeager said they are now out $10,000 for the repeat break-ins.

  On Thursday night, someone smashed through the window facing the Burke Gilman Trail and took alcohol. They left behind broken glass everywhere.

  “That was that $900 to replace the window for one bottle of alcohol,” Yeager said. Yeager feels at a loss for what to do about the crime. He feels “heartbroken, sad and defeated.”

  Owning seven businesses in Seattle, Yeager had strong feelings about the brazen crime.

  “I don’t think I’ll open another business in Seattle. I think that Seattle has failed small businesses,” he said.

  The City of Seattle does have a “storefront repair fund,” and according to their latest update, funds are still available. They have updated the eligibility requirements for the $2,000 grants to include more small businesses and now nonprofit organizations.

  Yeager has seen an incredible show of support from his customers after posting about the crime on the business’ Instagram. He hopes sharing his experience will lead to change.

  “We just can’t keep writing these checks every day, you know, but we have to, you know, like, I have to fix this window. I have to fix this door,” Yeager said. “We’ve got to solve this problem somehow and figure this out.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 20:10

• House Fails To Impeach Mayorkas After Four Republicans Join Democrats
  House Fails To Impeach Mayorkas After Four Republicans Join Democrats

  House lawmakers on Tuesday failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, under whose tenure more than 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the US – doubling the existing population.

  

  Three Republicans voted with House Democrats – while a fourth, Blake Moore (R-UT) flipped his “Aye” to a “No” in order to preserve the ability to bring ‘Motions to Reconsider’ (which can only be brought by someone who voted ‘no’).

  

  The open-border Republicans who voted against impeachment are:

  • Ken Buck (CO)
  • Tom McClintonck (CA)
  • Mike Gallagher (WI)

  In a Monday op-ed in The Hill, Buck said that while Mayorkas may be incompetent, his behavior wasn’t impeachable, and that doing so would set a bad precedent.

  

  The vote to impeach Mayorkas was held as a bipartisan effort in the Senate to send $60 billion to Ukraine and lock in 1.5 million illegal migrants per year unraveled.

  In the articles of impeachment, Mayorkas was accused of demonstrating a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” and “breaching the public trust,” which Democrats suggested was nothing more than disagreements over policy or performance failings, but not impeachable crimes.

  The border has become a central concern of Congress and the White House, as arrests hit records in recent months. Border Patrol agents in December set a monthly record of nearly 250,000 arrests of migrants caught crossing the border illegally, up 31% from November, with daily arrests sometimes topping 10,000. An additional 50,000 migrants entered the country in December at legal border crossings to seek asylum. 

  Democrats said the effort to impeach Mayorkas amounted to political theater at the start of a heated presidential-election campaign in which immigration is expected to be a top issue for voters. –WSJ

  According to Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), Mayorkas “is the very type of public official the Framers feared—someone who would cast aside the laws passed by a co-equal branch of government, replacing those with his own preferences.”

  On Monday, the White House said that impeaching Mayorkas “would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our nation faces in securing the border,” and suggested that he’s been a great DHS secretary.

  If the House had succeeded in impeaching Mayorkas, he would have been the second cabinet secretary in US history to be impeached.

  With friends like these, who needs enemies?

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 19:50

• New York Community Bancorp Cut To 'Junk' By Moody's: 33% Of Deposits Uninsured
  New York Community Bancorp Cut To ‘Junk’ By Moody’s: 33% Of Deposits Uninsured

  Having seen the share price collapse to its lowest since 1997, following the regional lender’s reporting of a surprising (and large) loss for Q4 and slashing its dividend (to 5c vs 17c exp), ratings agency Moody’s has cut all long-term and some short-term ratings of New York Community Bancorp to ‘junk’ (Ba2 from Baa3).

  

  NYCB is extending losses to a $3 handle after the downgrade…

  

  While we heard all day about how NYCB was an idiosyncratic issue, Moody’s warns that this is anything but, generalizing to the multi-family CRE space being a problem:

  NYCB is highly concentrated in rent regulated multi-family properties, a segment which has historically performed well for them. However, this cycle may be different.

  While vacancy rates are low for this CRE segment, properties may face different challenges this cycle due to higher interest expense when refinanced and already higher maintenance costs due to inflationary pressures.

  These higher costs may prove more challenging for owners of rent regulated properties to pass along through rent increases to tenants.

  Beyond rent-regulated, the bank has a significant concentration of low fixed-rate multifamily loans. This type of loan portfolio faces refinancing risk.

  As a reminder,:

  Once a $3 trillion asset class, offices now are “probably worth $1.8 trillion,” said Barry Sternlicht, chief executive officer of Starwood Capital Group.

  “There’s $1.2 trillion of losses spread somewhere, and nobody knows exactly where it all is.”

  Additionally, Moody’s warns this could end badly:

  “The company’s elevated use of market funding may limit the bank’s financial flexibility in the current environment.”

  Moody’s also points out that, as of Dec 31st, 33% of NYCB’s deposits were uninsured, and “could face significant funding and liquidity pressure if there is a loss of depositor confidence.”

  The total amount of public bonds & loans outstanding affected by this downgrade is $1.14 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

  

  *  *  *

  RATINGS RATIONALE

  [ZH: emphasis ours]

  Today’s rating action reflects multi-faceted financial, risk-management and governance challenges facing NYCB.

  In terms of financial strategy, the bank is seeking to build its capital but just took an unanticipated loss on commercial real estate (CRE) which is a significant concentration for the bank.

  The downgrade reflects Moody’s views that NYCB faces high governance risks from its transition with regards to the leadership of its second and third lines of defense, the risk and audit functions of the bank, at a pivotal time. In Moody’s view, control functions with strong knowledge of a bank’s risks are key to a bank’s credit strength.

  NYCB’s core historical commercial real estate lending, significant and unanticipated loss on its New York office and multifamily property could create potential confidence sensitivity.

  The company’s elevated use of market funding may limit the bank’s financial flexibility in the current environment.

  NYCB is highly concentrated in rent regulated multi-family properties, a segment which has historically performed well for them. However, this cycle may be different. While vacancy rates are low for this CRE segment, properties may face different challenges this cycle due to higher interest expense when refinanced and already higher maintenance costs due to inflationary pressures. These higher costs may prove more challenging for owners of rent regulated properties to pass along through rent increases to tenants. Beyond rent-regulated, the bank has a significant concentration of low fixed-rate multifamily loans. This type of loan portfolio faces refinancing risk.

  For the year, provision for credit losses rose 526% to $833 million from $133 million in 2022. Allowance for credit losses stands at $992 million as of 31 December 2023 which equates to 1.17% of total loans, or 1.26% when excluding loans with government guarantees and warehouse loans. Reserve for office loans is approximately 8% while reserves for multifamily is approximately 0.82%.

  Moody’s views NYCB’s funding and liquidity as a relative weakness when compared to peers due to its relatively high dependence on market-sensitive wholesale funding and a smaller pool of liquid assets when compared with peers. NYCB’s loan-to-deposit ratio was 104% as of 31 December 2023, also higher than most peers. Market funding increased 49% during the fourth quarter to $20.3 billion, in part to fund an increase in the bank’s liquidity buffer as the bank prepares for Regulation YY compliance. Market funds as a percentage of tangible banking assets (TBA) rose to 18.8% as of 31 December 2023 from 12.9% in the prior quarter and 23.6% at the end of 2022. Liquid banking assets as a percentage of TBA rose to 18.2% as of 31 December 2023 from 14.5% in the prior quarter and 12.9% at the end of 2022.

  NYCB’s share of uninsured deposits was 33% as of 31 December 2023.

  The bank could face significant funding and liquidity pressure if there is a loss of depositor confidence.

  NYCB relies heavily on wholesale funding from the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.

  NYCB’s capitalization, as measured by its common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio, fell to 9.1% as of 31 December 2023 from 9.59% the prior quarter and 9.06% as of 31 December 2022. The decline in capital resulted from a $252 million net loss in the fourth quarter driven by a $552 million provision for credit losses. NYCB is targeting a 10% CET1 ratio by the end of 2024 and has cut its dividend to 5 cents a quarter from 17 cents to assist with capital generation.

  Pressure on profitability could challenge NYCB’s internal capital generation plans. Management expects net interest margin (NIM) to be between 2.4% and 2.5% in 2024 as the company repositions into lower-yielding liquid assets to prepare for Regulation YY compliance. NIM was 2.99% in 2023 compared to 2.35% in 2022. Further provisions for credit losses, rising compliance costs, and higher funding costs could also negatively impact earnings. The bank’s transition to a Category IV bank entails meaningful investments in its risk management and compliance that will also weigh on profitability.

  Reflecting Moody’s views of the high governance risks NYCB faces, Moody’s introduced a one-notch negative qualitative adjustment to Flagstar Bank, NA’s BCA and changed NYCB’s governance issuer profile score to G-4 from G-2 and NYCB’s ESG credit impact score to CIS-4 from CIS-2 to reflect the negative impact this risk has on NYCB’s ratings.

  This should not come as a huge surprise, as we detailed earlier, Small banks are proper fucked without The Fed’s (soon to be killed) BTFP bailout facility (red line)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  …and one can’t help but notice the burgeoning balance sheet of the big banks – willing to scoop up small banks with the FDIC’s help?

  Don’t believe us? Here’s Jay Powell on Sunday:

  “We looked at the larger banks’ balance sheets, and it appears to be a manageable problem. There’s some smaller and regional banks that have concentrated exposures in these areas that are challenged.

  …

  There will be expected losses.

  It’s a sizable problem… it doesn’t appear to have the makings of the kind of crisis things that we’ve seen sometimes in the past.

  I don’t think there’s much risk of a repeat of 2008. I also think, you know, we need to be careful about making proclamations about the.. future.

  …

  There will be certainly be some banks that have to be closed or merged out of, out of existence because of this. That’ll be smaller banks, I suspect, for the most part.

  You know, these are losses. It’s a secular change in the use of downtown real estate. And the result will be losses for the owners and for the lenders, but it should be manageable.”

  Do you feel lucky, punk? Picking the right regional bank that will be bought before it’s closed under FDIC?

  Canary meat coalmine.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 19:30

• Kristi Noem: "Somebody's Running The White House. I Don't Believe It's Joe Biden"
  Kristi Noem: “Somebody’s Running The White House. I Don’t Believe It’s Joe Biden”

  Authored by Aaron Pan via The Epoch Times,

  South Dakota governor Kristi Noem said President Joe Biden is not running the White House, but someone else is governing the country as she raised concerns over the border crisis that is “an extreme remaking of America.”

  

  During an interview on Fox News on Feb. 4, when asked by host Maria Bartiromo why President Biden is providing free housing and health care to illegal immigrants, Ms. Noem said,

  “He’s weak. Somebody’s running the White House. I don’t believe it’s Joe Biden. He’s never been this extreme. This is an extreme remaking of America.”

  “It is a socialist-communist agenda. I think that they’ve so infiltrated the Democrat party that it’s no longer the Democrat Party of 20 years ago; it’s now a socialist party that does not want a strong America,” she added.

  Ms. Noem is one of over a dozen GOP governors who have visited Texas to show their support for Gov. Greg Abbott in his fight with the Biden administration over the influx of illegal immigrants crossing the border in Eagle Pass.

  The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) estimated throughout the 2023 fiscal year, 2.4 million people illegally crossed the border, up from 2.3 million the previous year. In contrast, between Oct. 1, 2019, to Sept. 30, 2020, before President Biden took office, there were only 458,000 encounters with illegal immigrants by border patrol agents.

  In the interview, South Dakota’s governor criticized the Biden administration for the border crisis. “We see the president undermining our country by allowing this invasion at the southern border, and it’s destabilizing our country,” she said.

  For weeks, the Biden administration has clashed with Mr. Abbott after the National Guard took control of the 47-acre Shelby Park area in Eagle Pass, Texas, to stop the flood of illegal border crossings.

  The Texas National Guard has been accused of denying Border Patrol agents access to the park, leading to multiple legal battles. The Texas state government has cited its constitutional right to exercise its authority to protect the borders.

  Ms. Noem has previously sent South Dakota National Guard troops three times to support Texas border control efforts. Last month, she indicated that she would continue to deploy her state’s troops to the border.

  Ms. Noem’s border visit comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the federal government could remove razor wire and other barriers the Texas state government had placed along the border with Mexico to deter illegal crossings.

  Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Mr. Abbott has ordered even more razor wire barriers to be installed. Numerous Republican political leaders, in turn, have voiced their support for the Texas governor’s efforts. Ms. Noem was one of 25 Republican governors who signed a letter voicing support for the Texas governor after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

  In the interview with host Maria Bartiromo, she explained, “The reason that the federal government went after Texas was because they’d actually figured out a way to put up the razor wire that was impenetrable that people could not get through. They said even those able-bodied military-aged men could not get through the barrier at that point. And it was so effective that that’s when the federal government came after Texas to take it down.”

  The South Dakota governor accused Democrats and President Biden of abusing their power by seeking to federalize the National Guard. She stated that she would defend her authority and even warned of a potential war.

  “Democrats have been encouraging this president. They’ve been encouraging President Biden to come after our state’s rights. They’ve been talking about federalizing our National Guard, which would be the first time in American history that we would have a president that would pay soldiers to stand down, to actually not protect America,” she noted.

  “If he’s willing to do that and to take away my authority as governor, as commander in chief of those National Guard, boy, we do have a war on our hands,” she warned.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 19:10

• Dismal NBC Approval Poll Shows Biden's Chances Of Reelection Plummeting
  Dismal NBC Approval Poll Shows Biden’s Chances Of Reelection Plummeting

  Did Joe Biden really have the numbers in 2023 to beat Donald Trump as some surveys indicated?  If he did, he certainly doesn’t have them in 2024.  The polls are increasingly ugly for Democrats – public approval for the Biden Administration has hit the lowest levels in modern presidential history next to Jimmy Carter (a man who also mismanaged a stagflationary crisis).  Even the corporate media has been forced to acknowledge that things don’t look so good for “the big guy.”  

  NBC has released its latest survey, which indicates a growing lead for Donald Trump in the general election (Trump 47% vs Biden 42%), but Trump also has a dramatic edge over Biden in most public issue categories.  On the economy, 55% of respondents preferred Trump vs 33% for Biden.  On border security, 57% wanted Trump and only 22% thought Biden would do a better job.  In dealing with crime, 48% would vote Trump vs. 32% for Biden.  And, when asked which candidate was more competent and mentally capable, 48% said Trump vs 32% for Biden.

  A smaller percentage of people in each category chose the option of “not sure.”

  NBC polling continues to observe an accelerating decline for Joe Biden in terms of public perception on a host of top concerns.  This seems to mirror his overall low approval rating which just dropped again to 37%. 

  Democrats have taken to social media recently to demand answers, racking their brains trying to figure out why Biden’s brand is sinking faster than Bud Light.    

  Extremely low voter turnout for the Democratic Primaries (only 4% of Democrats were interested this year) is not necessarily an indication of how many Dems will show up at the ballot box (or mail box) in November.  However, the stagflationary crisis, the draconian covid lockdowns, unnecessary tensions with Russia and the border crisis that Biden created by erasing numerous Trump era measures have left the American public with a sour taste in their mouths.

  People are less inclined to forget government trespasses than political think tanks seem to realize.  They’re definitely not going to overlook 30%-plus higher prices on most goods and services since 2020.  One must truly struggle to think of a single positive result of Biden’s last three years.  Even the low unemployment rate is mired in the suspicious creative math used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the public just isn’t buying it.   

  One could argue that the election of 2024 isn’t about which candidate is loved; it’s about which candidate is less hated or mistrusted.  Under these conditions, Trump clearly wins.  Others would point out that ongoing national and global instability might disrupt the elections or throw them into disarray (as we witnessed when the covid pandemic struck in the middle of election season 2020 and mail-in ballots became a mainstay).  

  If this is the case, the Biden Administration would be a primary beneficiary.  As it turns out, the long running propaganda campaign to demonize conservatives may have had the opposite effect to what Democrats intended.  Biden might need more than another overnight miracle in November to keep his seat in the Oval Office.        

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 18:50

• MS-13 Gang Members, Al-Qaeda Terrorist Found Living Illegally In US
  MS-13 Gang Members, Al-Qaeda Terrorist Found Living Illegally In US

  Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Members of the notorious MS-13 gang, as well as several terrorists, including one linked to al-Qaeda and another to Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s largest criminal organization, have recently been arrested by immigration officials in U.S. cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

  

  According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records, they were all living in the United States illegally and were released by detention centers under the Biden administration despite previous convictions for violent crimes, including murder.

  The latest arrest occurred just last week, involving an MS-13 gang member from El Salvador who had been convicted in 2023 of being an accessory after the fact in a first-degree murder case and was sentenced to five years in prison.

  According to Darius Reeves, acting field director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Baltimore, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge suspended most of his sentence, ignored an immigration detainer issued against the Salvadoran national, and instead ordered his release into the general public.

  “This unlawfully present Salvadoran gang member’s presence in the United States represents a threat to the safety and security of our residents,” Mr. Reeves stated. “Not only is he a validated member of a notorious criminal enterprise, but he also aided other criminals in the commission of a murder. ERO Baltimore will continue to apprehend and remove such criminal elements from our Maryland communities.”

  An ICE spokesman told The Epoch Times that the name of the 30-year-old MS-13 gang member, who initially entered the United States illegally near Falfurrias, Texas, is being withheld pending a removal order, as mandated by federal law.

  Two days after the MS-13 gang member’s arrest, Patrick Lechleitner, President Biden’s acting ICE director, admitted that last year, a Somali terrorist from the Islamic military group al-Shabaab was accidentally released after being found living illegally in the United States. He had been freely roaming until his re-arrest on Jan. 20 in Minneapolis.

  According to the National Counterterrorism Center, al-Shabaab has killed more U.S. citizens than any other al-Qaeda affiliate. It reportedly has between 7,000 and 10,000 members, according to the federal agency. The group lists its main targets as U.S. military forces and is known to attack civilian targets such as hotels, shopping malls, universities, and busy intersections.

  Members of other foreign terrorist organizations have also been discovered living illegally in the United States recently. Last month, a man from Bangladesh, convicted of attempting to provide material support to an unnamed foreign terrorist organization, was deported. He had been found living in the United States illegally more than eight years ago.

  According to ICE records, Rakin Islam Chowdhury was granted temporary permission to remain in the United States on June 5, 2015. This authorization expired on Dec. 4, 2015.

  Recent reports from Chicago have highlighted the presence of dangerous illegal immigrants in the United States, where law enforcement has allegedly discovered a cell operated by Tren de Aragua. This gang, known in English as the Aragua Train, is considered the largest criminal organization in Venezuela and is primarily engaged in sex trafficking.

  Telemundo Chicago Investiga wrote in a Jan. 22, 2024, article that it had obtained communications between Willow Springs, Illinois, police chief Garry McCarthy and the Cook County Sheriff’s Department in Los Angeles, California, showing growing concerns about gang operations in their communities.

  Neither Mr. McCarthy nor the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department responded to multiple inquiries from The Epoch Times. A Telemundo report featured an email sent by the Cook County Sheriff.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up about a new threat developing among the newly arriving immigrant community,” the email stated. “There is a gang from Venezuela known as Tren de Aragua. This gang has strong human trafficking operations in Latin America and is likely engaged in sex and labor trafficking in the United States. Multiple agencies have confirmed their presence in the United States.”

  The email includes a redacted source that claims to have “information that the gang is here in Chicago.”

  

  In another report, Mr. McCarthy told Telemundo that law enforcement is having a hard time identifying gang members as they cross the border because Venezuela does not share criminal records with the United States.

  “We do not have data on them because I am sure that if it is Venezuela, it does not share it with the United States. So you can’t connect dots when we don’t have points,” Mr. McCarthy told Telemundo.

  In September, Interpol put out a red notice to law enforcement worldwide to be on the lookout for Tren de Aragua boss Héctor Guerrero Flores after he escaped from a prison in Venezuela.

  On Monday, Borderreport.com quoted former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair as saying Venezuela has become a “significant concern along the US-Mexico border.”

  An ICE spokesman told The Epoch Times that the agency has encountered members of the Venezuelan gang, but did not yet have anything that could be released. Telemundo reported that Border Patrol confirmed that at least 38 members have been arrested around the United States in the past year and that all of their points of entry were in El Paso, Texas.

  Several other members of MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, have also appeared on ICE’s radar after crossing the Texas border.

  

  In 2022, another MS-13 member who entered the United States illegally through Texas under the Biden administration’s open border policy, allegedly raped and killed Kayla Hamilton just days before she turned 20.

  According to an investigation into Kayla’s murder by the Committee on the Judiciary and the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, the then 16-year-old gang member was housed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the same foster home where Kayla was living. Kayla was autistic, but trying to transition to a life of independence.

  The Republican-led committee concluded its investigation with a report blaming Kayla’s murder on the “Biden administration’s radical open-borders policies.”

  The report highlighted that, in addition to an already lengthy criminal history, the Salvadoran minor had MS-13-specific tattoos, which should have alerted border officials to his affiliation and led to him being flagged for deportation.

  Kayla’s mother Tammy Nobles has filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against both HHS and the Department of Homeland Security.

  In a press release announcing the suit, Ms. Noble’s attorney Brian Claypool, claims that another illegal immigrant was placed in charge of housing Kayla and her alleged murderer in the same home and that the MS-13 gang member was released to his custody.

  “We’re bringing this lawsuit because we’re tired of being held hostage in our own country. We’re tired of DHS playing Russian roulette with our lives,” Mr. Claypool said in a Facebook post.

  According to the judiciary committee’s investigation, the MS-13 gang member was originally apprehended at the Texas border on March 23, 2022, and referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The ORR is a program run by the HHS’s administration for children and families and helps minor children who are not from the United States become what it calls “integrated members of American society.”

  The recent reports of terrorists and gang members coming into the United States at the Texas border come amidst a recent Supreme Court ruling that Texas could not block the passage of illegal immigrants into the United States.

  

  Texas is refusing to recognize the order, which has created a standoff between Texas law enforcement and federal border agents.

  The report also comes amidst a controversial Senate bipartisan bill that seeks to allow up to 4,000 daily crossings by migrants before a cap is considered.

  “Only a fool, or a radical left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous border bill,” former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 18:30

• 'Major Differences From Trump Case': WaPo Front-Runs DoJ Decision Not To Charge Biden Over Mishandled Classified Docs
  ‘Major Differences From Trump Case’: WaPo Front-Runs DoJ Decision Not To Charge Biden Over Mishandled Classified Docs

  Who could have seen this coming?

  The Washington Post reports that the Biden Justice Department does not plan to pursue criminal charges against President Biden for his mishandling of classified documents.

  

  The DoJ is reportedly preparing to release a special counsel report in coming days that will be critical of President Biden and his aides for mishandling classified documents in Biden’s private home and former office and this WaPo report appears to be the mainstream media foaming the runway as this report crash-lands at the feet of a Republican Congress. WaPo writes:

  “While the facts of the Biden case appear to have major differences from the Trump case, Hur’s conclusions are likely to face intense scrutiny from Republicans in Congress.”

  The lack of charges was initially leaked in November, and prompted outrage:

  They’re trying to throw Trump in prison over classified documents that he DID have the authority to declassify but Biden won’t even get a slap on wrist for mishandling + keeping classified docs he kept as a VP/Senator when he wasn’t able to declassify them. Political prosecution! https://t.co/8UElp4aGx0

  — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 16, 2023

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

  Joe Biden’s DOJ investigated Joe Biden and found that Joe Biden had done nothing wrong by taking classified material and storing it in his office and garage floor. https://t.co/6VsDxDw3gO

  — Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 16, 2023

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

  And so, with the actual report’s imminent release, WaPo felt the need to spend a few thousand more words to provide talking points to the base on why it’s different for Biden… except they really didn’t – aside from to claim that Trump ‘intentionally misled or delayed’ his response on the classified docs (that as president he was allowed to declassify), while they appear to claim – by explaining each of the various locations where Biden’s classified documents were discovered, that is was merely a mistake by a bumbling old fart and his aides

  About 10 documents from Biden’s time as vice president were found Nov. 2, 2022, when lawyers for Biden were cleaning out his private office at the Washington-based Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank Biden started with the University of Pennsylvania after his tenure as vice president.

  The attorney, Pat Moore, found the documents in a small closet and called White House lawyers, who contacted the National Archives and Records Administration, the federal agency responsible for storing and preserving presidential records.

  …

  In December 2022, legal representatives for Biden searched his home in Wilmington, Del., and found a “small number” of records with classified markings in the garage, the White House has said.

  Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., also was searched, but no classified material was found there, the White House has said.

  In January, lawyers found another potential record with classified markings at the Wilmington residence, in a room adjacent to the garage.

  Biden’s personal attorneys arranged for the Justice Department to take possession of the material.

  Biden aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation, have said they believe the documents unintentionally ended up at Biden’s home and office because of sloppy staff work.

  

  Later in the WaPo report, the cover is provided very transparently: “the Trump investigation seems significantly different from the Biden investigation.

  “…more importantly, federal prosecutors came to suspect Trump was deliberately misleading them and hiding some highly sensitive papers even after he received a grand jury subpoena demanding their return.

  Showing willful intent to mishandle national security secrets is often a key factor in charging decisions involving classified papers…

  Trump is accused of deliberately trying to mislead investigators as they demanded the government documents back.

  He is scheduled to stand trial on those charges in Fort Pierce, Fla., in May,…”

  Finally, we are reminded of Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith’s comments in his press conference announcing the criminal charges against Trump last year:

  “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone….Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Indeed.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 18:10

• "You Americans, You're Fascinated By Power"
  “You Americans, You’re Fascinated By Power”

  Authored by John J. Waters via RealClear Wire,

  In most places around the country, the point of acquiring power is to do something with it.

  Your state’s legislators pass a corporate tax cut to attract new business. Or, your mayor deploys city funds to repair streets damaged by winter’s snow and ice, paving the way for a smooth commute.

  But D.C. is different.

  

  More than other places, in D.C., the best use of power is not to discharge it toward solving some real or concrete problem that exists in the world, but to use power to create even more power. Whether that’s a better committee assignment, a bigger office, deeper donor pool, or a bigger professional network, there’s an urgency to spend what you have in furtherance of your ambition for more, to apply all of one’s tools in a strategy that (swiftly) generates more and greater power.

  It’s a unique environment, and one in which military historian Eliot Cohen has thrived for more than 30 years. He’s advised presidents, cabinet secretaries, generals and diplomats. “In government and out,” writes David Petraeus, “Eliot Cohen has consistently been one of the shrewdest observers of the exercise of power.” In his new book The Hollow Crown, Cohen finds in Shakespeare the characters and stories that illustrate what he has learned about the ebb and flow of power in the real world, and it’s on this theme that we pick up our conversation. I talked with the author about military leadership, Coriolanus, and the Henry plays in part one of our conversation, which you can find here. Now, on to part two …

  What is the state of “power” in 2024?

  Power is more diffuse today than in previous periods of history.

  As a group, elites don’t have the same voice as they once did because the number of elites has expanded, so you don’t have groups that have a high level of authority. For example, you once had senior clerics in this country who had a profound moral voice. I grew up in Boston and I’m Jewish but if Cardinal Richard Cushing said something, then people would really pay attention. Presidents of the great university played a role in our national debate that they do not play right now. Because power has gotten very diffuse, it’s sometimes in the hands of people who are irresponsible. Look at Congress. Our committee chairs are not powerful anymore. The Speaker of the House once was powerful. We’ve watched several of them get defenestrated. The elites lost their moral authority and there is no coherent leadership group rising in its place.

  What concerns you about the state of politics in our country?

  I am concerned that power is being separated from character. What one hears in Washington, DC is that someone is “smart.” That’s the least important thing to have in a leader. It’s very easy to rent smart or hire smart people—it’s much harder to find people with good judgment and good character. I don’t think we’re living in a world that cares about honesty, loyalty, consistency, willingness to sacrifice or give of themselves. And, on the judgment side, do our leaders have an ability to understand enough what is happening to decide what ought to be done? The absence of that quality is how you get into trouble. I make reference in the book to George Washington, who was far from being the smartest but had the strongest character and best judgment. As a counter-example, Richard II was a brilliant talker … and he’s the last guy on earth you want running something.

  But Machiavelli separated politics from ethics some 500 years ago, and so I wonder if this phenomenon you observe of an absence of character in politics is really that new at all …

  Yes, but first, we don’t have to accept that Machiavelli was necessarily right! Also, Machiavelli had his own conception of virtue, or virtú, that is very different from ours, but still involved some qualities of character that we don’t have much of.

  What is Shakespeare’s first lesson on power?

  I take away from Shakespeare that all power is dangerous. It’s dangerous when you inherit it because you may not be suited to its exercise. I mention Jack Welch and Jeffrey Immelt, how that plan for succession at General Electric didn’t work out despite all of Welch’s great processes for identifying high performing executives, something he devoted himself to for some 20 years. Acquiring power by manipulation means you’re dealing people at the top who are very slippery. Go to the Federalist Papers. The genius of the American Constitution is that ambition will counter ambition—it’s not set up for a constant flow of brilliant statesmen. I was just in Israel with a delegation of national security people and was in a discussion with an old friend, and this person was saying all we need are honest judges and good people in charge. I disagree. You simply cannot count on those people always being there …

  Michael Ledeen said the best government is a good czar. The worst government is a bad czar. There are more bad czars than good czars, so democracy becomes a very good alternative.

  Yes, sooner or later, you’re going to end up with bad people in those positions and the system must carry on anyway. I had a professor who was a refugee from Europe during World War II. She said there are two reasons to study political science: either you’re fascinated by power or you’re afraid of power. “You Americans, you’re fascinated by it. I’m afraid of it.”

  Shakespeare filled his plays with Machiavellian archetypes, people like Lady Macbeth and Iago who ultimately fail to control the outcomes of their schemes for power. What did Shakespeare think of Machiavelli?

  He certainly knew about him, because Richard III, before he becomes king, makes reference to him. But his picture of human beings is far more subtle and nuanced than Machiavelli’s. Lady Macbeth, for example, is consumed with guilt and eventually goes mad; Iago arranges the ruin of Othello for no particular purpose, because he can never replace him. These are not Machiavellian characters like, for example, Cesare Borgia.

  You note that Machiavelli believed there’s more “virtú” in a Republic because you have so many people striving. We’re in an election year. Politicians across the country will scheme, deceive and strive in hopes of acquiring power. We should see this “virtú” in abundance. What do you suppose Machiavelli would think about our politics in 2024?

  I suspect that he would think that we are a pretty pathetic lot. A lot of politicians whine, a lot of them are cowardly, a lot fear their own followers. Whatever that is, it’s not virtú.

  Let’s end with a few brief questions.

  Okay.

  Which Shakespeare play has become too popular?

  Macbeth. Macbeth and Richard III are my favorites but, if there’s someone you don’t like, then you say they’re like Macbeth or Richard. Both are wonderful plays but they are overdone.

  Which Shakespeare play should be more popular?

  The Henry VI plays should be read much more widely, all three of the Henry VI plays. There is no strong king or strong leadership. There’s a bunch of squabbling courtiers and politicians. Some people are villainous, others are naïve and both come to bad ends. You have demagogues interested in turning things upside down but don’t have an idea of what they want to accomplish. It’s something worth thinking about.

  Finally, who is your favorite character from Shakespeare?

  Prospero. He’s a flawed human being. He was oblivious as to how he was overthrown. In the first parts of The Tempest, he could be cruel. He has a short fuse and could be arbitrary and is tempted to be vengeful, but at the end he makes a decision to renounce his power. He becomes human because he can walk away from power without illusions. He knows he’s coming to the end but he can relinquish it. He uses power well but also knows he’s got to give it up if he wants to be a normal human being, and that’s a very rare thing.

  John J. Waters is the author of the postwar novel River City One (Simon and Schuster), and a former deputy assistant secretary of homeland security.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 17:50

• Israel Demands Lebanon Remove Hezbollah 20 Miles From Border, Beirut Refuses
  Israel Demands Lebanon Remove Hezbollah 20 Miles From Border, Beirut Refuses

  Israel’s military has issued a new assessment which estimates it has launched attacks on some 3,000 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon in Syria since war started after Oct.7. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says that while Israel is nothing seeking a bigger war in Lebanon, it is “certainly ready” and that the defense forces (IDF) are ready to “attack immediately if provoked.”

  Hezbollah has been hitting back on a daily basis too, with villages and communities on both sides of the border being impacted, and in some cases resulting in civilian casualties. When Israel hits targets in Syria, it tends to describe these as “Iran-linked”, which often means Hezbollah.

  Israel now says that time is running out for diplomacy as the two sides spiral toward bigger war. “Israel has said, though, that it’s prepared to open another front with a military attack on southern Lebanon if Hezbollah doesn’t move back to about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the border, as per the terms of a long-standing United Nations resolution,” according to Bloomberg.

  

  We reported in December that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has estimated that over 80,000 Israeli citizens are still displaced from their homes, after border regions had to be evacuated en masse as a result of Hezbollah attacks since Oct.7.

  At the time it was reported that “The Israelis are anticipating within the next six weeks to two months that if the diplomatic track isn’t working, they’re going to have to opt for some kind of military solution.” Israeli leaders have been reiterating this message this week.

  “Israel will act militarily to return the evacuated citizens to their homes” if Hezbollah doesn’t comply with the demand for a buffer zone, according to Monday statements of Foreign Minister Israel Katz. 

  Israel is further demanding that the Lebanese government take action, but this has already been rejected in a fresh Tuesday statement: 

  Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, voiced on February 6 the nation’s rejection of recent Israeli and international demands seeking to push Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah, north of the Litani River, saying Beirut will not accept ‘partial solutions’ to resolving the cross-border conflict.  

  “Western countries demand the retreat of Hezbollah for about eight to ten kilometers north of Litani,” Bou Habib said in an interview with Nida al-Watan. “This is a formula that Lebanon rejects. [Beirut] will not accept ‘partial solutions’ that do not bring the desired peace and do not secure stability but will lead to the renewal of the war again and again.” 

  But in reality even if the Lebanese government wanted to try and force Hezbollah away from the southern border it would not be able to do so. The Lebanese Army has long had a very limited arsenal, and really no air force to speak of, due to sanctions and limitations imposed by Washington. 

  

  Hezbollah is widely considered to be stronger than even the Lebanese state’s army, and a weak army is largely the legacy of the prior two-decade long Lebanese civil war. But if Israel and Hezbollah enter a full, uncontrollable war, the entirety of Lebanon is likely to be impacted and bombed by Israeli warplanes, as happened to some degree in the 2006 war.

  Meanwhile, there appears to be a rare positive development on Tuesday, per Newsquawk: “US and four European allies hope to announce in the next few weeks a series of commitments made by Israel and Hezbollah to diffuse tensions and restore calm to the Israel-Lebanon border, according to two Israeli officials and a source cited by Axios.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/06/2024 – 17:30

• Trump Calls For "Immediate Debates" Against Biden
  Trump Calls For “Immediate Debates” Against Biden

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  Donald Trump has called for debates between himself and Joe Biden to be held as soon as possible, “for the good of the country.”

  

  Appearing on Dan Bongino’s podcast, Trump made the call, urging that more Americans need to be made aware that Biden “can’t do anything.”

  “He can’t talk. He can’t do anything. He’s ruining our country and I don’t think he’s going to run,” Trump stated.

  He continued, “I don’t know if it’s donors or otherwise. It might be his family. It might be something. I don’t think he’s going to run.”

  “I’d like to call for immediate debates. I’d like to debate him now because we should debate. We should debate for the good of the country,” Trump further declared, adding “I am officially going to do that.

  Trump also repeated an earlier offer to take Biden’s interview spot at the Super Bowl, proclaiming “We’ll get very good ratings.”

  Trump calls for “immediate debates” against Biden, declaring “”He can’t talk. He can’t do anything. He’s ruining our country.” Report here: https://t.co/3z3cpdEzJU pic.twitter.com/i8Yvnniftg

  — m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) February 6, 2024

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

  Trump made the Super Bowl offer after it emerged that Biden would not be partaking in the usual pregame interview with the President for the second year running.

  “Crooked Joe Biden has just announced that he will not be doing the big Super Bowl interview. A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be ‘RATINGS GOLD!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

  It’s no surprise that Biden is sitting it out as he can barely string two sentences together.

  On Sunday he declared that when he took office he met “Mitterrand from Germany.”

  Mitterrand was a former French President who died 28 years ago in 1996.

  *  *  *

  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, 02/06/2024 – 17:10

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Why All of America Could See a San Francisco-Style Homeless Crisis
  Why All of America Could See a San Francisco-Style Homeless Crisis

  Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The homeless crisis in America is set to come to a head with a Supreme Court ruling as early as this spring, in the case of Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, Oregon.

  

  The Supreme Court could—depending on what it decides—force changes in city ordinances and homeless policies across the country.

  The decision is one of the most anticipated in years for San Francisco and other cities facing legal challenges from homeless people and advocacy groups.

  At the heart of the case is the challenge by three homeless people to ordinances in the Oregon town of Grants Pass that prohibit homeless people “from using a blanket, pillow, or cardboard box for protection from the elements.”

  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, drawing on logic applied in the 2018 decision in Martin v. City of Boise, sided with the plaintiffs and blocked Grants Pass from enforcing its ordinance in the absence of shelters or other accommodations for the homeless.

  The decision applies across nine western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

  Officials are left with two unappealing choices: let the sprawling encampments stand, or provide immediate emergency housing far beyond what their strained budgets allow for.

  The Supreme Court, which announced on Jan. 11 that it will review the case, must either uphold or throw out the 9th Circuit’s ruling.

  With close to 600,000 homeless people in America, according to recent Department of Housing and Urban Development figures, many cities that are bickering about what to do are paying attention to the case.

  

  In Los Angeles, some 75,000 people live on the street, and the current mayor’s first action on taking office was to declare a homeless state of emergency.

  In San Francisco, the crisis is so severe that residents are fleeing a city they have long cherished as one of the world’s most beautiful and livable locales, not to mention a dynamic tech hub. Nearly 8,000 people now live on the streets there.

  Rampant public drug use, panhandling, urination, defecation, and other unruly conduct have taken over some areas of the City by the Bay and the city’s administration’s inability to enforce its own laws and clear out homeless encampments makes the crisis much worse.

  “San Francisco is a mess, and even if it were to reduce its homeless population modestly, by a third, the streets would still look worse than most American cities,” Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies homelessness and public policy, told The Epoch Times.

  The city is a battleground for myriad legal, social, economic, and political forces amid rising public alarm about homelessness. Lawyers there want to press pause on their own court battle over an injunction forbidding the police from cracking down on homeless camps. In their view, the looming Supreme Court case will render other legal struggles moot.

  Homelessness advocates insist that longstanding legal precedent guarantees rights to people living on the street, and the city is not free to disregard those rights and take away homeless people’s property without due process, just because some of the homeless commit more serious violations and spark a public outcry.

  But others who have studied the issue find providing housing for ever-growing numbers of homeless to be an unsustainable burden.

  

  A Protracted Battle

  San Francisco’s impasse has its roots in a lawsuit that a local advocacy group, the Coalition on Homelessness, launched in September 2022 with the aid of the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, and the global law firm Latham & Watkins. Also named as plaintiffs in the suit were seven people who were, or had recently been, homeless.

  One goal of the lawsuit was to stop the city from arresting and ticketing people who lived on the street, and clearing out their encampments—in short, to put an end to sweeps of homeless settlements and to put pressure on the administration to ramp up temporary housing for the undomiciled.

  In a Dec. 23, 2022, ruling, Judge Donna Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California slapped the city with a preliminary injunction, denying it the power to enforce or threaten to enforce laws and ordinances that barred “involuntarily homeless individuals” from lying, sleeping, or sitting on public property.

  Judge Ryu sided with the plaintiffs who believed that San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) actions had violated their Fourth Amendment right to be secure in their persons and possessions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

  

  “Plaintiffs have presented significant evidence of a practice of seizing and destroying of homeless individuals’ unabandoned personal property in violation of the Fourth Amendment … and San Francisco’s own bag and tag policy, which clearly requires the City to store personal property so that homeless individuals may retrieve,” the judge wrote.

  Lawyers for San Francisco unsuccessfully challenged Judge Ryu’s decision in federal court. In September 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit shot down the city’s claim that Judge Ryu had overstepped legal bounds set in Martin v. Boise and Johnson v. Grants Pass.

  On Jan. 11, another Ninth Circuit Court ruling clarified the definition of “involuntarily homeless” while substantially upholding the injunction.

  Instead of appealing. San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu on Jan. 17 has filed a motion to essentially pause proceedings to wait for the Supreme Court decision on Grants Pass.

  “It makes no sense to spend months litigating this case and expend enormous resources collecting evidence and expert testimony when the entire legal landscape may soon change,” Mr. Chiu said in a statement.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 23:40

• The Most Popular Shotguns In America 
  The Most Popular Shotguns In America 

  Self-defense is the top reason Americans have been panic-buying firearms in the last several years. The deterioration of cities under Democratic leadership, plagued by violent crime and an influx of undocumented immigrants bussed from the wide open southern border, has compelled law-abiding citizens to purchase handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Also, Biden’s ATF war on the Second Amendment is another driver in firearms demand. 

  A new study by 24/7 Wall St. identified the most popular shotgun brands purchased by Americans based on an analysis of data from the ATF’s Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report.

  

  The findings show that Maverick Arms (Mossberg) is America’s most popular shotgun brand. Second is Legacy Sports International, then Kel Tec CNC Industries coming in at number three, Remarms (Remington) at four, and Beretta USA at five. 

  

  Here’s the full list: 

  1. Maverick Arms (Mossberg)

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 293,089 (43.4% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 388,171 (75.5% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): Maverick 88, Mossberg 500
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Eagle Pass, TX, and North Haven, CT

  2. Legacy Sports International

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 161,099 (23.9% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 214,258 (75.2% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): Pointer Field Tek 3, Pointer Sport Tek 5, Pointer Acrius
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Reno, NV

  3. Kel Tec CNC Industries

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 46,737 (6.9% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 215,804 (21.7% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): KS7 Bullpup, KSG Bullpup
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Cocoa, FL

  4. Remarms (Remington)

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 45,277 (6.7% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 70,076 (64.6% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): Model 1100, Model 870 Fieldmaster, V3 Tactical
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Ilion, NY

  5. Beretta USA

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 24,210 (3.6% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 155,352 (15.6% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): A300 Ultima, A400, 686 Silver Pigeon I
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Gallatin, TN

  6. IWI US

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 15,965 (2.4% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 96,662 (16.5% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): Tavor TS12
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Middletown, PA

  7. Henry RAC

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 15,878 (2.4% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 316,050 (5.0% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): Single Shot Shotgun, Lever Action X Model
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Bayonne, NJ, and Rice Lake, WI

  8. Savage Arms

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 13,352 (2.0% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 406,867 (3.3% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): 555 Sporting, 320 Field Grade, 212 Slug
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Westfield, MA

  9. International Firearm Corporation

  

  • Domestic shotgun production in 2021: 11,423 (1.7% of all U.S.-made shotguns)
  • Total domestic firearm production in 2021: 11,423 (100.0% shotguns)
  • Popular shotgun model(s): IFC Radical Bullpup, IFC Maximus
  • 2021 manufacturing location(s): Midwest City, OK

  Weeks ago, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) showed gun-buying soared the highest in eight months. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 23:20

• Concern Lingers About Biden Losing Black Voters After South Carolina Primary
  Concern Lingers About Biden Losing Black Voters After South Carolina Primary

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

  Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) adamantly insisted that President Joe Biden’s support is rock solid among black voters moments after the president won the state’s Democratic presidential primary.

  “The best illustration of that, he got 96 percent of the vote in this primary, but its largest percentage—over 97 percent—was in the town of Orangeburg where there are two HBCUs and a community college,” Mr. Clyburn told reporters at the Democratic watch party on Feb. 3.

  “I go to an African American barbershop. I go to an African American Church. Joe Biden is as strong with African Americans as he has ever been,” Mr. Clyburn added.

  

  Democrats have labored to dispel the notion that President Biden is losing popularity with black voters, a key element of the Democratic coalition, after a Dec. 12 survey by GenForward revealed that 17 percent of black Americans would vote for President Donald Trump and 20 percent said they would vote for someone other than the two major candidates.

  A poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College in November revealed that 22 percent of black voters in six battleground states vote for President Trump in 2024.

  South Carolina was specifically selected to hold the nation’s first Democratic primary this year in order to give black voters, who comprise 51 percent of the state’s Democratic voters, a greater voice in the electoral process.

  While the impressive margin of victory helped place President Biden in a position of strength at the beginning of the 2024 campaign, the data itself presents a mixed picture. And some, especially younger, South Carolina democrats seem resigned rather than enthusiastic about supporting his reelection.

  The Black Vote

  While awaiting the result of the Feb. 3 primary, Christale Spain, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, touted an increase in voting by blacks. “From the data, we saw a 13 percent increase in black voter participation,” she told attendees at a Democratic watch party.

  That data point was derived from the roughly 48,000 ballots cast during the state’s 12-day early voting period. It is not yet known how data from the remainder of the approximately 131,000 votes cast may alter that result.

  Overall, voter turnout in this primary appears to have been low by historical standards. Nearly 188,000 Democratic votes were cast in the state’s 2022 midterm primary. More than 330,000 voters participated in the state’s 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

  Some Democratic officials had speculated that voter turnout could be depressed by the fact that an incumbent president was facing little opposition and that some Democrats had stated an intention to vote in the Feb. 24 Republican primary to oppose President Donald Trump. Crossover voting is possible in this state with an open primary system.

  Democratic leaders did not entertain the idea, at least publicly, that some Democrats may have preferred to vote for neither President Biden nor President Trump.

  If that were to have been the case, President Biden could face a significant challenge in the general election. Black eligible voters are projected to number 34.4 million in November, comprising 14 percent of eligible voters, a historic high, according to Pew Research.

  “I think the president needs to be concerned about black voters,” Richard Gordon, founder of Gordon Strategies and member of the chairman’s board of the Democratic Governors Association, told The Epoch Times.

  “Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia … were enormously close [in 2020]. And if the President were to lose, let’s say, 2 percent of the vote in each of those, he probably won’t get reelected. And that is why the black vote in all of those states is massively important,” Mr. Gordon said.

  Younger People, Different Issues

  Democrats are not a monolithic group, and one fissure runs along generational lines. Older, more traditional Democrats are more likely to be well satisfied with President Biden’s performance and age.

  

  Asked if the president has an electability problem, Jim Horch, 67, an ironworker from Aiken, said, “No, I really don’t because I’ve seen President Biden give several speeches, and his fitness, in my opinion, is great.”

  Younger Democrats were more likely to hedge their answer about President Biden’s electability. “I hope and pray his health remains good for the next four years,” Andrina Mullins, 40, of Florence, said.

  A 31-year-old Columbia woman supporting President Biden, who asked not to be named, when asked about his electability, paused, laughed nervously, and said, “Do I have to answer that?”

  Younger black Democrats may also be driven by different issues than their elders, according to Marcurius Byrd, 39, an advisor to Young Democrats of the Central Midlands.

  That difference in perspective is readily seen in attitudes toward the war in Gaza, according to Mr. Byrd, who, as an older Millennial, sees himself as a bridge between generations.

  Older Democrats are more likely to view support for Israel as unconditional based on their emotional memory of previous conflicts and historical support for an ally. Younger Democrats, lacking that attachment, may be more likely to evaluate the fact in a neutral manner.

  “There are also the complexities of this being warfare,” Mr. Byrd said. “There’s more [to it] than just a ceasefire because ceasefire does not bring an end, and other things will be happening,” he added, “and people aren’t thinking that far ahead.”

  That’s why Gen Z Democrats may be more likely to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, according to Mr. Byrd.

  Younger black Democrats are more likely to mention the war in Gaza, affordable housing, and the cost of higher education as key issues. Older black Democrats are more likely to mention access to abortion, voter suppression, and preserving the gains made in civil and women’s rights as key concerns.

  

  In South Carolina, 42 percent of registered black voters are under age 45 according to data from the South Carolina Election Commission. Nationally, 60 percent of black eligible voters are age 59 or younger according to Pew Research.

  Messaging and Turnout

  President Biden has had a messaging problem with some black voters, according to Mr. Gordon.

  “For many people in the black community, it’s been very hard for the President to translate what he has done for them,” Mr. Gordon said. That may be easier done in a small state like South Carolina than in a battleground state like Michigan or Wisconsin, he added.

  Some black Democratic leaders are aware of this communication gap. “I think my only concern is that we have to do a better job of getting the message out about why we should be voting for Joe Biden,” Isaac Wilson, 36, chair of the Florence County Democratic Party, told The Epoch Times. “We’ve got to do a better job of getting that message out.”

  Regarding President Biden’s electability, Jonathan Kirkwood, 54, of Columbia, told The Epoch Times, “I don’t think that there’s a big concern, but I think that we all need to get out and vote and just make sure that that happens.”

  That will involve new messaging tailored to specific demographics, according to Mr. Byrd. “He’s done a good job. The problem is, nobody knows about it,” he said. “You have to do more direct targeting.”

  For some black Democrats, this comes down to a binary choice between Presidents Biden and Trump in which they believe President Biden will surely prevail.

  “Do you want a competent administration led by an 81-year-old man or an incompetent administration by someone that’s pushing 80? That, I believe, is going to end up becoming the choice. And I believe that most people will vote for competence in the end,” Austin Jackson, 33, president of Young Democrats of South Carolina, told The Epoch Times.

  

  The question is whether winning most black voters will be enough.

  In 2020, President Biden won 92 percent of the black vote compared to 8 percent by President Trump. Even a relatively small change in that balance could affect the outcome of the 2024 election, according to Mr. Gordon.

  “I don’t believe there is a realignment of the black vote in America. I feel there is an erosion of the black vote in America,” Mr. Gordon said. “I think it will prove relatively small when the population is confronted with a binary choice between Biden and Trump. But he doesn’t have room to lose those voters.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 23:00

• Standard Chartered Sees Ether HItting $4,000 By May, When Ethereum ETF Is Approved
  Standard Chartered Sees Ether HItting $4,000 By May, When Ethereum ETF Is Approved

  One month ago, Standard Chartered predicted that with ETF approval in the rearview mirror, bitcoin would eventually rise up to $200,000. It has since turned its attention to ether and the inevitable ethereum ETF approval, and while it does not follow up with a similarly bombastic forecast, it nonetheless sees ETH rising to $4,000 by May 23, when it expect the Ethereum ETH will be approved. Incidentally, we agree.

  And now, frontrunning the ETH ETF

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 9, 2024

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

  How do they get there? Well, as Std Chtd analyst Geoff Kendrick writes, the SEC approved 11 new spot Bitcoin ETFs on 10 January. The approvals, along with BTC price action before and since, provide valuable lessons for the ongoing Ethereum (ETH) ETF application process.

  According to Kendrick, the SEC’s dominant strategy for ETH ETF applications is to replicate the BTC process. This partly reflects structural similarities between the two. During its case against Ripple in June 2023, the SEC did not list ETH (or BTC) among the 67 coins and tokens that it claimed were “securities”. In addition, ETH – like BTC – is a listed and regulated futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

  As a result, the bank expects pending applications for ETH US spot ETFs to be approved on 23 May, the final deadline for the first of the ETFs under consideration – the equivalent date to 10 January for BTC ETFs. And if ETH prices perform similarly to how BTC prices performed in the lead-up to BTC ETF approval, Kendrick expects ETH to trade as high as $4,000 by then.

  

  To be sure, for ETH prices to follow the same price pattern as BTC, Standard Chartered lays out three conditions that need to be met:

  First, current market expectations for the probability of a 23 May approval date would have to be low, as was the case for BTC ETFs. This appears to be true; several media reports (for example from The Block, a leading digital-assets news provider) suggest that commentators are mixed on the chances of approval. ‘No approval’ expectations centre on the view that the SEC defines ETH as a security rather than a commodity – the argument that was at the heart of the Ripple case in 2023. Based on market commentary, we believe approval expectations are relatively low, likely below 50%.

  Second, the market-implied probability of approval would have to be wrong. We also believe this is the case. While SEC Chair Gary Gensler did say during the SEC’s June 2023 lawsuit against Ripple that “everything other than Bitcoin is potentially a security“, ETH was not included among the 67 coins and tokens the SEC identified as securities at the time. Also notably, the SEC was not successful in that case – Ripple was ruled to be a security when sold to institutional clients, but not when purchased on exchanges. In addition, the SEC has since lost its case against Grayscale on the BTC ETF. Grayscale also has an ETH trust that it wants to turn into an ETF, so a denial of that application would likely lead to another appeal by Grayscale. Both BTC and ETH are listed and regulated futures on the CME, and we see no fundamental reason for the SEC to view ETH differently than the CME already does.

  Third, several spot ETH ETFs would need to be approved on 23 May. In other words, the SEC would need to follow the same process that it did for BTC ETF approvals. We think this is highly likely. During the BTC ETF vetting process, the SEC continually postponed decisions, and stated publicly that they would not be approved right up to the time of approval. The SEC postponed decisions on two ETH ETFs (Blackrock and Fidelity) on 24 January and a third (Grayscale) on 25 January, and Gensler claimed that the BTC approval was a one-off. Indeed, we think a similar SEC approach to ETH ETFs is not only likely but also optimal in terms of ETH price impact, as it would create lower market expectations – maximising price upside as approval probability increased.

  Looking beyond the ETF approval, Standard Charated believes that that ETH is less susceptible to the post-approval selling that BTC has seen:

  the BTC price fell to an intra-day low of USD 38,500 on 23 January from an intra-day high of USD 49,000 on 11 January. This is because the Grayscale Ethereum Trust has a smaller share of overall ETH market cap than the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) did before ETF approval. FTX holdings, and the associated forced selling pressure, have even smaller relative market cap shares of ETH versus BTC.

  Meanwhile, while GBTC selling in recent weeks (USD 4.9bn) has been heavier than we expected – and recall our report that forced liquidation by FTX and affiliated entities has been one of the main reasons for the bitcoin’s subpar performance in the past month – pressure has eased in recent sessions.

  

  Like us, Kendrick thinks that the period of sharp GBTC selling is over (even if sporadic sizable futures liquidations persist); the analyst also expects inflows to the other new BTC ETFs to continue, allowing BTC prices to resume their uptrend.

  As a result, heading into the expected approval date on 23 May, we expect ETH prices to track, or outperform, the BTC uptrend during the comparable period.

  Finally, there is a fundamental reason to be optimistic on ETH pricing besides merely the outcome of the ETF process. As Standard Chartered reminds us, the “Dencun” upgrade is imminent and will be tested on the Sepolia and Holesky test networks on 30 January and 7 February, respectively. This should enable it to be rolled out on the Ethereum mainnet in late February or early March.

  The upgrade will primarily enable proto-danksharding, a process that will dramatically decrease the cost of transactions on layer 2 blockchains (such as Arbitrum and Optimism), to a level consistent with layer 1 blockchains such as Solana. It will also slow the pace of ETH staking, so that at the new fastest possible pace, 100% staking can theoretically be achieved only by end-2028, rather than end-2024 before the upgrade. Overall, this upgrade should see more value captured within the ETH ecosystem as lower layer 2 fees make ETH more competitive, and slower staking should keep staking rewards higher for longer. Both of these are positive for ETH prices.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 22:40

• Federal Judge Rejects Challenge To Mail-in Ballots In North Dakota
  Federal Judge Rejects Challenge To Mail-in Ballots In North Dakota

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a legal foundation focused on election integrity cases that sought to invalidate a North Dakota law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted for 13 days after Election Day.

  

  U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor said in his Feb. 2 order that the lawsuit both lacked standing and failed to show harm or violation of constitutional rights.

  “The complaint is dismissed,” Judge Traynor, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the order.

  The lawsuit was filed in July 2023 by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) on behalf of Burleigh County Auditor Mark Splonkowski.

  Mr. Splonkowski, as county auditor, is required to enforce state law in the administration of elections in Burleigh County. He argued that conflicts between state and federal law force him into an impossible situation in which he risks criminal penalties.

  “North Dakota law and Defendant’s enforcement of it harm Mr. Splonkowski because they put him in the position of having to choose between dictates of state law to accept and allow votes to be cast after Election Day and federal law that requires a single election day,” the complaint reads.

  A key argument in his lawsuit was that the U.S. Constitution provides that federal elections occur on one day, while North Dakota law allows for mail-in ballots to be counted for up to 13 days after Election Day so long as they’re postmarked on or before the election.

  ‘Impossibility in Enforcing the Law’

  Mr. Splonkowski, who in his role as auditor must swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution (which his lawsuit argues requires a single Election Day), sits on the county canvassing board that reviews and counts ballots arriving after Election Day.

  Since North Dakota law requires him to count and certify votes arriving after Election Day, his attorneys said that “he faces an impossibility in enforcing the law” and risks a misdemeanor charge for failing to perform a duty as an election official or a felony for certifying a false canvass of votes.

  Mr. Splonkowski sought a court declaration that North Dakota’s extension of Election Day is unlawful and asked for an injunction voiding laws that allow for the extension.

  Judge Traynor disagreed. In ruling against Mr. Splonkowski, the judge cited lack of standing, failure to show harm, and lack of constitutional violation in the ruling.

  “The only cause for his potential injury is himself because he states he will violate North Dakota election law,” the judge wrote.

  “This is deeply concerning to the Court that an elected official openly advocates for violating the law he was elected to enforce because he has independently concluded it contradicts federal law.”

  Judge Traynor also said the reasoning in Mr. Splonkowski’s lawsuit, if accepted by the court, could undermine overseas and military voters’ rights to vote.

  PILF spokesperson Lauren Bowman Bis expressed disappointment in the judgment.

  “We are disappointed in the Court’s ruling,” she told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. “We believe unresolved elections undermine confidence and that federal law should be followed.”

  North Dakota’s top election official, Secretary of State Michael Howe, a Republican, praised the ruling, calling it a “win for the rule of law in North Dakota and a win for our military and overseas voters.”

  PILF is involved in various election integrity cases around the country and is also backing former President Donald Trump’s bid before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court decision to block him from the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds.

  More than a dozen states have post-Election Day mail-in ballot receipt deadlines.

  Mississippi Challenge

  Besides the PILF-led lawsuit in North Dakota, another challenge to extended mail ballot deadlines was filed last month in Mississippi.

  The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, a member of the state Republican Executive Committee, and an election commissioner in one county filed a federal lawsuit on Jan. 26 against Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson and six local election officials.

  In this case, the lawsuit seeks to overturn a Mississippi law that allows absentee ballots in presidential elections to be counted for five days after Election Day.

  “Federal law is very clear—Election Day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement when the lawsuit was announced. “However, some states accept and count ballots days and days after Election Day, and we believe that practice is wrong.”

  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) stated that it’s tracking such cases closely and will oppose efforts it sees as voter disenfranchisement.

  “Democrats will always stand on the side of voters against unlawful attacks on Americans’ fundamental right to make their voices heard at the ballot box,” DNC deputy press secretary Nina Raneses said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 22:20

• The Scale Of California's Pineapple Express Phenomenon
  The Scale Of California’s Pineapple Express Phenomenon

  A second atmospheric river rainstorm in a week is moving across California and has been causing landslides, downpours and high winds of hurricane strengths that toppled trees in some locations.

  Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that conditions could persist until mid-week as the storm is now projected to move across the state slower than originally expected.

  

  The National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned that the storm was “dangerous” and posed “major risks to life and property.” The service’s office in San Diego meanwhile predicted the potential of flooding in Los Angeles and “locally catastrophic” flooding in Orange County as amounts of rain typical for a whole month could come down in just the span of days. The risk of excessive rain in Southern California was put at a 4 out of 4. More than half a million Californians were already without power early Monday due to wind damage. Some residents in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San José are currently under evacuation orders, according to CNN.

  The phenomenon of atmospheric rivers is fed by the El Niño conditions that have taken over the climate of the Americas again since mid-2023. Atmospheric rivers are plumes of moisture that extend from the tropics all the way to more Northern reaches and are made possible by El Niño-related changes in the jet stream air currents that circle the globe. Normally, these jet streams travel in a westerly directions but under certain conditions, plumes can escape and travel long distances, bringing tropical rains to more moderate locales.

  An atmospheric river that has been reoccurring is the one originating from the Pacific near Hawaii all the way to California – dubbed the Pineapple Express because of the fruit being a symbol of the U.S. island chain.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The latest Pineapple Express pummeling California was rated moderate to strong – a level 2-3 out of 5 possible – by the center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California San Diego. 

  Partially forecast as of early Monday, the current storm’s rating could increase since the system is now expected to move more slowly and duration is one of two levels the storms are rated on. The current weather phenomenon was initially expected to continue for around 30 hours into early Tuesday while carrying around half the moisture intensity of the most exceptional scenario still included in the rating system. 

  Thursday’s system that already brought heavy rains as well as snowfall to the state was rated similarly, but opposed to Monday’s forecast was a little shorter, yet a little more moisture intense at a level 3 out of 5 on the rating scale.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 22:00

• IRS To Boost Enforcement Workforce By 40% By Year-End 2024
  IRS To Boost Enforcement Workforce By 40% By Year-End 2024

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

  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to raise its enforcement personnel by 40 percent by the end of this fiscal year, with revenue agents seeing the largest workforce increase.

  

  For fiscal year 2024, the IRS plans to boost enforcement staff by a net 5,462 employees, according to a Jan. 29 report by IRS watchdog Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). This would take the total number of enforcement personnel at the tax agency to 18,960 by the end of fiscal 2024, which is 40 percent higher than the staffing at the beginning of October 2023.

  Out of the 5,462 net additions, 4,704 will be revenue agents who are tasked with conducting “face-to-face audits of more complex returns.”

  The tax agency intends to add a net 493 special agents for the year, who are armed officials investigating “potential criminal activities.” Staffing of revenue officers will rise by 265 employees. Revenue officers are tasked with collecting delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns.

  By fiscal 2024-end, revenue agents will comprise close to 70 percent of the enforcement personnel. Armed special agents will make up 13.5 percent and revenue officers will account for 16.4 percent.

  The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided the IRS with $79.4 billion in supplemental funding that is available for the agency until September 2031. By the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023, the agency had used $3.5 billion of the funds.

  The IRS spent $1.4 billion out of the $3.5 billion IRA funds on its employees, “nearly doubling expenditures in this object class category in the fourth quarter.”

  Most of the labor costs were accounted for by taxpayer services, which the TIGTA said “helped support the IRS’s efforts to hire additional customer service representatives to answer taxpayer telephone calls, as well as employees to staff Taxpayer Assistance Centers for the 2023 filing season.”

  The IRS employed 89,767 people by the end of fiscal 2023. In addition to hiring staff to improve taxpayer services, the tax agency “focused on expanding enforcement on taxpayers with complex tax filings and high-dollar noncompliance to address the tax gap.”

  “Tax gap” refers to the difference between taxes owed and paid to the government. The IRS claims the tax gap rose to $688 billion in 2021 alone, which is $192 billion more than estimates from 2014–16 and $138 billion more than 2017-19.

  In October, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel pointed to the tax gap to justify the importance of “increased IRS compliance efforts on key areas.” At the time, he said that the agency would use IRA funding to strengthen compliance on “high-income and high-wealth individuals” as well as businesses.

  Expanded Enforcement

  Out of the $79.4 billion in IRA funds, IRS had set aside $45.6 billion for enforcement. Taxpayer services were allocated $3.2 billion. Administration activities like business systems modernization and operations support were allocated $4.8 billion and $25.3 billion respectively.

  The IRS’s decision to use most of the IRA funds for enforcement was questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) at a joint subcommittee hearing in October last year.

  “This funding spree prioritizes enforcement over improving taxpayer services,” she said while noting that some of her constituents complained about call wait times when dialing the IRS. A few of them tried to get in touch with the IRS for several months but could not.

  Ms. McClain said that even she had faced such difficulties. “If a private business did what the IRS does on a daily basis, it would quickly go out of business.”

  In the 2022 fiscal year, the IRS raked in a record $4.9 trillion in taxes, which was $790 billion more than the previous fiscal. The agency collected $72 billion in revenues from enforcement activities, which was well above the historical average of $59 billion.

  There are also concerns that the IRS could use some of its IRA funding to boost enforcement on individuals making less than $400,000 per year.

  When Commissioner Werfel was asked about this during a hearing last year, he did not explicitly guarantee that the agency would not increase the number of audits for this income group.

  Budget Shortfall

  Out of the $3.5 billion the IRS has used from IRA funding so far, almost $2 billion went to supplement its fiscal year 2023 appropriations, the TIGTA report stated.

  IRS officials said they had to take $2 billion from IRA funds as the amount it received for spending in 2023 “was insufficient to cover normal operating expenses and did not include adjustments to account for inflation, estimated at approximately $460 million from fiscal year 2022.”

  Out of the $3.5 billion, operations support took the largest chunk at $1.5 billion, followed by taxpayer services, business systems modernization, and enforcement activities.

  The IRS calculates it would need $818 million more than last year’s funding in 2024 just to continue regular operations. The tax agency is yet to receive its fiscal 2024 appropriations.

  The TIGTA pointed out that if Congress keeps the budget flat for 2024, the IRS will have to plug the $818 million shortfall using IRA funds. “This means less funds available for IRS transformation efforts.”

  “Any reduction in the IRS’s annual appropriated funding, including inadequate funding to cover inflationary increases, will require the IRS to shift IRA funding to cover general operating expenses … Without the restoration in the IRS’s annual appropriation, IRA funding will cover only approximately two-thirds of the IRS’s planned modernization.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 21:40

• US Diesel Supply Tightens As Manufacturing Comes Roaring Back
  US Diesel Supply Tightens As Manufacturing Comes Roaring Back

  By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

  U.S. manufacturers are recovering from an extended slump in activity and their energy consumption is about to start rising, with the risk of tightening an already tight diesel market.

  

  Reuters market analyst John Kemp reported the index for manufacturing activity had improved to 49.1 for January from 47.1 in December. The latter figure was the highest since October 2022, Kemp noted in his report, adding that the trend signaled a return to growth.

  As manufacturing activity improves, however, diesel demand begins to increase in lockstep. This might be problematic in case of a fast recovery because distillate inventories in the U.S. remain below the five-year average, by 5%, per the latest weekly petroleum report of the Energy Information Administration.

  The state of distillate inventories, with the total as of January 26 standing at 10 million barrels below the 10-year seasonal average, per Kemp, is better than it was in late 2023. At that time, distillate stocks were 19 million barrels below the 10-year average. Even with the boost in stockpiles, the distillate supply balance remains elusive.

  This means that if manufacturing activity continues to improve, it will soon enough lead to higher fuel prices, which would in turn pressure that same manufacturing activity before too long, constraining any growth.

  Diesel prices are already on the rise, both thanks to the rebound in manufacturing activity and a refinery outage. BP’s whiting refinery in Indiana—the largest inland refinery in the U.S.—was shut down last week after a power outage. An analyst has said the return to operation could take as little as a week but there is no guarantee it will be so quick. BP has not given any timeline for the refinery’s return to operation.

  The outage comes on the heels of several weeks of lower fuel production across the country amid frigid winter weather, Bloomberg noted in a recent report. Supply, therefore, remains precariously close to a shortage.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 21:00

• Hong Kong Set To Pass Article 23, Further Tightening Beijing’s Control
  Hong Kong Set To Pass Article 23, Further Tightening Beijing’s Control

  Authored by Julia Ye and Angela Bright via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The prospect of Basic Law Article 23, which rocked Hong Kong in 2003, is now becoming a reality under Beijing-controlled Hong Kong authorities.

  

  “While the society as a whole looks calm and very safe, we still have to watch out for potential sabotage and undercurrents that try to create trouble, particularly some of the ‘independent Hong Kong’ ideas are still being embedded in some people’s minds,” John Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said at a press conference on Jan. 30.

  Article 23, outlined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law enacted after its handover from British rule in 1997, mandated that Hong Kong write its own national security code. An attempt to do so in 2003 led to massive protests, leading the government to shelve the proposal.

  After pro-democracy protests brought hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers to the streets in 2019, Beijing imposed a national security law to punish four major crimes: secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces.

  Now, under an administration hand-picked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hong Kong is once again looking to pass Article 23, which authorities say will fill loopholes left by the national security law. A four-week comment period will precede a vote on the law by Hong Kong’s Beijing-aligned legislature.

  The new national security law will cover five offenses: treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets and espionage, destructive activities endangering national security, and external interference.

  The newly added ordinance on “external interference” will prohibit any person from cooperating with foreign powers to interfere with Hong Kong’s elections, legislature, and judiciary.

  To the question of “Why now?” Mr. Lee responded, “The threats to national security—they are real. We have experienced all these threats. We have suffered from them badly. We were all very heartbroken. We still remember the pain and the sorrow. We don’t want to go through that painful experience again.”  The chief executive referred to foreign agents who “may still be active in Hong Kong.”

  “We can’t afford to wait,” Mr. Lee said. “It’s for 26 years we have been waiting.”

  Explainer: What Is Article 23?

  The Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 set out the conditions under which Hong Kong would be transferred to China control and for the city’s governance after the handover. The treaty guaranteed a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong, enshrined in the Basic Law, a mini-constitution that was the blueprint for the “one country, two systems” arrangement.

  After the signing of the treaty, the CCP was eager to establish a legal framework for the resumption of its sovereignty over Hong Kong. Article 23 of the Basic Law was part of that legal framework, stipulating that Hong Kong must enact legislation on its own to prohibit seven types of acts that endanger national security, including “treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets.”

  However, the mandated legislation has not been realized since the handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty in 1997.

  In 1985, the CCP’s rubber stamp legislature set up a 59-member “Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee.” However, the first draft of the Basic Law was regarded as too vague and wide-ranging.

  The drafting committee added the words “to legislate on its own” to the second draft so that the Hong Kong authorities could legislate only when it considered necessary.

  The drafting of the relevant provisions coincided with the Tiananmen Square movement in 1989. To strengthen its control over the Asia financial hub, the CCP reintroduced the offense of subversion and added a provision concerning political organizations to the re-draft.

  The CCP has continued to push for the completion of Article 23 legislation. However, the legislative process that was initiated has aroused great controversy, and disputes have abounded.

  A Broader Scope than the National Security Law

  Some may wonder why, since the national security law had already been imposed when Mr. Lee came to power as chief executive in 2022, he should be so eager to legislate Article 23.

  “One reason is that recently, the whole international society is targeting the Hong Kong national security law. Many Western countries are questioning Hong Kong’s human rights situation,” current affairs commentator Wang Anran told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Wang said he believes that, given the negative attention garnered by the national security law, Article 23 may be an alternative.

  While the national security law was implemented in 2020, of the seven items to be covered under Article 23, it only covered two: secession and subversion of state power. Therefore the two laws are expected to work together.

  It is expected that if the legislation on Article 23 is completed, the scope of its coverage will be wider than initially planned. For instance, its definition of state secrets will be broader and more in line with China’s vague laws on espionage and state secrets. The proposal for the law deemed Hong Kong’s current definition of state secrets to be “not broad enough.”

  

  There are concerns that Article 23 will cause the business environment in Hong Kong to continue to deteriorate. The law would include economic matters in its definition of national security.

  “If a business or organization has a certain connection with a foreign government, it may be arrested,” said Simon Ngai Man Young, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law. “On top of that, even if it is a business enterprise or a joint venture, the source of funds may have to be checked more carefully.”

  Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Research Institute, argued that Hong Kong authorities are now expanding the scope of Article 23 to include soft counter-opposition, cybersecurity, and false information.

  “The current implementation of the national security law has resulted in the criminalization of everything, and the introduction of Article 23 is an additional tool and weapon for [the] violent regime to suppress the public,” he told The Epoch Times.

  Was 2003’s Legislation Targeted at Falun Gong?

  Sources familiar with top CCP officials have said that in 2003, when authorities pushed for Article 23, their intended target was Hong Kong’s Falun Gong community.

  Hong Kong’s first chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, openly made negative comments about Falun Gong in 2001. The following year, Mr. Tung initiated the legislation to implement Article 23. The legislation of Article 23 at the time was seen as a political mission given to Mr. Tung by late CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong.

  

  During the SARS outbreak in 2003—a time when Hong Kong’s economy was in the doldrums, coupled with the introduction of the consultation paper on Article 23 legislation—worries about the future and dissatisfaction with Mr. Tung reached an unprecedented high.

  The law was set to be passed on July 9, 2003. As the date approached, the Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group, called for a protest. On July 1, over 500,000 people took to the streets to oppose Article 23 and to demand that Mr. Tung step down.

  Authorities withdrew the bill on Sept. 5 to “allay the public’s concern.” More than a year later, Mr. Tung stepped down.

  Consolidating Control: Reciprocal Enforcement

  Article 23 is now on the fast track to legislation, but it remains to be seen whether it will be shelved again.

  Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities have introduced a law that allows for the mutual recognition of judgments in civil and commercial cases between China and Hong Kong.

  On Jan. 29, the Mainland Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance came into effect. According to a statement by Hong Kong’s Department of Justice, the arrangement reduces the need to re-litigate the same dispute in Hong Kong courts and China. 

  Despite the description of the law as “reciprocal,” the legislation is clearly aimed at the Hong Kong judiciary, said political commentator and Epoch Times contributor Ji Da.

  “The purpose is for Hong Kong to recognize China’s judicial system. Judgments in mainland China are also valid in Hong Kong,” Mr. Ji told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times.

  CCP Eager to Re-control HK for Strategic Reasons

  The Mainland Judgments ordinance, coupled with the CCP’s actions surrounding the legislation of Article 23, shows that the CCP is eager to regain control of Hong Kong in the face of the current tense international situation, Mr. Wang said.

  In the international arena, friction continues between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu Islands by China). In addition, conflicts may arise at any time in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Concerned that Hong Kong could be another source of unrest, the CCP is enacting Article 23 at this time as a strategic consideration, according to Mr. Wang.

  

  “When Hong Kong experienced a major upheaval in 2019, the CCP was very worried about these unstable factors, especially when it recognized that Hong Kong has always been an anti-communist base linking the mainland and overseas. The CCP was taking precautions by launching Lee Ka-chiu, the police chief, as the chief executive,” he said.

  Hong Kong authorities expect to complete Article 23 legislation before the legislative council adjourns in July. The short consultation period has led to public concern that the comment period is only a formality.

  Public consultation on Article 23 will remain open until Feb. 28.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 20:20

• New Jersey Illegal Migrant Gang Charging Other Migrants $6,000 To Illegally Migrate
  New Jersey Illegal Migrant Gang Charging Other Migrants $6,000 To Illegally Migrate

  A migrant gang based in New Jersey is helping a flood of future Democrats pour into the United States through the Canadian border for a princely sum of $6,000 per head, the Daily Mail reveals.

  

  Several of the ringleaders settled in New Jersey after being released by ICE – where they’ve moved “dozens if not hundreds” of migrants into the US using secret techniques along the poorly-guarded boder between Quebec and Vermont.

  See, Biden has created jobs!

  

  What’s more, despite being caught several times, the gang continues to operate amid a 500% surge in border traffic in 2023.

  Border Patrol agents apprehended several illegal immigrants in January after they crossed the Niagara River from Canada, which came amid the surge in crossings at the northern border

  US authorities have arrested and charged two accused ringleaders who are both undocumented migrants. 

  A third alleged leader remains at large in Canada, where authorities say they have no powers to detain him.

  Despite snaring two of the ringleaders, individuals linked to the gang have continued to smuggle migrants across the border. -Daily Mail

  The ringleaders, Jhon Reina-Perez, 34, and Victor Lopez-Padilla, 35, have been linked to at least five foiled smuggling incidents in Vermont which involved ‘at least 25 migrants,’ while runners for the gang have confessed to Border Patrol officials that many more illegal crossings have gone undetected. 

  

  Reina-Perez is a Colombian national who crossed into the US near El Paso, Texas in April 2022 according to court filings. He was then processed and released into the US ‘pending immigration proceedings,’ which of course, he ignored. Six months later, he was arrested again near the Canadian border in Vermont while allegedly acting as a ‘foot guide’ to traffic five other people who had just crossed illegally over the northern US border. He was subsequently released again, telling authorities that he ‘intended to live in the state of Washington.’

  

  Lopez-Padilla is from Guatemala, and has been accused of playing a leading role in the smuggling operation. The third ringleader, Simon Jacinto-Ramos, is still at large. He ran the Canadian side of the operation.

  

  In 2023, there were 10,021 arrests at the US-Canada border, five times more than the previous year – and the majority of which took place in or around Vermont. The route has become popular with wealthier migrants who want to avoid the hustle and bustle of being human trafficked from the south. According to official figures, people crossing the northern border illegally are more likely to be on the US terror watchlist on a percentage basis.

  

  According to court filings, Lopez-Padilla is a fan of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious Mexican drug lord known as ‘El Chapo,’ according to the Mail. Several of his social media profiles include references to the cartel leader.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 20:00

• Doctor Who Helped A Wounded Ashli Babbitt On Jan. 6 Sentenced To Probation
  Doctor Who Helped A Wounded Ashli Babbitt On Jan. 6 Sentenced To Probation

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A California physician who gave medical aid to a dying Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, but was forced away from the scene by police has been sentenced to probation as part of a plea deal for his time at the U.S. Capitol.

  Dr. Austin Brendlen Harris, 43, of Granada Hills, California, was sentenced on Feb. 2 by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton to three years of probation and fined $5,000 for the petty misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

  Federal prosecutors recommended that Judge Walton sentence Dr. Harris to 30 days in jail.

  While Dr. Harris acknowledged his presence inside the Capitol broke the law, he said it at least gave him the opportunity to help a mortally wounded Ms. Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran from San Diego who was shot outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6.

  “He was not involved in that area or situation before he heard the shot, but when he saw her fall he did not hesitate,” defense attorney Scott Weinberg wrote in a four-page sentencing memorandum. “He ran toward her without thinking. As a physician who has worked in many significant trauma situations, this was second nature to him.

  “He wanted to help to try to save her life,” Mr. Weinberg wrote. “Unfortunately just as her pulse faded and he was about to start CPR, he was prevented from acting further as law enforcement had to control the crowd and move protesters away from the situation, understandably so.”

  The sentencing memo understated the role a Capitol Police bicycle officer played in preventing Dr. Harris from giving Ms. Babbitt further medical aid.

  Dr. Harris was on his knees checking Ms. Babbitt’s upper chest wound when the officer reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders. The officer wrestled Dr. Harris away from Ms. Babbitt, grabbed him by the jacket, and shoved him down the hallway.

  The visibly angry officer kept pushing Dr. Harris and the two struggled down the hallway. It’s impossible to hear what was said between the men because the crowd was yelling at the police.

  Dr. Harris went back and asked the officer to retrieve his medical bag, which was still sitting next to Ms. Babbitt. The officer handed it back to him.

  “If Dr. Harris had not been in one specific location within the building, he would not have had the opportunity to render aid to Ms. Ashli Babbitt after she was shot,” Mr. Weinberg wrote.

  Tried to Prevent Rioting

  Ms. Babbitt, who owned a pool cleaning business with her husband, traveled alone to Washington on Jan. 5 and attended President Donald J. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

  She walked to the Capitol along with tens of thousands of other protesters and entered the building through a window at 2:23 p.m., according to a detailed Epoch Times timeline first published on Jan. 5.

  While DOJ investigative documents and persistent commentators on social media describe Ms. Babbitt as a rioter, a careful examination of scene video shows she tried to prevent the vandalism and violence that occurred near the Speaker’s Lobby.

  In its sentencing memo seeking jail time for Dr. Harris, federal prosecutors cited his “encouragement to other rioters to participate in the attack” and that he compared “police officers defending the Capitol to Nazis.”

  Prosecutors acknowledged that Dr. Harris accepted responsibility for running afoul of the law.

  

  “The government has also considered the fact that Harris made clear his intention to accept responsibility for his actions at the time of his arrest and did so at the earliest opportunity,” prosecutors wrote.

  The sentencing of Dr. Harris is the latest development in the death of Ms. Babbitt, who was shot and killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael L. Byrd.

  On Jan. 5, Judicial Watch Inc. filed a $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of Ms. Babbitt’s husband, Aaron, and her estate. The federal suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, where the Babbitts lived and where Mr. Babbitt continues to reside.

  The lawsuit alleges Mr. Byrd was negligent in use of his service weapon, lacked proper judgment, and had poor scene awareness when he fired a single shot as Ms. Babbitt climbed into a broken window leading into the Speaker’s Lobby. The suit called the shooting an “ambush murder.“

  On Feb. 2, Judicial Watch announced a lawsuit against the DOJ, claiming the FBI is wrongfully withholding records related to Ms. Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt.

  That federal suit, also filed in San Diego, says the FBI rejected Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and never provided records even after an appeal was filed with the DOJ. The lawsuit asks a judge to compel the FBI to release the records.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 19:40

• US Presidents' Approval Ratings In Their Third Year Since WWII
  US Presidents’ Approval Ratings In Their Third Year Since WWII

  President Biden’s approval rating is the second lowest in modern history for a first-term president.

  Today, under 40% of Americans approve of his job performance, a level it has hovered around over the last year. According to recent polls, younger Democrats have a lower approval rating of Biden’s handling of the economy compared to older Democrats. Leading up to the election in 2024, the state of the economy is the most important issue among Americans.

  This graphic shows approval ratings for first-term U.S. presidents in their third year – and whether or not they were re-elected – based on data from Gallup.

  

  First-Term Presidential Approval Ratings, Ranked

  Here’s how Biden’s approval rating in year three stacks up against past U.S. presidents:

  

  Average annual approval ratings from January 20 through to January 19 in the following year. *Approval ratings for Kennedy are from January 20-November 22 1963 due to assassination.

  We can see that Biden falls near the bottom, with President Carter being the only president to have lower ratings in their third year.

  Biden’s political standing has fallen from a peak of 63% in 2021 given concerns of rising costs and the state of his fitness. The Israel-Hamas war is also weighing on his ratings, with younger Democrats criticizing his handling of the crisis.

  While Biden struggles to achieve majority approval, economic indicators have been optimistic. The unemployment rate remains low, GDP growth is strong, and the S&P 500 recently hit record highs. Despite this, Americans are paying attention to the cost of basic goods, which have grown more expensive in the last few years.

   

  The U.S is among the most polarized countries globally, stemming from low trust in the media, economic anxieties, and low trust in the government. As a Biden-Trump rematch looks increasingly likely, political success hinges on who will align most with voter concerns, and whether disaffected Democrats will elect Biden for a second term.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 19:20

• "Take Our Border Back" Convoy Ends With Rallies In 3 States
  “Take Our Border Back” Convoy Ends With Rallies In 3 States

  By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves

  

  Several hundred people gathered in three border states Saturday to call for stricter immigration security, ending the cross-country “Take Our Border Back” convoy that traveled from Virginia to Texas last week.

  Convoy organizers and supporters initially said as many as 700,000 vehicles would take part in three separate rallies in Arizona, California and Texas, including truckers who took part in recent protest convoys in Washington, D.C., and Canada, according to U.S. Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas.

  While hundreds of thousands of vehicles never materialized as the convoy moved across the country, about 100 passenger vehicles, recreational vehicles and trucks towing campers arrived in Texas, according to NBC News.

  The Texas rally occurred at the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch in the town of Quemado, about 20 miles outside of Eagle Pass. The daylong event included musical performances, vendors and speakers who voiced their concerns about illegal immigration.

  “The mission here is the border, that’s what we’re here for,” said Trenis Evans, one of the speakers at the Quemado rally. 

  At another “Take Our Border Back” rally Saturday in San Ysidro, California, convoy organizer Scotty Saks said the border is “a national security crisis.”

  “We have a human trafficking problem on the border in proportions that we’ve never imagined,” Saks told a crowd of about 200 people, according to the New York Post. 

  The “Take Our Border Back” convoy also gathered for a rally in Yuma, Arizona.

  The rallies were held amid a feud between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration over border enforcement measures and jurisdictional authority. 

  The Texas National Guard seized control of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass several weeks ago, and erected a razor wire barrier around it, limiting U.S. Border Patrol’s access to the area.

  On Sunday, Abbott held a news briefing in Shelby Park accompanied by 13 Republican governors to discuss border and immigration issues.

  “A state can defend itself and its citizens to protect their safety from the imminent danger that we are facing, and from an invasion of millions of people coming from across the globe into our country who are unaccounted for whatsoever,” Abbott said.

  Abbott also said he is expanding Operation Lone Star, the controversial border security initiative he launched in 2021. The operation has included deploying Texas National Guard members along the Mexico border, installing a floating barrier in the Rio Grande River and initiating safety inspections on commercial trucks arriving at ports of entry from Mexico.

  “As we speak right now, the Texas National Guard is undertaking operations to expand this effort,” Abbott said. “We’re not going to contain ourselves just to this park, we are expanding to further areas to make sure that we will expand our level of deterrence and denial of illegal entry into the United States.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 19:00

• China Joins Russia In Condemning US Strikes In Middle East
  China Joins Russia In Condemning US Strikes In Middle East

  After the Friday large-scale US strikes on Iranian proxy positions in Iraq and Syria, and following the Saturday and Sunday Western coalition attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen, China on Monday issued a blistering condemnation of what is sees as aggression against sovereign countries 

  China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a press briefing, “Syria and Iraq are sovereign countries” and thus “China opposes any act that violates the UN Charter and infringes upon other countries’ territorial sovereignty and security.”

  

  “The current situation in the Middle East is highly complex and sensitive,” Wenbin added. “China urges relevant parties to earnestly observe the international law, remain calm, exercise restraint, and prevent the tensions in the region from escalating or even spiraling out of control.”

  Beijing’s critiques of this latest round of Western military intervention related to ongoing spillover from the Gaza war echo that of Russia’s rhetoric. Russia soon after Biden’s Friday airstrikes on Iraq and Syria called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to address the crisis.

  The Kremlin has gone so far as to accuse the US of stoking a great power confrontation and larger war for the Middle East.

  “It is clear that the airstrikes were specifically intended to further escalate the conflict,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. “By relentlessly attacking the facilities of allegedly pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, the United States has been purposefully attempting to draw the largest countries in the region into the conflict.” 

  In response to US strikes in Iraq and Syria, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that China opposes any actions that violate the UN Charter and infringe upon the territorial sovereignty and security of other countries. The current situation in the Middle East… pic.twitter.com/uNEdAOWJ2N

  — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) February 5, 2024

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

  Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis have continued to give Chinese and Russian commercial shipping a free pass in the Red Sea, while attacking US, UK, Israeli-linked and other shipping vessels.

  Still, as VOA reports, “China’s navy has started escorting Chinese cargo ships through the Red Sea, according to a shipping company and Chinese state media reports.” Most major shipping companies are choosing to avoid the passage altogether. 

  Meanwhile…

  “ALL CHINESE CREW” is now out-trending “NO CONTACT ISRAEL”. Those white plastic lawn chairs shall reach Europe by spring, come hell or high water. pic.twitter.com/rfVqJTho0A

  — TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) February 5, 2024

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 18:40

• Massachusetts Cuts College Degree Requirements For 90% Of State Jobs
  Massachusetts Cuts College Degree Requirements For 90% Of State Jobs

  By Austin Browne of Campus Reform

  Massachusetts will no longer require a college degree for a large majority of government jobs due to a new state executive order intended to make the commonwealth more “inclusive.”

  

  Governor Maura Healey signed the order, titled “Instituting Skill-Based Hiring Practices,” on Jan 25. The document asserts that “skills-based hiring practices will strengthen the Commonwealth’s workforce, increase access to quality jobs for nontraditional candidates with varied backgrounds and work experiences, and reduce structural barriers that result in inequities in pay and access to employment.”

  It also contends that such practices will build a “workforce that is representative of the diversity of the state.”

  The guideline directs hiring managers to “consider the full set of competencies that candidates bring to the job beyond traditional education.” 

  It prohibits a minimum level of education from being included in job listings “unless the Human Resources Division determines that a particular level of education is necessary to perform the job after completing a job analysis.”

  Candidates will now be assessed based on “their skills from real-world experience, military service, apprenticeship and certificate programs, internships, and other on-the-job programs.”

  “This Executive Order directs our administration to focus on applicants’ skills and experiences, rather than college credentials,” Healey said in an address announcing the new guidelines. “It will expand our applicant pool and help us build a more inclusive and skilled workforce than ever before.”

  Several state labor and education leaders issued statements in support of the order. 

  Massachusetts AFL-CIO President and CEO Chrissy Lynch applauded the governor for what she called an “inclusive workforce strategy.” 

  Western New England University President Robert Johnson stated that the order will help in “breaking down unnecessary barriers and creating equal opportunities” and will build “a more inclusive workforce.”

  Campus Reform contacted Governor Healey for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 18:20

• These Are The US States Losing (& Gaining) Population
  These Are The US States Losing (& Gaining) Population

  As pandemic patterns of U.S. population growth are normalizing, three states have remained among the U.S. jurisdictions which are shrinking.

  Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that, according to a December release by the Census Bureau, California, Illinois and New York – along with West Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and Oregon – lost population in 2023 compared to 2022. Throughout the new Census first released in 2020, all three states have shown continuously sinking population numbers. New York and Illinois even started to see their populations decline under the old Census since 2016 and 2014, respectively, while California experienced a stagnating number of inhabitants in 2019.

  While during pandemic conditions, many other states experienced the same shrinking populations (19 at the height of the trend in 2022), the release of the 2023 data now shows that the demographic problems that have plagued some states since before the pandemic are still ongoing.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Americans resettling because of high cost of living do play a role in this development, but changes in immigration into the U.S. have also had a big part in the state’s ongoing population decline as immigrants increasingly diversify their destinations in the U.S., favoring – like domestic migrants – the Sun Belt states, but also smaller cities.

  The story of New York, the country’s fastest shrinking state as of the latest Census release, fits this mold. New York lost 0.5 percent of its population between July 2022 and June 2023 and the previous Census had recorded a decreasing population in the state since 2016. The speed of New York’s population shrink also seems to have sped up since – from just 0.1 percent in 2016 to 0.4 percent in 2019 and now 0.5 percent in 2023. While Covid-19-era losses were even higher in New York, which became the poster child of pandemic city flight, normalization seems to mean that New York is now back on its trajectory of steadily increasing population loss. The state experienced a negative domestic net migration of more than 200,000 people last year and it received only a net 73,900 people from overseas, staying behind Florida, California and Texas for international migration.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 18:00

• Open Borders & Closed Courts: How The Supreme Court Laid The Seeds For The Immigration Crisis
  Open Borders & Closed Courts: How The Supreme Court Laid The Seeds For The Immigration Crisis

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  The upcoming impeachment vote on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has caused a deep rift even among his critics, including some Republican members of Congress.

  

  Many view Mayorkas as an unmitigated disaster as Homeland secretary. The massive numbers of migrants crossing the border has become a growing economic and security threat to the entire nation.

  I have previously expressed my disagreement with the two articles of impeachment, which present their own inherent dangers to the underlying constitutional standards. But whatever happens in the House, the real crisis is not the employment status of Mayorkas. It is what brought the House to seriously consider this extreme remedy in the first place.

  The seeds of this disaster were planted by the Supreme Court over a decade ago, in Arizona v. U.S., if not earlier. In that case, a 5-3 majority ruled against a state seeking to enforce immigration laws in light of what it described as a vacuum of federal action. The court declared that the states were preempted or barred from taking such action. While giving the state a small victory in allowing state officers to investigate the immigration status of a suspect with reasonable suspicion, it left little room for independent state action in the area.

  Despite President Obama’s orders giving some migrants effective immunity from enforcement (such as the youths that came to be known as “DREAMers”), he actually deported a significant number of illegal migrants. At the time, many of us asked where the line would be drawn in the future, often raising the hypothetical of a president who abandons enforcement entirely or to a large extent.

  It took a decade, but that hypothetical seems dangerously close to reality. Mayorkas is carrying out the policies of President Biden, who continues to praise his work and the worst record of enforcement in history. One of the first things that Biden did when coming into office was to seek to shut down policies and construction used to deter unlawful migration. At the same time, both Biden and Mayorkas were widely viewed as supportive of those crossing the border as many Democratic cities declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented migrants pursued by ICE.

  Now, even some Democrats are now criticizing President Biden for his lax policies and the failure to do more in securing the border, as hundreds of thousands pour into the country. Most are promptly released, and many are not even asked to appear for eight years at an immigration proceeding.

  For the states, desperate times call for desperate measures. For example, Texas recently declared that it was acting unilaterally under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution. That provision reserves the right of self-defense for a state that is “actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.”

  The current crisis is a practical invasion, overwhelming towns and cities across the country. No state faces a greater danger than Texas. However, “invasion” was clearly meant in the traditional sense of a foreign power or army. Similarly, “such imminent danger” was referencing “such” an invasion.

  The southern border in 2024 is, constitutionally, suffering no more an “invasion” than the Capitol riot in 2021 was an “insurrection.” There is a difference between the colloquial and constitutional meaning of such terms.

  States have also tried to go to court to enforce these laws in cases like Arizona v. United States and, most recently, in U.S. v. Texas. They have often found the courts closed to them. The courts have denied standing to sue in many cases or else granted sweeping authority (and preemption) over immigration.

  That has left many in Congress or the states with few meaningful ways to compel enforcement of the law. This includes provisions written as mandatory “shall” obligations, which have been effectively ignored by the federal government.

  The result is that many now see impeachment as the only viable option to force change. However, given Biden’s support for his actions, it is difficult to see how Mayorkas’s removal would alter policies or practices in any respect.

  Congress is not blameless in any of this. The court has virtually invited Congress to pass laws giving people greater standing to sue the government. It could also apply more stringent conditions on spending and block confirmations.

  Yet this crisis is the result of decades of court rulings expanding executive powers while limiting the ability to challenge those policies. The court’s decisions narrowing standing have been deleterious, limiting those who can challenge unlawful or unconstitutional acts by the federal government.

  States such as Texas are absolutely correct that this is a breach of the original understanding with the federal government. The combination of the sweeping preemption by the courts and diminishing enforcement by the agencies has left states as mere observers to their own destruction. It is like watching your house burn down as the fire department works primarily to prevent anyone else from putting it out.

  The Biden fire department is claiming that, just as it has the authority to put out fires, it has the authority to let them burn.

  The question is whether states have finally reached a point of near-total disempowerment, becoming effective nullities or nonentities in dealing with this overwhelming influx across their own borders. While they can patrol the border, they are powerless to exercise inherent powers to protect their citizens and society. It runs counter to the original federalism guarantees used to secure ratification of the Constitution. States were viewed as partners in our federalism system, not mere pedestrians.

  One can see why this looks like a bait-and-switch for states, who were offered something very different when they agreed to abandon the Articles of Confederation. They understood the need for a stronger federal government and that states could not act as separate sovereign powers. States yielded authority to the central government, including interstate matters.

  Yet, the Constitution would have likely failed in ratification if they had been told of the degree to which they would become dependent on federal authority within their states.

  Clearly, the federal government will continue to determine who enters the country. However, Congress has repeatedly tried to impose limits on such actions through express legislative mandates.

  That brings us back to the courts. Members of Congress have been told that they cannot sue to enforce mandatory provisions, while states are told that they cannot sue to secure their own borders. It reduces our system to a mere Potemkin Village, a facade of constitutional powers with little ability to protect them.

  The combination of open borders and closed courts will continue to fuel this crisis. If the justices will not allow states to close their borders, they can at least open the courts to allow them greater ability to be heard.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 17:40

• Glimpse Of Sanity: Dartmouth Returns Standardized Testing For Admission After Failed Experiment
  Glimpse Of Sanity: Dartmouth Returns Standardized Testing For Admission After Failed Experiment

  In response to the virus pandemic and nationwide Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020, some elite colleges and universities shredded testing requirements for admission. Several years later, the test-optional admission has yet to produce the promising results for racial and class-based equity that many woke academic institutions wished.

  

  The failure of test-optional admission policies has forced Dartmouth College to reinstate standardized test scores for admission starting next year. This should never have been eliminated, as merit will always prevail. 

  “Nearly four years later, having studied the role of testing in our admissions process as well as its value as a predictor of student success at Dartmouth, we are removing the extended pause and reactivating the standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admission, effective with the Class of 2029,” Dartmouth wrote in a press release Monday morning. 

  “For Dartmouth, the evidence supporting our reactivation of a required testing policy is clear. Our bottom line is simple: we believe a standardized testing requirement will improve—not detract from—our ability to bring the most promising and diverse students to our campus,” the elite college said. 

  Who would’ve thought eliminating standardized tests for admission because a fringe minority said they were instruments of racism and a biased system was ever a good idea? 

  We’re doomed pic.twitter.com/eNoKVnaOcz

  — Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) February 5, 2024

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

  Also, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. More from Dartmouth, who commissioned the research: 

  They also found that test scores represent an especially valuable tool to identify high-achieving applicants from low and middle-income backgrounds; who are first-generation college-bound; as well as students from urban and rural backgrounds.

  All the colleges and universities that quickly adopted test-optional admissions in 2020 experienced a surge in applications. Perhaps the push for test-optional was under the guise of woke equality but was nothing more than protecting the bottom line for these institutions. 

  A glimpse of sanity returns to woke schools: Admit qualified kids. Next up is corporate America and all tiers of the US government. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 17:20

• Trump Says AI Might Be 'Most Dangerous Thing Out There'
  Trump Says AI Might Be ‘Most Dangerous Thing Out There’

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

  Former President Donald Trump said that artificial intelligence, or AI, has “no real solution,” coming weeks after a series of robocalls were made in New Hampshire telling voters not to vote in the primary.

  

  When asked by Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo Friday about proposals for digital U.S. central bank currency, the former president said he was concerned about their possible risks.

  “Very dangerous. It’s very dangerous. One day, you don’t have any money in your account. It can be a very dangerous thing,” President Trump said. “And the other thing that I think is maybe the most dangerous thing out there of anything because there’s no real solution—the AI, as they call it. It is so scary.”

  Previously, the former president has issued concerns about AI for its ability to distort voices, pictures, and videos of political candidates to deceive the public during campaigns. In his Bartiromo interview, he said that he recently saw an instance when someone used AI that used his likeness to promote their product.

  “I saw somebody ripping me off the other day where they had me making a speech about their product,” President Trump said. “I said, ‘I’ll never endorse that product.’ You can’t even tell the difference. It looks like I’m actually endorsing it.”

  The former president also made reference to artificial intelligence’s capacity to alter images when he spoke with another Fox News reporter on Thursday. He was asked about pictures that a Getty Images photographer took of him last month that appeared to show red marks on his hands—which at the time drew a number of speculative headlines and online rumors.

  When pressed further, President Trump quipped that “nothing” was wrong with his hands while he held them up. “Maybe it’s AI,” he joked.

  Meanwhile, a digitally made robocall that appeared to use President Joe Biden’s voice to tell people not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary was flagged last month by the state’s attorney general.

  Attorney General John Formella said last month that the recorded message, which was sent to multiple voters on Sunday, appears to be an illegal attempt to disrupt and suppress voting. He said voters “should disregard the contents of this message entirely.”

  A recording of the call uploaded online appeared to generate a voice similar to President Biden’s and employs his often-used phrase, “What a bunch of malarkey.” It then tells the listener to “save your vote for the November election.”

  “Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again,” the voice mimicking the former president says. “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”

  It’s not clear how many people actually received the calls.

  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had said that the call “was indeed fake and not recorded by the president.”

  The president’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement that the campaign is “actively discussing additional actions to take immediately.”

  Katie Dolan, a spokeswoman for the campaign of Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging President Biden in the Democratic primary, said Mr. Phillips’ team was not involved and only found out about the deepfake attempt when a reporter called seeking comment. The Trump campaign said it had nothing to do with the recording either.

  Move to Criminalize AI Robocalls

  Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appears to have taken heed and moved to explicitly criminalize unsolicited robocalls that appear to use voices created via AI.

  “AI-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by tricking consumers into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

  “No matter what celebrity or politician you favor, or what your relationship is with your kin when they call for help, it is possible we could all be a target of these faked calls,“ she said, adding, “That’s why the FCC is taking steps to recognize this emerging technology as illegal under existing law, giving our partners at State Attorneys General offices across the country new tools they can use to crack down on these scams and protect consumers.”

  She noted that more than two dozen state attorneys general favor regulations on AI-generated robocalls.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/05/2024 – 17:00

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• "Inevitable Fire Sale" Of 23andMe To "Overseas PE Firm" Could Be National Security Risk
  “Inevitable Fire Sale” Of 23andMe To “Overseas PE Firm” Could Be National Security Risk

  Several years ago, DNA-testing company 23andMe began publicly trading on Nasdaq following a deal to merge with VG Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company founded by billionaire Richard Branson. The company was pimped by Hollywood elites, such as Oprah and Lizzo, as market capitalization topped $6 billion in late 2021. 

  Fast forward this past week, 23andMe has lost 94% of its market cap following the November 2021 peak, and Nasdaq threatened to delist the penny stock as it closed around 69 cents per share on Friday. 

  

  Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s chief executive, has led the cash-burning startup that has never turned a profit. After three rounds of layoffs and a subsidiary sale, a Wall Street Journal report said the company “could run out of cash by 2025.” 

  The inevitable fire sale of 23andMe has raised eyebrows among social media platform X users. 

  A healthcare investor named Will Manidis asked this question on X: “Within months you will be able to buy genomics data from 14 million americans for +/- $200m?” 

  Manidis warned in the viral post: “The inevitable fire sale of this mess to an overseas PE firm is going to be a national security matter on the scale of which we haven’t seen in healthcare in years.” 

  within months you will be able to buy genomics data from 14 million americans for +/- $200m?

  the inevitable fire sale of this mess to an overseas PE firm is going to be a national security matter on the scale of which we haven’t seen in healthcare in years pic.twitter.com/6ZggQse0MJ

  — Will Manidis (@WillManidis) February 2, 2024

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  Another X user said: “Can’t wait to see who buys this gigantic pool of genetic data and whatever scheme they come up with to monetize it.” 

  Which was enough for Elon Musk to respond with a “!” 

  !

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2024

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  “Or what if the US government buys it?” another X user said. 

  Or what if the US government buys it?

  — Bojan Tunguz (@tunguz) February 2, 2024

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

  And or this?

  Anne Wojcicki calls her ex husband Sergey Brin and tells him it’s time for Google to buy 23andme.

  Google uses 23andme dataset with DeepMind.

  DeepMind is applied to 26 year archive of Google user data.

  Google can predict past, present and future online behavior on DNA alone. pic.twitter.com/NFB8nDIQlE

  — Somnus Collective (@Somnus_collect) February 2, 2024

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  A possible fire sale of 23andMe and its stockpile of millions of DNA samples of Americans is something to keep a close eye on. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 23:20

• Beijing Powerless As Chinese Stocks Crater After Trump Confirms He Will Impose 60% Tariffs
  Beijing Powerless As Chinese Stocks Crater After Trump Confirms He Will Impose 60% Tariffs

  Last week’s dead cat bounce in Chinese stocks – after Beijing did everything but launch a multi-trillion fiscal stimmy bazooka (something it will do, later if not sooner) – is a distant memory, and as Asian markets open for trading in the news week, Chinese markets are cratering with the Shanghai Composite plunging as much as 3.1% to a fresh five-year low..

  

  … while the broader CSI 1,000 Index is also in free-fall and also on pace to re-test the 2018 lows with as many as 990 of the 1000 companies of the index in the red.

  China market …🙈🙈 https://t.co/cS3xc4kwPU pic.twitter.com/J0o0rKiHvL

  — Cathy Yuan Zhang (@CathyYuanZhang) February 5, 2024

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  Putting the latest collapse in context, China’s market capitalization has sunk by just over $1 trillion in the space of 13 trading days, dragging the total value of the nation’s equities under $8 trillion on Friday, from just above $9 trillion on Jan. 16, as the authorities’ hand-wringing about equity declines simply concentrated investors’ minds on the apparent lack of any solutions for the downturn.

  There were several catalysts for the plunge, first and foremost appears to be Trump confirmation that he would impose a tariff on Chinese goods of more than 60% if elected, signaling an increasingly hawkish tone against the top supplier of goods to the US.

  Speaking in an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Trump was asked about a Washington Post report that he was considering a flat 60% tariff on Chinese goods imports; Trump’s response: “no, I would say maybe it’s going to be more than that.” The Bezos Post report on Jan. 27 sparked currency hedges by traders bracing for any market turbulence that policies under a second Trump presidency could set off.

  Trump discusses his plan to protect American business with @MariaBartiromo

  cc: @SundayFutures @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/NpWXgWnxWc

  — SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 4, 2024

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  Trump, who currently has a solid lead over Biden and is emerging as the favorite to win the Nov 2024 election, rejected criticism that the moves would start a trade war, saying that he “did great with China with everything” during his presidency.

  The US imposed multiple rounds of tariffs on Chinese goods during the Trump administration, “amounting to an $80 billion tax increase on $380 billion worth of imports,” according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based research group. China retaliated with tariffs on US goods imports.

  While Trump was likely in his conventional hyperbolic mode, Chinese investors did not see it that way, and Chinese stocks plunged to fresh multi year lows, after the latest disappointment from Beijing which again pledged to stabilize markets after shares sank to a five-year low in chaotic trading on Friday, without offering any specifics on just how it plans to end the relentless selloff that’s erased more than $6 trillion of value and dented confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

  The China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed on Sunday to prevent abnormal fluctuations, saying it would guide more medium- and long-term funds into the market and crack down on illegal activities including malicious short selling and insider trading. The brief statement followed a sudden plunge of as much as 3.4% in the benchmark CSI 300 Index on Friday — and an outpouring of frustration on social media from individual investors just days before families across the country gather to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

  “The statement sought to stabilize investor sentiment, but didn’t touch on fundamental problems including a lack of confidence and huge economic uncertainty,” said Shen Meng, director at investment bank Chanson & Co. “Those issues are the causes of abnormal market fluctuation.”

  While authorities have taken piecemeal steps to support the economy and markets in recent months and have discussed a potential stock stabilization fund, they’ve yet to announce any major moves to stop the selloff. Weak economic data, simmering geopolitical tensions with the US, a worsening property crisis and an opaque crackdown on the financial sector have all weighed on investor sentiment.

  As reported last week, China’s CSI 300 tumbled 6.3% in January, a record sixth straight month of losses. Shares then rallied briefly toward the end of the month after Bloomberg reported that authorities were seeking to mobilize about 2 trillion yuan ($278 billion) for a stabilization fund, but the market has since renewed its decline, reaching the lowest level since January 2019 as once again the Beijing trial baloon was just that, and nothing more. .

  Meanwhile, the hail mary media bullshit and lies continued, and over the weekend, 21st Century Business Herald daily newspaper reported that authorities should set up a stabilization fund as soon as possible to boost market confidence, with an aim to get its size to 10 trillion yuan or more. Next up it will be 100 trillion in promises, then 1 quadrillion, only by then the SHCOMP will hit 0.

  Meanwhile, in a sign of how exasperated some investors have become, thousands flocked to a social media account of the US embassy in Beijing to vent their frustrations over the economy and slumping share prices.

  In the comment section of the embassy’s Weibo post on giraffe protection on Friday evening, some 53,000 users added remarks by Saturday evening, winning over 300,000 likes. China’s internet users often struggle to find a venue to air grievances about the economy or government performance, with official accounts of Chinese state agencies or media usually either disabling the comment function or only showing selected feedback.

  In the end, the outcome is a clear one: either Beijing will watch powerless as 1 billion furious Chinamen start rioting in the streets as both the real estate and capital markets crater – and only then, after countless are dead, will it inject trillions into the economy, or someone in Beijing will come to their senses and do so before there is bloodshed… Not that that’s a viable solution of course: at best, that’s kicking the can by a few years, but in the grand scheme of things, can kicking is all the world has left. And now all eyes are now on China and every day that Beijing is just more talk and no action brings us closer to the world’s biggest and most violent social revolt seen in history.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 22:57

• US Cattle Herd At 73-Year Lows As Retail Beef Prices At Record Highs
  US Cattle Herd At 73-Year Lows As Retail Beef Prices At Record Highs

  Readers have been well informed about ‘beeflation’ and why it’s happening: 

  • Dwindling US Cattle Herd Implies Supermarket Beef Prices May Rise Even More

  • Hamburger Prices Might Continue To Rise As US Cattle Herd Shrinks

  • US Cattle Prices Hit Nine-Year High As National Herd Drops To Half-Century Low

  • US Beef Prices Hit Record High As Nation’s Cattle Herd Expected To Shrink Through 2025

  The latest data from the US Department of Agriculture’s biannual cattle inventory report on Wednesday showed that the US cattle herd (as of Jan. 1) fell 2% from a year ago to 87.2 million cattle. That’s the smallest herd count since 1951. 

  

  Bloomberg explains the reason why ranchers are increasingly culling more cows: 

  American ranchers have for the past four years been culling more cows than they were retaining for breeding because of persistent droughts, surging feed costs and elevated interest rates.

  A shrinking herd has pushed US retail beef prices to a record of $5.21 per pound. Rising food prices are the central bank’s worst enemy. 

  

  According to Lane Broadbent, president of KIS Futures Inc. in Oklahoma City, drought-plagued pasture conditions might only improve after 2026. 

  Meanwhile, elites in the WEF cult have been pushing hard to ban cow farts because they allege it’s contributing to climate change. These folks are adamant about resetting the global food supply chain to one that puts working poor folks on a bug-heavy diet. 

  

  How about folks rebel against these unelected, woke WEF elites? The most peaceful way to do so is to purchase farmland in fertile Appalachia and raise beef cows. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 22:45

• The Resistible Rise Of The New Normal Reich
  The Resistible Rise Of The New Normal Reich

  Authored by C.J. Hopkins via Consent Factory,

  

  So, the German authorities have filed an appeal to overturn my acquittal in criminal court last week. Apparently, their plan is to keep putting me on trial until they get a judge who is willing to convict me of something, or to bankrupt me with legal costs. Silly me, for a moment there, I was actually starting to believe this was over.

  Let me quickly review how I got here for anyone just tuning in.

  I am an author and a political satirist and commentator. In August 2022, I posted two Tweets criticizing mask mandates and making fun of Karl Lauterbach, Germany’s Minister of Health. Both Tweets included an image from the cover artwork of my latest book, The Rise of The New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. III (2020-2021).

  

  Last week, a judge acquitted me of those charges, after which she launched into a tirade in which she insulted me at some length, and then strapped on a “Covid mask” and stalked out of the courtroom. During her diatribe, she made a big show of proclaiming that, by acquitting me of the fabricated hate-crime charges, she was proving that “Germany is not a totalitarian state” … you know, the kind of totalitarian state where books are banned, political speech is censored, and dissident authors are harassed by the police and subjected to ridiculous show trials.

  The judge didn’t have much choice but to acquit me, because the relevant German law is clear, as my attorney had reminded her in his pretrial pleading, and because my case had received some international press. Also, the public gallery was packed, and there was a fair amount of independent media in the courtroom. Unlike the German mainstream media, which have been churning out government propaganda like the proverbial Goebbelsian keyboard instrument for years, and which were too busy covering the totally-organic government-sponsored mass demonstrations against the government’s only political opposition to devote any attention to my political prosecution, the banning of my book, government censorship, and so on, some of the alternative German media are still interested in actual journalism.

  The prosecutor, who appeared to be drunk or on some kind of high-grade sedatives, was very clearly unhappy to be there performing in front of a sold-out house. He spent the proceedings hidden behind one of those Plexiglass “anti-Covid” panels that cashiers still have to sit behind in grocery stores and other retail establishments, so I couldn’t make out every word he slurred. The gist of his argument was, although I didn’t intend to “disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda,” I nonetheless “disseminated pro-Nazi propaganda,” by comparing New Normal Germany to Nazi Germany, and “unnecessarily using a swastika in an artwork.”

  My favorite part of the prosecutor’s argument was made in a pretrial pleading to the court, not during the actual trial itself. He accused me of “relativizing the Holocaust” because he claimed that comparing New Normal Germany to Nazi Germany is factually inaccurate, which assertion is revealing, and just staggeringly ignorant.

  Here’s a translation of the excerpt from his pleading (emphasis in italics mine):

  “… the accused is interested in relativizing this Nazi tyranny, which is also the aim of supporters of this ideology in a different form. By specifically using the swastika, the accused equates the crisis management measures of the years 2020-2022, which came about within constitutional procedures and were enacted and implemented by and through democratically legitimized institutions, with the dictatorial methods of the Nazi regime and thus – regardless of his intention – promotes the normalization of National Socialist ideas and actions.”

  Of course, the history of the transformation of Germany into a Nazi dictatorship by means of “constitutional procedures and democratic processes” is extremely well-documented. In the election of July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37.3% of the vote and became the largest party in the Reichstag. On January 30, 1933, von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Germany’s chancellor. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler convinced von Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, which severely curtailed the liberties and rights of German citizens. And then the Enabling Act of 1933 was passed by the Reichstag on March 23. This law gave the government the power to override individual rights prescribed by the constitution, because of a so-called “state of emergency.” All this “came about within constitutional procedures and was enacted and implemented by and through democratically legitimized institutions.”

  The judge did her best to stop me from reciting all that history in court, to prevent me from “relativizing the Holocaust” again, right there, in her courtroom, in front of everyone, or to prevent the prosecutor from coming off as a jackass, but it was too late, her questioning had opened the door.

  A hilarious episode then ensued, in which the judge projected king-size enlargements of my Tweets on a screen with an overhead projector, like the ones they used to use in elementary school, and then interrogated me at considerable length about whether the swastikas in the offending artwork were “on the mask” or “behind the mask.” For a moment, I considered requesting a recess in which to ask the artist, Anthony Freda, to prepare, sign, and telefax a notarized affidavit to the court explaining the details of his creative process and his state of mind at “the time of creation,” but I remembered that it was only 6AM in New York, which I thought might be a bit too early for Anthony.

  Yes, the whole trial was as farcical as it sounds, but, the thing is, prosecutions like mine are never meant to make it into court in the first place. The game the German authorities were playing is somewhat like the plea-bargain game that the prosecutors play in the USA, which American readers will be familiar with from watching all those cop shows on television. The way this game works in Germany is, they charge you with a misdemeanor crime, and hit you with a hefty fine, but one that is significantly less than what you will have to pay a lawyer to fight it in court. They are counting on you just paying the fine, and avoiding a trial, where a judge can double or triple your fine or even sentence you to prison. It doesn’t matter if they have no actual legal arguments to support the charges. It’s basically just a bullying tactic.

  I have never responded well to bullies. I have an aversion to totalitarians, fascists, and other such authoritarian control freaks who get their rocks off intimidating, and dominating, and preying on the weak. My natural instinct, when threatened by bullies and other varieties of fascist creeps, is to get all up their faces and call their bluff.

  Which doesn’t always turn out so well. Cops, for example, will just beat the living snot out of you if you get up in their faces, as will most of your hardened criminal types. But it typically works with petty public officials and other such “respectable authorities” … or at least those who are forced to maintain the appearance of adherence to the rule of law and fundamental democratic principles.

  This is an important point, because it is The New Normal Reich’s “Achilles Heel.” I explained this in a previous essay, Pathologized Totalitarianism 101, back in November of 2021.

  “New Normal totalitarianism — and any global-capitalist form of totalitarianism — cannot display itself as totalitarianism, or even authoritarianism. It cannot acknowledge its political nature. In order to exist, it must not exist. Above all, it must erase its violence (the violence that all politics ultimately comes down to) and appear to us as an essentially beneficent response to a legitimate ‘global health crisis,’ and a ‘climate change crisis,’ and a ‘racism crisis,’ and whatever other ‘global crises’ GloboCap thinks will terrorize the masses into [a state of] mindless, order-following hysteria […] This pathologization of totalitarianism is the most significant difference between New Normal totalitarianism and 20th-Century totalitarianism.”

  In other words, this new, emerging form of global-capitalist totalitarianism cannot afford to look like “totalitarianism.” It can’t put on jackboots and black leather trench coats and start goose-stepping around with big fascist-looking banners, and putting people up against walls and shooting them, at least not here in the heart of the empire.

  The only way this form of totalitarianism works is if people like my judge, and the countless thousands of New Normal Germans that have been out in the streets here displaying their unquestioning allegiance to the Reich, and demanding the banning of political opposition, and the segregation and persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” or displaying solidarity with Ukrainian neo-Nazis, or supporting Israel’s liquidation of Gaza, or whatever they’ve been instructed to unquestioningly support or display solidarity with tomorrow … the only way it works (i.e., this new totalitarianism) is if people, and not just German people, but Americans, and Brits, and Canadians, and Australians, and “Good New Normals” all throughout the West, are allowed to keep telling themselves and each other that they’re “the good guys,” the ones who are “defending democracy,” as they march us down the road to totalitarianism.

  Yes, I know, I’m repeating myself. I am going to keep repeating myself. Because the only way this doesn’t all end in an extremely ugly and dystopian scenario is if we get through to those “Good New Normals.” I’m not talking about trying to convince them of anything, or winning arguments about “the virus,” or “vaccines,” or Israel, or Trump, or calling them names. I am talking about confronting them with what they are doing. I’m talking about short-circuiting their mental programming — even if just for a few fleeting seconds — by holding an accurate mirror up to them, and forcing them to look directly into it, and recognize what it is they’ve become.

  That is what I did in criminal court last week. It’s why the judge was forced to acquit me, and why she felt compelled to deliver that tirade, and strap on her mask to make a big statement. She could have convicted me. She probably wanted to. In her mind, and in the minds of most New Normals, people like me are existential threats. However, to convict me, she would have had to watch herself make a mockery of the law and behave like a fascist … like a totalitarian functionary.

  Call me a hopeless idealist if you want, but I have to believe that somewhere deep down inside even the most fanatical New Normals (or most of them anyway) is a decent human being, with principles, who does not want to be a fascist (or a least doesn’t want to look like a fascist), and who can still be reached, if they can be forced into the position that judge was forced into last week. I have to believe that each brief short-circuit, each momentary glimpse at themselves in the mirror, cumulatively, over the course of time, is eating away at their mental conditioning.

  In any event, that’s the theory I’ve been operating under for quite a while. I guess I’ll try it out again at my next show trial.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 22:10

• Michigan Police On High Alert After "Racist" WSJ Op-Ed Piece Calls Dearborn "America's Jihad Capital"
  Michigan Police On High Alert After “Racist” WSJ Op-Ed Piece Calls Dearborn “America’s Jihad Capital”

  Dearborn, Michigan, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud took to social media platform X on Saturday afternoon to warn “Effective immediately” that “Dearborn police will ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points.” 

  Hammoud said the reason behind police officers increasing their presence across places of worship and major infrastructure points followed a Wall Street Journal opinion piece calling Dearborn “America’s Jihad Capital.” 

  Effective immediately – Dearborn police will ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points.

  This is a direct result of the inflammatory @WSJ opinion piece that has led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online…

  — Abdullah H. Hammoud (@AHammoudMI) February 3, 2024

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  Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed that alleged thousands in the city support the Hamas militant group:

  What’s happening in Dearborn isn’t simply a political problem for Democrats. It’s potentially a national-security issue affecting all Americans. Counterterrorism agencies at all levels should pay close attention.

  

  Mayor Hammoud released a statement:

  “In response to an Islamaphobic, Anti-Arab, and blatantly racist opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal today, we have increased the presence of law enforcement throughout Dearborn.

   “Dearborn Police continue to monitor social media for threats. This is more than irresponsible journalism. Publishing such inflammatory writing puts our residents at increased risk for harm.” 

  X user Andy Ngô responded to the mayor’s tweet, pointing out, “You do have an Islamic extremism problem in your city, and that’s part of the reason you were elected. You deny the problem exists so that the Islamists can continue to organize.”  

  You do have an Islamic extremism problem in your city, and that’s part of the reason you were elected. You deny the problem exists so that the Islamists can continue to organize. https://t.co/pXzOnjjXZD

  — Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) February 4, 2024

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  Is the FBI still targeting Roman Catholics because they’re considered “at risk of committing acts of extremist violence“? 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 21:35

• Poor Oral Health Speeds Up Irreversible Lung Disease: Study
  Poor Oral Health Speeds Up Irreversible Lung Disease: Study

  Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  That persistent cough and wheezing is bad enough without gum disease making it worse. New research reveals why periodontitis, a common gum infection, accelerates the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the irreversible and often deadly lung condition affecting almost 16 million Americans.

  Chinese scientists have discovered how bacteria from inflamed gums can travel to the lungs, exacerbating COPD symptoms. The findings from Sichuan University offer hope for new treatment possibilities for managing the breath-stealing disease.

  Oral Bacteria Directly Trigger Flare-Ups in COPD Lungs

  COPD, encompassing emphysema and chronic bronchitis, is the world’s sixth leading cause of death.

  The condition is quietly hurting millions of Americans, as many are unaware they have it. In the United States, cigarette smoking drives most COPD cases, while cooking over open fires drives cases in underdeveloped countries, Dr. Norman Edelman, a pulmonologist at Stony Brook Medicine, professor of internal medicine, and core member of the public health program at Stony Brook University, told The Epoch Times.

  COPD impedes airflow and breathing by damaging the airways and lungs. Key symptoms are coughing, excess mucus, and wheezing. Patients also suffer acute exacerbations where symptoms abruptly worsen for days.

  While prior research has linked mouth infections to COPD progression, the exact mechanisms were unclear. A 2018 study posited the two were only connected by smoking as a shared risk factor.

  The new research from Sichuan University, published in the American Society for Microbiology Journals, finds gum disease pathogens directly associate with COPD flare-ups by activating lung immune cells, which increase lung inflammation-driving bacteria. The researchers demonstrated this in animal models.

  “We’ll further carry out additional studies on human subjects to confirm the mechanism,” microbiologist and co-study author Yan Li said in a press statement. “Our findings could lead to a potential new strategy for treating COPD.”

  The study shows how poor dental care enables oral bacteria like P. gingivalis to enter the lungs, said Dr. Thomas Kilkenny, director of critical care in pulmonary medicine at Staten Island University Hospital, who was not involved in the research.

  “This sets up chronic levels of inflammation beyond that found in COPD,” he told The Epoch Times. Although the various bacteria alone can cause an increased number of respiratory infections, “the heart of the study was the inflammatory cells,” he noted.

  Circulating oral bacteria trigger the overproduction of immune signaling chemicals called cytokines. The cytokines spark harmful inflammation and disturb normal lung structures, Dr. Kilkenny said.

  70 Percent of COPD Cases Due to Smoking

  The root cause behind most preventable COPD cases is cigarette smoking. Smoking activates lung immune cells to release cytokines, fueling inflammation, Dr. Kilkenny added. Smoking accounts for 70 percent of cases.

  Nonsmoking risk factors include:

  • A history of childhood lung infections.
  • A history of asthma.
  • Smoke from home cooking and heating fuels.
  • Secondhand tobacco smoke.
  • Genetic mutations that can cause the disease.

  Vitamin D deficiency may also raise COPD risk. A 2020 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found many COPD patients to be vitamin D deficient. Further, vitamin D supplements helped improve lung function for these patients.

  Fight Gum Infections to Maintain Overall Health: Expert

  While the study could result in future COPD treatments, that lies far in the future, according to Dr. Edelman. He stressed that it would be better for people to take care of their periodontal health.

  “To me, the real story, which many people don’t know, is that periodontal disease is a risk factor for systemic disease,” he said. These diseases include diabetes and heart disease.

  The prevalence of gum infections in disadvantaged communities constitutes a significant public health issue, he noted.

  Specifically, Dr. Edelman said he had observed about one-third of low-income kids on Long Island, where he practices, having tooth decay or gum disease. Getting the word out on the health impacts tied to poor oral health should take priority over any long-term therapeutic implications of this research, he noted.

  “It’s the more important public health story.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 21:00

• Scandalous Senate 'Deal' Allows 1.5 Million Illegals Per Year, Slides Up To $2.3B To NGOs Trafficking Them, And Gives $60B To Ukraine
  Scandalous Senate ‘Deal’ Allows 1.5 Million Illegals Per Year, Slides Up To $2.3B To NGOs Trafficking Them, And Gives $60B To Ukraine

  While the House has gone full ‘Israel or Bust’, the Senate has come up with a $118 billion bipartisan agreement which would allow 1.5 million illegals to enter the US every year, allocates $2.3 billion towards NGOs and other organizations which traffic them, gives $14.1 billion in security assistance to Israel, and a whopping $60 billion in support to Ukraine.

  

  The bill also locks in green card giveaways until 2030.

  Not only does this bill codify 1.5 million illegal border crossings into law, but the “border emergency” that automatically gets implemented at 5,000 crossings per day in a week can be overturned by Joe Biden.

  And in case 1.5 million illegals isn’t enough, it also locks in green… pic.twitter.com/pZRV4iymph

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 5, 2024

  The agreement was reached by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), whose own state legislature censured him last week for striking such a crappy border deal, along with Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).

  It’s pretty amazing we’re at a point where allowing 5,000 illegals per day into this country is going to become law

  — The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) February 5, 2024

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  Let’s pause to revisit the fact that President Biden could close the border with the stroke of a pen, right now, but refuses to do so until Ukraine and Israel money materializes. He really likes quid-pro-quo arrangements, you see.

  Oh by the way, if at any moment Joe Biden doesn’t like the “border emergency” declaration he can end it at will.

  That’s actually in the bill, lol 🔻 pic.twitter.com/ZAjh4aY0ZW

  — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) February 5, 2024

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  As noted above, the bill also carves out $2.33 billion for “Refugee and Entrant Assistance,” which provides that “Amounts made available under this heading in this Act may be used for grants or contracts with qualified organizations, including nonprofit entities, to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services.”

  

  Breaking it down further, the $118.28 billion national security supplemental package includes:
   

  • $60.06 billion to support Ukraine as it fights back against Putin’s bloody invasion and protects its people and sovereignty.
  • $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel.
  • $2.44 billion to support operations in the U.S. Central Command and address combat expenditures related to conflict in the Red Sea.
  • $10 billion in humanitarian assistance to provide food, water, shelter, medical care, and other essential services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and other populations caught in conflict zones across the globe.
  • $4.83 billion to support key regional partners in the Indo-Pacific and deter aggression by the Chinese government.
  • $2.33 billion to continue support for Ukrainians displaced by Putin’s war of aggression and other refugees fleeing persecution.
  • The bipartisan border policy changes negotiated by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and James Lankford (R-OK).
  • $20.23 billion to address existing operational needs and expand capabilities at our nation’s borders, resource the new border policies included in the package, and help stop the flow of fentanyl and other narcotics.
  • The Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act.
  • $400 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to help nonprofits and places of worship make security enhancements.

  “The Senate’s bipartisan agreement is a monumental step towards strengthening America’s national security abroad and along our borders,” said Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of the deal. “This is one of the most necessary and important pieces of legislation Congress has put forward in years to ensure America’s future prosperity and security.”

  Over in the House, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said he’s a “hard NO on any bill legitimizing illegal immigration.“

  America Last, Ukraine First from the DC Swamp – literally.

  Their priorities are clear, as shown in the first section of the bill summary. pic.twitter.com/kfvHCpT88T

  — Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) February 5, 2024

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  Explicit approval for catch and release. pic.twitter.com/DF09NM7vAw

  — Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) February 5, 2024

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  Bill authors say this ends “catch and release” because it requires mandatory supervision of those released and quicker processing time for case. that will depend on funding and staffing…. https://t.co/XVLQ2okr8G

  — Erik Wasson (@elwasson) February 5, 2024

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  Any Republican who votes for this will betray the American people. pic.twitter.com/mYEm7StfS1

  — Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 5, 2024

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  How nice for all involved, except US taxpayers.

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  Every sponsor of this bill should be arrested and put on trial. https://t.co/BX0rhhRA0s

  — Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) February 5, 2024

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  The Senate bill is awful! America, read from pages 212 to 217, and you will see why. There have to be 41 Republican Senators who will say NO to this monstrosity. @SpeakerJohnson, this bill should never get a vote in the House! pic.twitter.com/C92OWB3IKk

  — Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) February 5, 2024

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  💯 https://t.co/tgNT9d4rFz

  — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) February 5, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 20:25

• Powell Tells 60 Minutes Fed "Not Likely" To Cut In March, Calls Americans Lazy
  Powell Tells 60 Minutes Fed “Not Likely” To Cut In March, Calls Americans Lazy

  In his highly anticipated 60-Minutes interview, Jerome Powell did not deliver any new shocks, and unlike the Fed’s dovish December pivot, there were no major surprises: instead, the Fed Chair echoed what he said last week, predicting that the Fed policymakers will likely wait after March to cut interest rates as he sought to explain the central bank’s rationale for eventual reductions to a broad public audience (amid mounting pressure by Democrats to cut aggressively ahead of December even as the Biden Dept of Labor fabricated jobs data to make it seem like the US is enjoying a golden ago for workers).

  In an interview conducted on Thursday with CBS’s 60 Minutes and airing Sunday evening, Powell reiterated that Fed officials want to see more economic data to assure that inflation is on a sustainable path to their 2% goal.

  “The danger of moving too soon is that the job’s not quite done, and that the really good readings we’ve had for the last six months somehow turn out not to be a true indicator of where inflation’s heading,” Powell said in the interview adding that while “we don’t think that’s the case… the prudent thing to do is to, is to just give it some time and see that the data continue to confirm that inflation is moving down to 2% in a sustainable way.”

  Powell then said it isn’t likely that the Fed “will reach that level of confidence” about inflation’s path by its March 19-20 gathering, echoing remarks he made at a press conference Wednesday, and certainly not after the latest laughably ridiculous and political manipulated jobs number. He clarified that while most FOMC members are now dovish and expect rate cuts, that’s certainly not the case for all, to wit: “all but a couple of our participants do believe it will be appropriate to, for us to begin to dial back the restrictive stance by cutting rates this year,” Powell said. “And so, it is certainly the base case that, that we will do that. We’re just trying to pick the right time, given the overall context.” Here is the full exchange:

  PELLEY: The next meeting around this table that will decide the direction of interest rates is in this coming March. Knowing what you know now, is a rate cut more likely or less likely at that time?

  POWELL: So, the broader situation is that the economy is strong, the labor market is strong, and inflation is coming down. And my colleagues and I are trying to pick the right point at which to begin to dial back our restrictive policy stance. That time is coming. We’ve said that we want to be more confident that inflation is moving down to 2%. And I would say, and I did say yesterday, that I think it’s not likely that this committee will reach that level of confidence in time for the March meeting, which is in seven weeks.

  So, I would say that’s not the most likely or base case. However, all but a couple of our participants do believe it will be appropriate to, for us to begin to dial back the restrictive stance by cutting rates this year. And so, it is certainly the base case that, that we will do that. We’re just trying to pick the right time, given the overall context.

  While inflation has subsided substantially in recent months, Powell has repeatedly emphasized the central bank’s need to see more data before lowering borrowing costs. He indicated last week a rate cut is unlikely in the first quarter.

  The central banker also said he didn’t expect policymakers to “dramatically” change their forecasts for rates next year, which in December showed they expect their benchmark lending rate to reach 4.6% by the end of 2024, suggesting three rate cuts remains the baseline.

  PELLEY: This past December in your quarterly report, the Fed predicted rate cuts this year down to about 4.6%. Still likely?

  POWELL: Those forecasts were made in December. And those are individual forecasts made by participants. It’s not a committee plan. We don’t update those at every meeting. We’ll update them at the March meeting. I will say, though, nothing has happened in the meantime that would lead me to think that people would dramatically change their forecasts.

  PELLEY: So something around a 4.6% interest rate is likely?

  POWELL: I would say it this way. It’s really going to depend on the data. The data will drive these decisions. And we can’t do any better than to look at the data and ask ourselves, “How is this affecting the outlook and the balance of risks?” That’s what we’ll be doing. So, what we actually do will depend on how the economy evolves.

  Curiously, while there was a Bloomberg headline that…

  • CBS REPORTER SAYS POWELL SUGGESTED THE FIRST CUT AROUND MIDYEAR

  The actual transcript did not show Powell commenting on a midyear cut.

  • *CBS TRANSCRIPT DOESN’T SHOW POWELL COMMENT ON MIDYEAR CUT

  While Powell is unlikely to confirm something he may have said in conversation off camera, the notion of delayed rate cuts certainly affirms the narrative after Friday’s “very strong” (ridiculously so) US jobs report. Still, Powell again underlined the lack of unanimous consensus:

  PELLEY: How would you characterize the consensus around this table for rate cuts? Is everyone onboard? Most people?

  POWELL: Almost all. Almost all of the 19 participants who sit around this table believe that it will be appropriate in their most likely case for us to cut the federal funds rate this year. So, the consensus, though, the thing that really comes out in people’s thinking as we discuss this around the table, is that what we actually do is really going to depend on the evolution of the economy. So, if the economy were to weaken, then we could reduce rates earlier and perhaps faster. If the economy were to prove — if inflation were to prove more persistent, that could call for us to reduce rates later and perhaps slower. So, it really is going to be dependent on the incoming data as that affects the outlook.

  The timing of this year’s policy pivot poses unique challenges for the Fed as rapid price increases have angered Americans, weighed on President Joe Biden’s approval ratings and thrust Powell and the Fed into election-year politics. Cutting rates this year will subject the Fed to Republican accusations that the central bank is trying give Democrats a boost by aiding the economy ahead of the election. And, sure enough, Democrats such as Senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warrren sent letters last week urging Powell to lower interest rates.

  And former President Donald Trump told Fox Business Network on Friday that he wouldn’t reappoint Powell, even though he chose him to lead the central bank in 2017.

  And so, touching on a topic we discussed extensively after the Fed’s shocking dovish pivot in December, namely how much water the Fed is now carrying for the Biden admin, Powell naturally denied the Nov election had anything to do with the Fed’s dramatic U-turn on rate cuts.

  PELLEY: Your decisions inevitably are going to have a bearing on this year’s election. And I wonder, to what degree does politics determine your timing?

  POWELL: We do not consider politics in our decisions. We never do. And we never will. And I think the record — fortunately, the historical record really backs that up. People have gone back and looked. This is my fourth presidential election in the Fed, and it just doesn’t come into our thinking, and I’ll tell you why.

  Two reasons. One, we are a non-political organization that serves all Americans. It would be wrong for us to start taking politics into account. Secondly, though, it’s not easy to get the economics of this right in the first place. These are complicated, you know, risk-balancing decisions. If we tried to incorporate a whole ‘nother set of factors in politics into those decisions, it could only lead to worse economic outcomes. So, we simply don’t do that, and we’re not going to do it. We haven’t done it in the past, and we’re not going to do it now.

  And then there was this epic lie:

  PELLEY: There are people watching this interview who are skeptical about that.

  POWELL: You know, I would just say this. Integrity is priceless. And at the end, that’s all you have. And we in, we plan on keeping ours.

  You know what else is priceless, Jerome? Former Fed President Bill Dudley writing an op-ed in August 2019 urging the Fed to crush the economy and destroy Trump’s re-election chances. You’ll never guess what happened to the economy just a few months later…  But yeah, you go ahead and enjoy your “priceless integrity.”

  As for the market reaction, while Powell did not say anything he didn’t already bring up in last week’s FOMC meeting, the fact that the Fed chair pushed back on March sent Treasury futures lower as investors interpret the Fed chair’s words as ruling out a Fed interest rate cut before June. And after jumping on Friday after the “blowout” jobs report, the USDJPY – which has been tied to the 10Y yield’s hip – also pushed higher leading a broad dollar bid in early Asian trading Monday.

  

  A tangent here, if you weren’t worried about commercial real estate below, now is a good time to start because, according to Powell, CRE is contained:

  PELLEY: The value of commercial office buildings all across the country is dropping as people work from home. Those buildings support the balance sheets of banks all across the country. What is the likelihood of another real estate-led banking crisis?

  POWELL: I don’t think that’s likely. So, what’s happening is, as you point out, we have work-from-home, and you have weakness in office real estate, and also retail, downtown retail. You have some of that. And there will be losses in that.

  We looked at the larger banks’ balance sheets, and it appears to be a manageable problem. There’s some smaller and regional banks that have concentrated exposures in these areas that are challenged. And, you know, we’re working with them. This is something we’ve been aware of for, you know, a long time, and we’re working with them to make sure that they have the resources and a plan to work their way through the expected losses. There will be expected losses.

  It feels like a problem we’ll be working on for years. It’s a sizable problem. I don’t think — it doesn’t appear to have the makings of the kind of crisis things that we’ve seen sometimes in the past, for example, with the global financial crisis.

  PELLEY: You believe it’s a manageable problem?

  POWELL: I think it appears to be

  PELLEY: We’re not gonna see bank failures across the country as we did in 2008?

  POWELL: I don’t think there’s much risk of a repeat of 2008. I also think, you know, we need to be careful about making proclamations about the — particularly about the future. Things have surprised us a lot. But no, on this, on this, I do think it’s a manageable problem. I think we’re doing a lot to manage it.

  There will be certainly — there will be some banks that have to be closed or merged out of, out of existence because of this. That’ll be smaller banks, I suspect, for the most part. You know, these are losses. It’s a secular change in the use of downtown real estate. And the result will be losses for the owners and for the lenders, but it should be manageable.

  Powell may believe it will be a “manageable problem” but when pressed about last year’s bank crisis, the Fed chief admitted the Fed got everything dead wrong (and even, so once again blamed X/twitter):

  PELLEY: A follow-up, Mr. Chairman, to our banking line of question. You seem confident in the banks, and yet the Silicon Valley Bank, second largest failure in U.S. history. Did the Fed miss that?

  POWELL: So, yes, we did. And I would say it this way. You know, that happened, and we forthrightly saw that we needed to do better. So, we’ve spent a lot of time working on ways to make supervision more effective and also to adapt regulation to a more, to a modern context in which a bank run can happen so much faster than it could have even 20 years ago. So, we have — we accepted that right away. And, yes.

  PELLEY: A bank run happening faster than it could have 20 years ago because of the communications that are available today?

  POWELL: Yes.

  Finally, we pointed out on Friday that all the job gains since 2018 have gone to immigrants (non-native born workers)…

  

  … and here is Powell defending them:

  PELLEY: Why was immigration important?

  POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that’s largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.

  PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?

  POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed’s job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that’s none of our business. We don’t set immigration policy. We don’t comment on it.

  I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.

  PELLEY: The country needed the workers.

  POWELL: It did. And so, that’s what’s been happening.

  Translation: Immigrants (we hope he means legal immigrants here, not the flood of illegal immigrants) work hard, and Americans are lazy.

  Here is the full transcript from Powell’s 60 Minutes interview.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 20:05

• France Caves To Farmers As Ireland 'Solidarity' Protests Kick Off
  France Caves To Farmers As Ireland ‘Solidarity’ Protests Kick Off

  Two of France’s main farming unions on Thursday agreed to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country after the government announced measures the deemed “tangible progress” in the ongoing revolt against EU ‘climate-driven’ initiatives designed to wean society off of evil, non-bug-based, carbon-emitting food while China, India, and the rest of the world laughs.

  In addition to France, protests have been held in Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. Last week, tensions came to a head in Brussels when farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament building, demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs to finance the so-called ‘green agenda.’

  After French farmers stepped up protests earlier in the week, the government promised on Thursday to extend protections – including better controlling imports and giving farmers additional aid, Reuters reports.

  “Everywhere in Europe the same question arises: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, announcing the new measures.

  In response, France’s main farmers union, FNSEA, announced that it was time to lift the blockades and “go home.” Arnaud Gaillot of the Young Farmers’ union echoed the message, however both unions warned that other types of protests would continue, and they’d be back if the government doesn’t make good on their promises.

  Meanwhile in Ireland, farmers began protesting Thursday evening.

  #BREAKING #Ireland JUST IN: Farmers’ protests began in Ireland. pic.twitter.com/rJ6lsCnkgG

  — The National Independent (@NationalIndNews) February 1, 2024

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  “There’s a general dissatisfaction with the level of environmental regulation that is being heaped on farmers, the low margins, and (the) resulting low income the farmers have been suffering from for a very long time now,” said Cathal MacCarthy, media director for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, adding “There will be a great deal of sympathy and solidarity with the aim and ambitions of the protests both in Ireland and on the Continent,” EURACTIV reports.

  

  “They feel they are being regulated out of business by Brussels bureaucrats and Department of Agriculture officials who are far removed from the reality of day-to-day farming,” said Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) President Francine Gorman on Wednesday, ahead of the protests.

  The concerns of the Irish beef and dairy farmers echo the concerns of other European farmers who have been protesting for weeks.

  MacCarthy said Irish beef and dairy farmers also believe they are not being compensated fairly for the agrifood products they cultivate, given the increased costs involved in production as a result of environmental regulations.

  “We need senior politicians to face consumers and say, ‘Lads, listen, the cost of producing this food is X, that has to be paid, and the margin that allows farmers to live (has to be paid), but we can’t just be dependent on what the supermarket feels like charging their customers,’” he said. -EURACTIV

  “We can either continue to have cheap food, or we can have environmentally sustainable food, but we can’t have both,” said MacCarthy.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 20:00

• Zelensky Visits Front Line Troops Amid Brewing Split With His Top General
  Zelensky Visits Front Line Troops Amid Brewing Split With His Top General

  President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukrainian troops along the frontlines of fighting with Russia on Sunday, on the southeastern front, according to Reuters. “It’s an honor to be here today. To support the warriors and award them. They face a difficult and critical mission to repel the enemy and defend Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said from the Zaporizhzhia region.

  The timing of the rare battlefield visit is what is most interesting, given it comes at a moment the Ukrainian president and his commander of the armed forces, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhny, appear to be in an open conflict after Zaluzhny refused to step down. 

  

  Zaluzhny is considered to be very popular and commands great loyalty among the troops, so Zelensky could be trying to shore up morale and “test the waters” before continuing to pursue the top general’s ouster.

  According to Reuters, “Two sources said on Friday that the Ukrainian government had informed the White House that it plans to fire the country’s top military commander overseeing the war against Russian occupation forces.”

  Among other things Zelensky handed out medals to troops on the front lines in Zaporizhzhia. Likely the Zelensky administration fears potential mutiny if he forces Zaluzhny out of the top military post.

  According to more from Reuters: 

  Known as “the Iron General,” Zaluzhnyi is extremely popular. His removal could hurt morale among Ukrainian troops battling to hold positions along more than 620 miles (1,000 kms) of frontlines against a vast Russian force armed with large munitions stockpiles.

  Substantial rumors have persisted for days since last week, when The Economist first broke the story of Zelensky’s plans to fire Zaluzhny. Despite the denials of Ukrainian officials, the leaks keep coming, and it appears confirmed that Zaluzhny’s fate is at least up in the air as the government tries to find a path forward without unleashing division and possible rebellion.

  Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, has underscored: “When there are speculations on such a sensitive topic, people want clarity.”

  “And if there are major changes in the country’s military command, then they want official confirmation and an explanation of why,” he continued in comments to NBC. “Citizens clearly understand that the survival of the country and themselves depends on the relations between the highest civilian and military officials.”

  In a new essay, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who is reportedly set to be fired by Zelensky, writes:

  “We must acknowledge the significant advantage enjoyed by the enemy in mobilizing human resources and how that compares with the inability of state… pic.twitter.com/egHpuOsLmY

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 2, 2024

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  Part of the conflict stems from Zaluzhny’s willingness to criticize top decision-making when it comes to the war, whereas Zelensky and his top aides have only consistently sought to portray an optimistic as possible or rosy picture of how things are going. Zelensky has reportedly seen the general’s candid remarks as undermining the war effort and official policies. Zaluzhny also appears more open and realistic about the need for peace negotiations with Moscow.

  Starting all the way back in November, Gen. Zaluzhny had been the first first top military official to paint a very negative picture of how Ukraine’s military was fairing on the battlefield. What’s more is the admission quickly caught the eye of other major publications, most notably The New York Times, which underscored at the time, “His comments marked the first time a top Ukrainian commander said the fighting had reached an impasse…”.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 19:15

• Dark Money Group Plows Millions Into Biden Campaign
  Dark Money Group Plows Millions Into Biden Campaign

  Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (Emphasis ours),

  

  President Joe Biden’s reelection effort will count on help from some anonymous friends.

  In the 2024 general election, President Biden will be supported by numerous campaign committees and funds. One of the most significant will be FF PAC, also known as Future Forward. FF PAC has collected and will likely continue to collect millions from a nonprofit group, Future Forward Action USA, that shares leadership and a name with FF PAC.

  According to FF PAC’s year-end financial summary filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Jan. 31, the hybrid political action committee brought in $25.3 million in total receipts in 2023. Future Forward Action USA sent FF PAC about $8.3 million, or about a third of its total fundraising for the year.

  In 2020, when then Vice President Joe Biden was squaring off against incumbent President Donald Trump, Future Forward USA Action was one of the most important benefactors of FF PAC. According to FEC records, it sent FF PAC $61 million between 2019 and 2020. That’s around 40 percent of the about $151.4 million FF PAC collected in the cycle.

  For the 2022 midterm cycle, Future Forward Action USA sent about $16.3 million to FF PAC. That’s around 53.4 percent of the about $30.6 million FF PAC raised between 2021 and 2022.

  Future Forward USA Action is a tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)(4). This type of organization, according to the Internal Revenue Service, is often a so-called social welfare organization. The agency also bars private enrichment and supporting or opposing a specific political candidate. However, social welfare organizations are allowed to engage in some political activities as long as they are not the primary activity.

  FF PAC is a hybrid PAC. It can solicit and accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions, and other political committees, according to the FEC. It must maintain two bank accounts—one for independent spending on advertisements or voter drives and another for making direct contributions to federal candidates.

  

  As a 501(c)(4) group, Future Forward USA Action is not subject to the same disclosure requirements as other funds associated with political campaigns. FF PAC, President Biden’s principal campaign committee, Joe Biden for President, and his nonqualified joint fundraising committee, Biden Victory Fund, must release their financial information to the public on a regular basis.

  In an election year like 2024, the FEC requires monthly disclosures of who’s giving money to these funds, how the funds are spending it, how much money the funds have in the bank, and which federal candidates the funds are spending to support or oppose.

  For instance, in 2020, FF PAC reported it spent about $74 million to back the Biden effort and about $54.4 million to fight President Trump. In 2022, it spent about $8.6 million to oppose television personality Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and about $2 million to endorse now Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), along with similar transactions supporting Democrat candidates for Senate.

  Furthermore, the most significant donors are limited in how much they can give to a joint fundraising or campaign committee.

  According to its FEC filings, the Biden Victory Fund is a nonqualified joint fundraising committee. That, according to the agency, means that it is a political committee working together with “one or more other political committees or unregistered organizations.”

  A nonqualified fund, according to the FEC, can “receive limited financial and administrative support from a sponsoring organization that is not a corporation or a labor organization, such as a partnership or an unincorporated association.”

  Future Forward USA Action is subject to no such requirements. Under the tax code, it doesn’t need to say who it’s getting its money from, doesn’t have a donation limit, and doesn’t need to report how much money it raised until the close of the tax year.

  In effect, its spending activities in 2024 won’t be reported until the end of 2025.

  

  According to its 2022 Form 990 return obtained by The Epoch Times, the fund shares offices and officers with FF PAC. Chauncey McLean is listed as the president of FF PAC, where he earned $233,462 in 2022. He’s also the treasurer of FF PAC, according to its statement of organization filed with the FEC.

  The listed address for both Future Forward organizations is a UPS Store located near Seward Square in Washington. FF PAC’s statement of organization doesn’t list a phone number. Its 990 lists the phone number of the Washington-based MBA Consulting Group.

  The Epoch Times reached out to MBA Consulting Group and representatives of Mr. McLean but did not receive a reply by press time.

  Future Forward USA Action in 2022, 2021, and 2020

  FF PAC doesn’t have a website or social media presence. Future Forward USA Action maintains only a skeleton, two-page webpage that doesn’t list contact information. Instead, it gives the number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard.

  In 2022, according to its tax records, Future Forward USA Action brought in about $65.7 million in total revenue, about $61.5 million in total expenses, and had about $7.5 million in net assets.

  It described its organizational mission as creating “a stronger American democracy and [advocating] for common sense solutions.” It said it spent $57.9 million on “quantitative and qualitative research on issues of national importance then ran media campaigns informed by that research.”

  Moreover, Future Forward USA Action sent “grants and other assistance” to 29 organizations. FF PAC was listed as the largest recipient, getting about $12 million.

  In 2021, according to its tax records, Future Forward USA Action brought in about $12.6 million, spent $16.8 million, and ended the year with $3.3 million in net assets. It listed similar activities as 2022. It made grants to six organizations, the largest being a grant of about $3.4 million to FF PAC.

  In 2020, according to its tax records, Future Forward USA Action raised about $150.9 million, spent about $149.4 million, and ended the year with $6.9 million in net assets.

  In the same year, it spent $148.2 million on the same activities as 2022 and 2021. Seventeen organizations received grants. The largest recipient was FF PAC, which got about $60.3 million.

  Future Forward USA Action didn’t disclose its donors in any of those years.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 18:40

• These Are The Most Common Types Of Cancer In The US
  These Are The Most Common Types Of Cancer In The US

  Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide among middle-aged adults.

  However, deaths from cancer are catching up in some developed countries and even though cancer deaths are declining in the U.S., incidence isn’t. 

  According to the American Cancer Society, the estimated number of new cases in 2024 will cross the two-million mark for the first time ever. The main types of cancer affecting men and women, however, will remain largely the same as in previous years.

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, the most frequently diagnosed types of cancer are breast cancer for women and prostate cancer for men.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In 2024, almost one third of all new cancer diagnoses in women will be breast cancer.

  That number is slightly lower at 29 percent for prostate cancer in men.

  Men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer – the second most common cancer for both sexes – slightly less than women. But they are diagnosed with colorectal cancers more often, which has become the number one cause of cancer-related deaths for men below 50. While men more commonly suffer from bladder cancer, eight percent of cancer diagnoses in women are for cancer of the uterus.

  Overall, the American Cancer Society estimates that more men will be diagnosed with any type of cancer than women.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 18:05

• Escalation And Expansion
  Escalation And Expansion

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  Escalation and Expansion

  It isn’t often that one title can encompass geopolitics, the economy, and markets, but “escalation and expansion” covers all three quite well this week.

  Escalation and Expansion – Geopolitical

  By the time that you read this, the situation may have shifted dramatically, but Friday night’s SITREP – U.S. Commences Retaliatory Strikes is great background in any case.

  I went with “Escalation and Expansion” this week, as General (ret.) Marks used the phrase on several of our calls and I thought that it captures the risk better than just “escalation.”

  The conflict in the Middle East could escalate, it could expand, or it could do both. As of now, the risk of both occurring is real.

  On the flip side, another phrase you are likely seeing (or hearing) more frequently is “escalate to de-escalate.” The theory is that if the U.S. escalates and flexes its military might, then Iran and the “proxies” may back down. In addition, the fear of an ongoing and strong attack phase from the U.S. is enough for the adversaries to back down. That hope could be accompanied by back-channel messaging pointing out that this was retaliation (the proverbial “eye for an eye”) and if no further provocation is given, then the U.S. can step down its efforts.

  Without a doubt, the “escalate to de-escalate” strategy would be best for the U.S. and its allies, as well as markets and the global economy.

  What remains to be seen, as of the time of publication, is whether that’s how Iran and/or the proxies see it. Maybe they want to challenge the U.S. further? Maybe they doubt our commitment? General (ret.) Ashley often points out a famous quote in our meetings. To paraphrase the quote (which isn’t his; he just references it) – the enemy used to respect us and fear us, but while they still respect us, they no longer fear us. That could be put to the test in the coming days.

  If we see de-escalation:

  • Not much will happen. Shipping won’t return to normal. Maybe if there is some multinational truce reached, we could see that, but I’m not even sure how that could be done logistically with entities like Hamas or the Houthis. De-escalation is better than the alternative, but it is no panacea for global trade or the region. It would just take the region back to where it was a few weeks ago.

  If we see escalation and expansion, or “retaliation for the retaliation” by Iran and/or proxies, two things will be crucially important for the impact on the economy and markets:

  • Does Iran’s production and sale of about 3.5mm barrels of oil a day get put in jeopardy? That number comes from sources in the energy sector who have proven right time and again, which is why I use it as my base case for Iranian production and shipments. Brent crude, the best measurement for current Middle East fears, has backed off in price terms. It is back to $77 a barrel from $83 last Friday. It was at $90 in September (before the conflict) so a price of $90 seems easily reachable if the escalation and expansion of the conflict occurs (dragging the U.S. and Iran into more direct conflict).
  • What does China do? While the most obvious thing to think about is oil, it makes sense to think about how China might respond.
  • At Academy Securities, the working assumption (based on an overall assessment from our Geopolitical Intelligence Group) is that China may have had advanced warning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and gave Putin “tacit” approval at the very least. Our working assumption is that China, like much of the rest of the world, was surprised by how ineffective the invasion was, and is likely unhappy that the war is ongoing. Nonetheless, they have continued to purchase Russian commodities and have not done anything publicly to demonstrate that they want Putin to end the conflict.
  • The events in the Middle East are very different. No one in the Geopolitical Intelligence Group thinks that China had any knowledge or forewarning of the attacks in the Middle East. China was as surprised as anyone else. While China is buying Iranian oil, there is no indication of any involvement (tacit or otherwise) in the ongoing conflict. Having said that, if we see much more of a direct U.S./Iran engagement, will it be difficult for China not to “take sides”? Will they come down hard on Iran? Boycott oil? Or will they continue “business as usual” with Iran even as the conflict escalates and expands? The take from the Geopolitical Intelligence Group is that China would come out in a way that supports global trade (i.e. against the proxies), but that is barely consensus and certainly not a universally held opinion. For what it is worth, I lean towards a “business as usual” case, but I am influenced by my own theory that we are in the early stages of a transition from “Made in China” to “Made by China” where they do not need to care as much about trade with the U.S. and even (to a lesser extent) Europe.
  • Whatever China does (in the event of escalation and expansion) will shape the geopolitical, political, and economic landscape for the foreseeable future!

  Hopefully, it doesn’t come to the escalation and expansion case, as cooler (or more cautious) heads prevail, but if it does, China’s reaction could be more important than whatever oil does, though the two will go hand in hand to a large extent.

  Escalation and Expansion – Economic

  The STUNNING Job Report on Friday could signal a massive shift in how I think about the economy. Even in our instant reaction, we felt obligated to write “if it is true” because the report seemed too strong to be true. It defied some other data like the ADP report, the JOLTs quit/hire rates, etc. January is notoriously difficult to estimate the “seasonal effects” which could come into play. Unable to work due to the weather may have played havoc with the wages. I’m not the only one who seems to question the validity of the report. You can find some interesting take downs, some focus on the ongoing shift from full-time jobs to part-time jobs (published in the Household survey), and the potential over-reliance on the birth/death model.

  My view is that the job report was stunning, but I’m skeptical of its veracity. Certainly, if it is an accurate representation of the job market, we may have to skip all the “landing” metaphors and call it a trampoline, or something else that propels us higher as we touch down.

  We have had some “surprising” data recently. The Citi Economic Surprise Index touched 0 in the middle of January, but a string of “surprising” data has pushed it higher!

  As you will see in the chart below, that was after a steady decline in this index. The index is always fascinating because it reflects the data relative to expectations. As we start seeing a decline in the index, it is usually accompanied by analysts reducing their forecasts. The index rarely bottoms or tops out due to the absolute level of the data, it is because expectations have become too optimistic or pessimistic.

  

  So, a chart like this tells me that we could start seeing economists ratcheting up expectations! If the data keeps outperforming, the natural reaction (certainly from a “consensus” point of view) is to increase your forecasts. That can propel markets higher as that change in sentiment in economic outlook will translate into increased bullish sentiment.

  I doubted some of the “surprisingly” good data.

  • GDP is “old” by the time we get it.
  • Consumers spent.
    • But they used credit cards and pushed outstanding consumer credit back above trend lines, dispelling the idea that we are “just getting back to normal” on credit.
    • Sales seemed to be earlier and more aggressive than usual, so some of the spending may have been demand that was pulled forward, leading to disappointment in the coming weeks and months.
  • Jobs. If anyone believed in ADP, the Household survey, or even the JOLTs quit and hire rates, then the job market would look as blasé as I think it is.

  In any case, I need to revisit all the recent data and decide if I’ve been too negative on the direction of the economy. I haven’t been super bearish on the economy by any stretch of the imagination (mild slowdown, very industry specific, and somewhat rolling/regional rather than all at once/national), but I certainly wasn’t betting on escalation and expansion!

  This is the first time in months that I’ve felt the need to step back and see if I’m not giving the economy enough credit! I think that I have it right, but after the streak of surprises and a stunning (if you believe it) job report, it would be malpractice not to rethink my stance. More on that is coming up as we start the week.

  Escalation and Expansion – Markets

  “Magnificent” is a massive understatement of Meta’s performance on Friday. The stock added just under $200 billion to its market capitalization in a single trading session! If a trillion-dollar company jumping 20% in a day isn’t escalation, then I don’t know what is!

  The Nasdaq 100 gained about 3% in 2 days! Again, that seems like “escalation” to me! Having said that, it is only up 0.7% since Thursday January 25th which is a little less eye-popping.

  Unfortunately, at least for an overall perspective, we haven’t seen true “expansion.” While the S&P 500 has done a bit better than the Nasdaq 100 for the past week or so, the Russell 2000 continues to underperform and was down on the week.

  If economic growth is escalating and expanding, should the stock market be too?

  We got the escalation, at least in some stocks, but the expansion to a broad market rally, like we had from mid-November to mid-December last year, hasn’t really returned.

  While it is impressive that a mega-cap (I think $1 trillion is mega-cap territory) can jump 20% in a day, it is also somewhat disturbing as it seems frantic (yes there were all sorts of likely reasons, from buybacks, to dividends, to internal growth, to cost cutting, etc.), but I can’t get it out of my thick skull that 20% for a widely followed company (or $200 billion) seems atypical of what you would expect in a “normal” market. Not saying to fight it, just saying it is weird.

  I have not been a fan of the so-called “laggards” for some time with the exception of commodities and commodity stocks which are meandering along.

  I highly recommended CRE and regional banks for much of last year, starting in April after the mini “banking crisis” created great value. That stopped again, in late December, and I cannot decide if last week’s sell-off is a great buying opportunity or not. KRE, a Regional Bank ETF, dropped over 9% from Monday’s close to Thursday’s close. Part on the Fed and part on renewed fears of the health of smaller banks.

  If the recent spate of good data can be trusted, this is a buying opportunity! If problems are only manifesting themselves now as loans mature or need to be rolled over (as we are seeing in some recent announcements), then it is too early to wade back in. I continue to believe that 2024 will be the year of Work from the Office, which will support CRE in many locations. The Fed is done hiking and even if I’m right on rates (10s to 4.3% and then 4.5% with 2s versus 10s going back to positive spreads), CRE can do well. Big banks (and many of what people refer to as “regional” banks, which are also pretty darn big banks) will do well and come out not just unscathed, but also with new opportunities.

  Basically, if I believed the economic data, I’d have to be pounding the table for expansion across all equities, but I cannot quite get there. Maybe I should, but I cannot, at least not today.

  Bottom Line

  I’m not convinced that the economy is about to take off, but I am re-evaluating that – URGENTLY!

  Having said that, I still like credit. Yes spreads are tight, but I think that credit (corporate, structured, munis, etc.) should be heavily overweighted in any fixed income portfolio.

  Still in the higher yield camp, but that was all over the place this past week.

  I hope you enjoy the new delivery/formatting that Academy has instituted for the T-Report! It is a work in progress, but hopefully it allows you to receive and access our content more conveniently!

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 17:30

• Denver Starts Booting Migrants From Shelters As City Nears 'Breaking Point'
  Denver Starts Booting Migrants From Shelters As City Nears ‘Breaking Point’

  Denver, Colorado is reaching a breaking point as migrant arrivals continue to overwhelm the self-proclaimed sanctuary city.

  As a result, Mayor Mike Johnston (D) suggested that the city may stop accepting more, while officials begin the process of booting them from overcrowded shelters.

  

  “I think our city is very close to its breaking point now,” he told Fox & Friends last week. And we’ve been talking to leaders in D.C. around the country about why we need them to take action here. I think we have successfully welcomed almost 40,000 migrants in the last year and — and we know what it takes to do this successfully, we just need that help.”

  Last year the city helped over 38,000 migrants. As of Friday night, 3,895 were staying in city shelters.

  “That’s an incredible number of people to shelter, support, feed, help with transportation, deal with case management,” said Jon Ewing of Denver Human Services.

  According to Johnston, more needs to be done to address the influx of migrants at the southern US border.

  “And the things we need are — yes, we need federal dollars, but the most important thing is we need, you know, work authorization for folks when they arrive, and we need those resources at the border so you can add more security at the border and so you can help process those asylum claims so the folks that do arrive here can work,” he said.

  Perhaps preventing them from entering the country in the first place is the way to go, Mike?

  On Friday, Johnson told KOA news that the city is exploring options to pause taking in more people.

  “We are considering it. We have to consider all options, particularly if there isn’t any help from the federal government,” he said.

  Denver is clearing out migrant shelters

  According to Fox31, Denver is clearing out shelters used by the migrants.

  Starting on Monday, 150 migrants in city shelters will be discharged. Then that number will fluctuate between 50-100 every day until all 3,800 are out of the 10 shelters currently run by the city.

  “The hope and goal is that we are able to connect the vast majority with housing, or at least as many of them as we possibly can,” Ewing said.

  The number of migrants arriving in Denver is coming down — 48 arrived on Thursday and 64 on Friday, a significant drop from the beginning of January, when that number was 200-300 daily. –Fox31

  “4,000 people when you have limited budget, when you have limited resources … very difficult to find enough housing as is, affordable housing as is, in the city of Denver — that’s going to be difficult,” said Ewing.

  Denver is one of several Democratic strongholds across the United States which pledged maximum virtue by signaling themselves as sanctuary cities – only to be completely unprepared for the surge of migrants that followed the Biden administration’s open invitation to them on day one.

  New York is facing a similar overload, as Mayor Eric Adams (D) has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to lend a hand in dealing with the migrants. The Big Apple has seen a surge of more than 160,000 asylum seekers since last year.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 16:55

• Scientists Warn: Declining Academic Standards Mixed With DEI Recipe For Disaster
  Scientists Warn: Declining Academic Standards Mixed With DEI Recipe For Disaster

  By Daniel Nuccio of The College Fix

  The continued embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM combined with a broad decline in academic standards is producing a generation of scientists who are less capable than their predecessors, warned some scientists in recent interviews with The College Fix.

  From easier math classes in high school to the elimination of standardized tests to extreme grade-inflation to DEI tropes that elevate lived experiences and ways of knowing over facts and data, the trend represents a pressing problem for science professors working to protect STEM and preserve its standards and meritocracy.

  Alex Small, chair of the physics and astronomy department at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, said it starts early in a student’s education.

  “The K-12 system is walking away from standards at all levels,” he told The College Fix in a recent phone interview.

  For example, he said while most of his students took some sort of calculus class their senior year of high school, “at least a third of them test into a class that’s lower than calculus because what happens is the schools will push people through the pipeline.”

  “Even if someone hasn’t mastered algebra, they’ll get some sort of generous grade in their prerequisite math classes and then be put into calculus their senior year,” he said.

  Similar trends concerning the inability of college students to do high school math have been reported nationally post-COVID, with educators lamenting how incoming freshmen no longer can be expected to know how to add fractions or subtract a positive number from a negative number.

  Yi-Zen Chu, an associate professor of physics at the National Central University in Taiwan, who was educated in the U.S. and has been a harsh critic of DEI, stated in a recent email to The Fix that he believes practices such as “grade inflation and lowering the bar” contribute to the lack of preparation exhibited by American college students.

  The concern circles back to the “‘everyone gets a prize’ philosophy that has been around for quite a while now,” he said, referring to what’s sometimes called the “Participation Trophy” phenomenon.

  Chu suggested one way to combat these practices at the college level “is to staunchly defend the use of standardized tests like the SAT.”

  “Students have to compete on the same test to prove their ability relative to others,” he said. “This way, schools know that hyper-grade-inflation will only count against the integrity of the school in the medium/long run.”

  Small said what these students need is supplemental instruction, time, extra problem solving sessions, and extra practice.

  “There’s no such thing as too much practice, and that’s especially true when you haven’t yet had enough practice,” said Small.

  However, although some educators and institutions have embraced remedial summer programs and additional tutoring services, others work toward ideological goals related to DEI that ultimately may prove detrimental to students, as well as the field of physics more broadly.

  Lawrence Krauss, one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, noted in a 2022 interview with The College Fix, “I have written many articles about the absolutely ludicrous ways in which DEI is … enforcing ridiculous notions about both keeping people out of physics who should be in, and trying to interfere with meritocracy and interfere [with] and take over the appointment process so that merit isn’t the crucial factor.”

  Small, in a November 2023 article published by Heterodox STEM, discussed the column “Just Physics?” It appears in the physics education journal The Physics Teacher and regularly features discussions from different physics educators exploring alternative pedagogies and the place of DEI in physics education.

  Highlighting one recent article, Small wrote in his critique that it “focused on the putative anti-Blackness of the physics community” but offered little in terms of what “changes can or should be implemented” beyond spending “more time in physics class discussing social issues.”

  In December, The College Fix reached out to Deepak Iyer, one of the co-editors of “Just Physics?” for comment. Iyer replied he would need to get approval from his editor-in-chief before formally responding. On Jan. 24, Iyer notified The Fix he had still not received a response.

  “Some sort of discussion of wider social issues…in moderate doses has its place,” Small told The Fix. “Oppenheimer got a lot of people asking questions again about one of the sort of pivotal moments of the American physics community.”

  “If DEI is brought in just as an occasional discussion topic that doesn’t really crowd out the fundamentals, then I don’t have a fundamental objection to it,” he added.

  However, Small said, when too much time is spent discussing social issues in physics classes, the fundamentals get crowded out, which, as he pointed out in his Heterodox STEM article, could “hurt students with weak prior preparation, as they need even more focus on fundamentals.”

  Peter McCullough of the physics and astronomy department at Johns Hopkins argues there are times when discussions of DEI topics in STEM may be called for or even beneficial.

  In the comments section of Small’s article, McCullough highlighted issues with fingertip pulse oximeters, describing the devices as “a technology that works better on lighter skin than darker skin.”

  In an email to The College Fix, McCullough also noted claims that some facial recognition programs have difficulty in accurately identifying black faces or recognizing them as faces at all. According to McCullough, such examples might get students thinking about unintended effects of different technologies on society.

  Yet, Small noted, a certain number of instructors spending too much time discussing DEI in physics class is not the biggest threat posed by DEI to physics education.

  “Where DEI really comes into a lot of discussion among physics educators,” said Small, “is in discussions about standards.”

  “It’s not really … so much a discussion of ‘Oh, should we talk about representation during class time’ and more about what can we reasonably expect and if a student can’t meet the standard, is it unfair of us to nonetheless insist on that standard,” he said. “And that’s a much more complicated and dangerous discussion, because … it just perpetuates under preparation.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 16:20

• Are Bankruptcies Of Some US States In The Future?
  Are Bankruptcies Of Some US States In The Future?

  Authored by Stephen Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  Bankruptcy is a developing twenty-first century theme in America. We see bankruptcy in federal government policy and spending, many corporate boardroom decisions, nonprofit and religious groups’ overspending and arrogance, individuals, some United States cities and counties, and the territory of Puerto Rico. The federal bankruptcy law consisting of Chapters 7, 9, 11, and 13 allow bankruptcy filings for local governments, individuals, nonprofit groups, and for-profit businesses, but it does not allow bankruptcy filings for states and the federal government.

  

  A few states are facing the reality of defaulting on their issued bond debt obligation payments and loan payments to lenders. These states are seeing current and future tax revenues decreases, net population losses, fewer private businesses, increased progressive welfare spending, and long-term underfunded public pension systems. US states are not allowed by federal law to print money to finance spending.

  States declaring bankruptcy are not without precedent. The Panic of 1837 lead to several states defaulting on canal and railway debt payments in 1841. Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution under section 4 required some states to declare bankruptcy after the Civil War.

  Arkansas defaulted on highway bond payments in 1933 in the fourth year of the Great Depression. Tax revenues plummeted. It ran out of cash and stopped payments on all its highway bonds. The state attempted to invoke its sovereign immunity and impose losses on bondholders against their will. The approach failed. This history, described in an October 2017 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland report, may serve as a historical benchmark for future state bankruptcies and bond payment defaults. It appears to be the only state default after Reconstruction ended in 1877.

  Standard and Poor’s (S&P) listed its bond ratings of all fifty states from 2004 to 2017. Coronavirus state spending since 2020 has made the bond ratings of some states more tenuous. No state has a junk bond rating, though Illinois is the lowest rated at BBB−, followed by New Jersey at A−. S&P bond ratings go from AAA being the highest to D the lowest. S&P analysts add a plus or minus sign to the bond rating letter grade. A junk bond rating is the low probability of that state reliably meeting future bond payments, and it must sell the bond at a higher interest rate in order to attract an investor.

  Illinois and New Jersey are examples of a future state bankruptcy or default on a future bond debt obligation payment. California budget deficits under Governor Gavin Newsom are proliferating as part of the spending trend. Financial press coverage of these states’ financial problems is available. New York, Connecticut, Michigan, and other states are heading to future defaults and possible bankruptcy unless budget and policy reform is enacted.

  This article cannot predict how a state’s future bond debt default would play out. Payment default negotiations between that state’s revenue officials and bondholders could take place without federal bureaucrat oversight given bankruptcy silence in federal law. The bondholders and lenders will take a loss and place substantive requirements on that state to cut spending and reform its laws and policies as part of the default settlement.

  The undisciplined state spending spree will be addressed through payment default or bankruptcy resulting from inescapable economic realities. This bottoming out could begin the healing process for that state’s citizens through realistic laws, policies, budgets, and tax revenue realities. This is uncharted territory, and we should not be surprised by past poor state political and budgeting choices.

  One irony is that twelve US states have bond ratings from three private bond rating agencies higher than the federal government as of August 2023. Many of these states have balanced budget laws that prohibit deficit spending, and some states limit annual spending increases from a set of requirements. Stay tuned for the American twenty-first century bankruptcy shows to continue.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 15:10

• Mechanical Issue Dooms One Of Two UK Aircraft Carriers Ahead Of Massive NATO War Drill
  Mechanical Issue Dooms One Of Two UK Aircraft Carriers Ahead Of Massive NATO War Drill

  Ahead of the largest Nato exercise since the Cold War, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth experienced an “issue” with a faulty propeller shaft during final checks this weekend. 

  

  In a post on social media platform X, the Royal Navy said an issue with a coupling on HMS Queen Elizabeth’s starboard propeller shaft was identified and “will not sail on Sunday.” Instead, the sister ship HMS Prince of Wales (keep in mind, UK only has two carriers in service) will take her place on the Steadfast Defender drills off Norway’s Arctic coast in March. 

  Routine pre-sailing checks yesterday identified an issue with a coupling on @HMSQNLZ starboard propeller shaft. As such, the ship will not sail on Sunday.@HMSPWLS will take her place on NATO duties and will set sail for Exercise Steadfast Defender as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/ImAeTU80vi

  — Royal Navy (@RoyalNavy) February 3, 2024

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  HMS Queen Elizabeth’s mechanical woes come after Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said a British aircraft could soon be sent to the Red Sea to combat Iran-backed Houthi rebels amid the worsening situation as the US and UK launch bombing raids across the Middle East. 

  However, ministers were recently warned by the House of Commons Defence Committee that the military is not prepared for an all-out war due to stockpile shortages and recruitment crises. The committee also said the military is “consistently overstretched.” 

  In recent weeks, the head of the British Army, General Patrick Sanders, called on leaders to “mobilize the nation” to prepare for war with Russia. 

  Last month, we attended SHOT Show in Las Vegas (read: here & here). We had a lengthy conversation with a European tier 1 operator with DoD contracts to train Ukranians. He told us World War 3 started in 2014.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 14:35

• DOE To Push Forward $1.2 Billion Biden Plan To Expand Federal College-Prep Aid To Illegal Immigrants
  DOE To Push Forward $1.2 Billion Biden Plan To Expand Federal College-Prep Aid To Illegal Immigrants

  By Emily Sturge of CampusReform.org

  A Feb. 9 Federal TRIO Programs Subcommittee meeting could push the Biden administration one step closer to extending $1.2 billion in college-preparatory programs to illegal immigrants.

  

  A draft proposal released Jan. 12 by the Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education argued in favor of extending Federal TRIO programs to illegal immigrants. TRIO programs are a set of eight “outreach and student services” initiatives meant to prepare “low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities” for college, as seen on the program page. 

  At the upcoming meeting, subcommittee members will discuss “participant eligibility” and then present their recommendations to an overhead committee, as stated by the Office of Postsecondary Education. Subcommittee members could continue to push the proposal to include illegal immigrants in TRIO programs.

  Some services provided are “academic tutoring, personal counseling, mentoring,” and “financial guidance,” as well as “assistance in applying to college,” “workplace and college visits,” and “special instruction in reading, writing, study skills, and mathematics,” according to the Council for Opportunity in Education. 

  TRIO programs receive roughly $1.2 billion in federal funding annually and currently serve over 800,000 low-income students. Illegal immigrant students have been prohibited from receiving TRIO benefits, as well as other federal benefits, since 1986.

  Around 100,000 illegal immigrant students graduate from U.S. high schools annually, as stated on Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Those students could become eligible for TRIO.

  Additionally, there are more than 600,000 K-12 illegal immigrant students enrolled in U.S. schools, according to FWD.us, which means hundreds of thousands of future high school graduates who could become eligible for TRIO initiatives.

  “In California, I think this added language will be significantly beneficial for our programs. We are fortunate, California being a little bit more liberal . . . that our colleges do accept undocumented students,” said Emalyn Lapus, a member of the subcommittee, at the Jan. 12 meeting.

  Campus Reform has previously reported on the Biden administration’s efforts to expand TRIO benefits to illegal immigrants. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 14:00

• Ex-Trump Official Dies After Being Shot In Violent DC Carjacking Spree
  Ex-Trump Official Dies After Being Shot In Violent DC Carjacking Spree

  Former Trump administration official Mike Gill, 56, died on Saturday after being critically wounded this week in an 11-hour crime spree that spanned from  Downtown Washington DC to Maryland.

  

  “It is with profound sadness that I wish to inform the community of the passing of my husband, Mike Gill,” said his wife, Kristina Gill, in a statement reported by Fox 5 DC. “His sudden departure has left a void in our lives that can never be filled.”

  Gill, who served as Trump’s chief operating officer of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and a married father of three, was sitting in his Jeep Cherokee waiting to pick up his wife near Mount Vernon Square on the evening of Jan. 29, when the suspected gunman – identified as 28-year-old Artell Cunningham, got inside the car and shot him in the head around 5:45 p.m.

  

  MPD Investigating Man’s Overnight Crime Spree, Leaving 1 Dead and 1 with Critical Injuries

  Read more: https://t.co/kED6OfCpUG pic.twitter.com/FpzY9Wunx7

  — DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) January 31, 2024

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  Cunningham then fled the scene on foot, attempted to carjack another individual unsuccessfully, and then approached a man and a woman, demanding their keys. Cunningham then allegedly shot the man, 45-year-old Albnerto Vasquez, Jr., who later died at a local hospital.

  

  Cunningham was later killed by police.

  According to Kristina Gill, her husband’s “heart was evident in everything he did.”

  He coached his daughter’s soccer team, served at Holy Trinity Parish and “relished opening our home to friends and colleagues to bring people together. Friends of Mike’s knew they could always count on him to help solve a problem. He was in his element pouring a friend a drink and sharing a good story to give a laugh.” –NBC 4

  “[He’s] the friendliest guy you’d ever met but nobody’s fool by any stretch. Underneath that soft exterior was a determined executive who could achieve really big things,” former CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo told the outlet earlier in the week, who showered praise on Gill.

  “In our time at the Commission, if we achieved anything, 95% of the credit goes to Mike Gill, who’s a person that never sought credit, who never sought anything for himself.“

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/04/2024 – 13:25

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• Progressive Dems In Congress Move To Block Funding For Israeli Weapons
  Progressive Dems In Congress Move To Block Funding For Israeli Weapons

  Via Common Dreams,

  Calling on the United States to “end its complicity in the nightmare unfolding in Gaza,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday said he would introduce an amendment to remove more than $10 billion from the foreign aid supplemental requested by President Joe Biden.

  The $10.1 billion has been proposed to pay for offensive weaponry funding for the Israeli government, which has reportedly killed at least 27,131 Palestinians in Gaza so far—including at least 11,500 children—and displaced 1.9 million.

  

  “Twenty-seven thousand dead—two-thirds of them women and children,” said the Vermont Independent. “Sixty-seven thousand wounded… 70% of housing units damaged or destroyed. And now, hundreds of thousands of children facing starvation.”

  “This is unacceptable,” added Sanders. “The United States cannot be complicit in this humanitarian disaster. That is why I will be offering an amendment to the supplemental bill to ensure zero funding for the continuation of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s illegal, immoral war against the Palestinian people.”

  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated Thursday that lawmakers are close to finalizing the text of the national security supplemental, which also includes funding for Ukraine and security at the U.S.-Mexico border.

  Schumer said he would file cloture on a motion to proceed with the supplemental on Monday, “leading to the first vote on the national security supplemental no later than Wednesday.”

  Politico congressional reporter Burgess Everett said Sanders’ amendment “will spark debate” but has little chance of passing.

  Most Democrats think Biden is too old. Many think he can’t beat Trump. Young progressives are so appalled by his policy in Gaza that they’re disrupting his events. And yet no prominent progressive is challenging him in the primary. Can’t they see the opportunity?

  — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 1, 2024

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  Despite the International Court of Justice’s finding last month that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and Americans’ growing opposition to the U.S. government’s support for Israel, the majority of federal lawmakers continue to claim that Israel is only acting in self-defense against Hamas as it bombards Gaza.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 23:20

• France Caves To Farmers As Ireland 'Solidarity' Protests Kick Off
  France Caves To Farmers As Ireland ‘Solidarity’ Protests Kick Off

  Two of France’s main farming unions on Thursday agreed to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country after the government announced measures the deemed “tangible progress” in the ongoing revolt against EU ‘climate-driven’ initiatives designed to wean society off of evil, non-bug-based, carbon-emitting food while China, India, and the rest of the world laughs.

  In addition to France, protests have been held in Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. Last week, tensions came to a head in Brussels when farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament building, demanding that European leaders stop punishing them with more taxes and rising costs to finance the so-called ‘green agenda.’

  After French farmers stepped up protests earlier in the week, the government promised on Thursday to extend protections – including better controlling imports and giving farmers additional aid, Reuters reports.

  “Everywhere in Europe the same question arises: how do we continue to produce more but better? How can we continue to tackle climate change? How can we avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, announcing the new measures.

  In response, France’s main farmers union, FNSEA, announced that it was time to lift the blockades and “go home.” Arnaud Gaillot of the Young Farmers’ union echoed the message, however both unions warned that other types of protests would continue, and they’d be back if the government doesn’t make good on their promises.

  Meanwhile in Ireland, farmers began protesting Thursday evening.

  #BREAKING #Ireland JUST IN: Farmers’ protests began in Ireland. pic.twitter.com/rJ6lsCnkgG

  — The National Independent (@NationalIndNews) February 1, 2024

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

  “There’s a general dissatisfaction with the level of environmental regulation that is being heaped on farmers, the low margins, and (the) resulting low income the farmers have been suffering from for a very long time now,” said Cathal MacCarthy, media director for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, adding “There will be a great deal of sympathy and solidarity with the aim and ambitions of the protests both in Ireland and on the Continent,” EURACTIV reports.

  

  “They feel they are being regulated out of business by Brussels bureaucrats and Department of Agriculture officials who are far removed from the reality of day-to-day farming,” said Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) President Francine Gorman on Wednesday, ahead of the protests.

  The concerns of the Irish beef and dairy farmers echo the concerns of other European farmers who have been protesting for weeks.

  MacCarthy said Irish beef and dairy farmers also believe they are not being compensated fairly for the agrifood products they cultivate, given the increased costs involved in production as a result of environmental regulations.

  “We need senior politicians to face consumers and say, ‘Lads, listen, the cost of producing this food is X, that has to be paid, and the margin that allows farmers to live (has to be paid), but we can’t just be dependent on what the supermarket feels like charging their customers,’” he said. -EURACTIV

  “We can either continue to have cheap food, or we can have environmentally sustainable food, but we can’t have both,” said MacCarthy.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 22:45

• Former CIA Coder Sentenced To 40 Years For "Vault 7" WikiLeaks Breach, Child Porn Charges
  Former CIA Coder Sentenced To 40 Years For “Vault 7” WikiLeaks Breach, Child Porn Charges

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

  A former software engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for carrying out the “largest data breach” of classified materials in the agency’s history. He also faced charges related to child abuse imagery, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

  

  Joshua Schulte, a 35-year-old former CIA programmer, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman in a federal court in New York on Thursday for espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography charges.

  The sentencing follows his convictions at trials that concluded in March 2020, July 2022, and September last year.

  Prosecutors initially sought a life sentence for Mr. Schulte, accused of stealing classified CIA documents and leaking them to the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks.

  WikiLeaks began publishing the classified data, known as “Vault 7,” in March 2017.

  The files were dated 2013–2016 and concerned tactics and tools used by the CIA to surveil foreign governments, alleged extremists, and others by compromising their electronics, including smartphones, computers, smart TVs, and messaging applications.

  Mr. Schulte had helped develop the hacking tools used by the agency as a coder at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  Prosecutors said that Mr. Schulte repeatedly denied any involvement in the leak and refuted being the source of it. Instead, he was accused of “spinning fake narratives about ways the stolen CIA files could have been obtained from CIA computers,” in an attempt to deflect suspicion from himself and divert law enforcement resources toward false leads.

  Breach Cost CIA ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’

  Mr. Schulte has consistently maintained his innocence, claiming that the CIA and FBI have scapegoated him for the March 2017 leak. He insists that it was the result of a hack.

  However, prosecutors say the leak of the files “immediately and profoundly damaged the CIA’s ability to collect foreign intelligence against America’s adversaries” and placed CIA personnel, programs, and assets directly at risk while costing the agency hundreds of millions of dollars.

  Mr. Schulte has been detained, pending trial, since 2018.

  The former CIA worker has also been charged with receiving, possessing, and transporting child pornography after prosecutors said a search of his home led to the discovery of “layers of encryption hiding tens of thousands of videos and images of child sexual abuse materials” on his computer.

  That included 3,400 images and videos of “disturbing and horrific child pornography” as well as “images of bestiality and sadomasochism,” prosecutors said.

  Mr. Schulte collected the images during his employment with the CIA via the dark web, according to prosecutors.

  Schulte’s ‘Information War’

  They further claimed that Mr. Schulte made plans to wage what he called an “information war” against the government after his arrest. He obtained contraband cellphones while in jail, which he used to create anonymous, encrypted email and social media accounts.

  He allegedly used the cellphones to transmit more of the materials to WikiLeaks and “planned to use the anonymous email and social media accounts to publish a manifesto and various other postings containing classified information about CIA cyber techniques and cyber tools,” the DOJ said.

  “Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history. He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there,” U.S. attorney Damian Williams said in a statement announcing Mr. Schulte’s sentencing.

  “When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars. And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification,” Mr. Williams continued.

  Prosecutors praised the “outstanding investigative work” of the FBI and prosecutors in unmasking Mr. Schulte for “the traitor and predator that he is.”

  Their work ensured that he would spend 40 years behind bars, “right where he belongs,” Mr Williams added.

  In addition to the 40 years in prison, Mr. Schulte, who represented himself in court, was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release.

  Mimi Nguyen Ly and Reuters contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 22:10

• Russia Calls Urgent UN Security Council Meeting To Condemn 'Illegal' US Strikes
  Russia Calls Urgent UN Security Council Meeting To Condemn ‘Illegal’ US Strikes

  Russia has condemned the Friday night large-scale US strikes on Syria and Iraq, saying it was an illegal ‘aggression’ and that an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting must be convened to address it.

  Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Saturday of the American operation which killed some 40 people, including civilians, that it “once again demonstrated to the world the aggressive nature of US policy in the Middle East and Washington’s complete disregard for international law.”

  

  According to TASS, “A UN Security Council meeting in connection with the US strikes is scheduled for February 5”; however, the UN has yet to confirm or publish details of the upcoming emergency session. 

  Additionally Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said: “We just demanded an urgent sitting of the UN Security Council over the threat to peace and safety created by US strikes on Syria and Iraq.”

  The Pentagon said it struck over 85 targets in Iraq and Syria, and there are likely more bombing waves to come in the next days. 

  In fresh Saturday remarks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said “This is the start of our response.” Some unnamed US officials have even said the operation could continue for days or even weeks, in response to the Sunday drone attack on the Jordanian border base which killed three Americans.

  While Russia has over several years repeatedly condemned US operations over Syria, and especially the troop occupation in the northeast, it has never responded with an anti-air intercept, or at least this has never been publicly disclosed. 

  But this remains a possibility so long as major US aerial operations continue. Russian jets and convoy patrols are present especially in Syria’s northwest, but have also been known to stretch near Deir Ezzor, the other side of which the Pentagon has a presence.

  Whilst the US strikes on Syria and Iraq are illegal and an act of aggression, 1) The US would have given Russia advance notice of the strikes; 2) Russia would have forewarned the intended targets; 3) Damage will be limited; and 4) The US is maintaining its thuggish reputation.

  — Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos (@DrMarcusP) February 2, 2024

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

  Moscow says that the US is there illegally, while Russian military intervention was invited in by the Assad government, to stave off externally-sponsored jihadist and terror attacks on the Syrian population.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 21:35

• Oregon Supreme Court Blocks 10 Republicans From Running For Reelection
  Oregon Supreme Court Blocks 10 Republicans From Running For Reelection

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

  Ten Republican senators in Oregon cannot run for reelection, the state’s top court ruled on Feb. 1.

  

  The court found that the senators are banned from running for reelection under a constitutional amendment approved in 2022.

  The amendment, Ballot Measure 113, states that lawmakers who miss at least 10 legislative days without an excuse cannot seek reelection.

  The ruling upheld a decision from Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, a Democrat.

  Ms. Griffin-Valade said in 2023 that the senators, under the measure, could not try for another term after their current term.

  “My decision honors the voters’ intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution,” she said at the time.

  The decision sparked a lawsuit from some of the Republican senators, but the Oregon Supreme Court sided with the secretary of state.

  “Because the text is capable of supporting the secretary’s interpretation, and considering the clear import of the ballot title and explanatory statement in this case, we agree with the secretary that voters would have understood the amendment to mean that a legislator with 10 or more unexcused absences during a legislative session would be disqualified from holding legislative office during the immediate next term, rather than the term after that,” the new ruling reads.

  Justices said they used their typical methodology in construing the amendment “by determining how the voters who adopted the amendment most likely understood its text.” The method included considering the information presented to voters, which stated that voting yes would disqualify legislators with 10 unexcused absences for the term “following current term in office.”

  “Those other materials expressly and uniformly informed voters that the amendment would apply to a legislator’s immediate next terms of office, indicating that the voters so understood and intended that meaning,” the justices wrote.

  The ruling applies to 10 Republican senators in the 30-seat body.

  “I’ve said from the beginning my intention was to support the will of the voters,” Ms. Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “It was clear to me that voters intended for legislators with a certain number of absences in a legislative session to be immediately disqualified from seeking reelection. I’m thankful to the Oregon Supreme Court for providing clarity on how to implement Measure 113.”

  Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner, a Democrat, said that the ruling “means that legislators and the public now know how Measure 113 will be applied, and that is good for our state.”

  The senators in question, including state Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp, missed more than 10 days in 2023 while protesting Democrat-sponsored bills on abortion and other issues. Their walkout of about six weeks delayed voting because it resulted in a lack of quorum, or the minimum number of senators needed to be present to hold a vote.

  “We obviously disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling. But more importantly, we are deeply disturbed by the chilling impact this decision will have to crush dissent,” Mr. Knopp said on Feb. 1.

  Oregon voters approved Measure 113 by a wide margin following Republican walkouts in the Legislature in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

  The measure says disqualification applies to “the term following the election after the member’s current term is completed.”

  Mr. Knopp and others had challenged the interpretation of the measure.

  Lawyers for the senators said they viewed the measure language as meaning that the lawmakers could run in 2024, since a senator’s term ends in January while elections are held the previous November. They argued the penalty doesn’t take effect immediately, but rather, after they’ve served another term.

  

  All parties in the suit had sought clarity on the issue before the March 2024 filing deadline for candidates who want to run in this year’s election.

  Mr. Knopp and three other Republican senators had already launched reelection bids before the case was considered, while two other senators have said that they’re retiring at the end of their terms. The remaining GOP senators were elected in 2022 for terms that end in early 2027, so they will be barred from running in 2026.

  Justice Aruna Masih didn’t participate in the consideration of the case or the decision, the Oregon Supreme Court stated.

  All justices on the Oregon Supreme Court were appointed by Democrat governors, either Gov. Kate Brown or Gov. Tina Kotek.

  “I’m disappointed but can’t say I’m surprised that a court of judges appointed solely by Gov. Brown and Gov. Kotek would rule in favor of political rhetoric rather than their own precedent,” said state Sen. Suzanne Weber, another lawmaker affected by the ruling. “The only winners in this case are Democrat politicians and their union backers.”

  Another challenge from Republicans, this one in federal court, is still pending. The court recently denied a preliminary request that would have let three of the Republicans run, a decision the Republicans have appealed.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 21:00

• "Tax Relief Act" Exposed: Something Ominous Lurks Inside…
  “Tax Relief Act” Exposed: Something Ominous Lurks Inside…

  Authored by Peter Reagan via Birch Gold Group,

  As it stands right now, it appears like Biden’s entire first term will have been plagued by varying degrees of unacceptable price inflation (some of which was historic).

  

  No matter how the corporate media spins it, he just can’t seem to lead the country out of this persistent economic trend. The rate of price inflation is easing, but core inflation remains at a pace not seen since the early 1990s.

  You can see both consumer price inflation (blue line) and core price inflation (red line) reflected on the official graph below:

  

  Unfortunately, the Fed’s efforts to ease inflation and the easing rate of inflation are both about to get some resistance.

  That’s because the Biden Administration is actively working against these efforts. While the Fed tries to rein in the money supply, the White House is digging in the spurs instead…

  The Trojan Horse hidden in “The Tax Relief” act

  A recent article published on The Daily Signal revealed that legislation claiming to provide tax relief for the middle class doesn’t quite do what it says it will:

  checking inside this Trojan horse known as The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act instead reveals a mixed bag that includes welfare expansions, corporate windfalls, and inflationary deficits.

  Here’s exactly what this “Tax Relief” entails for those of us trying to plan for our taxes:

  The only individual tax cut in the bill is a slight cost-of-living adjustment to the child tax credit – likely from $2,000 to $2,100 – that would apply to taxpayers’ 2025 and 2026 tax filings before expiring.

  The bulk – 91.5% to be exact – of what is being described as “middle-class tax relief” is, in fact, an expansion of welfare benefits.

  Okay, look, just calling it “welfare” doesn’t automatically make it a bad idea. We don’t usually think of “welfare” as something the middle class needs, certainly.

  But times are tough! People are struggling! Maybe everyone needs a little welfare these days?

  Well, there’s a catch.

  Another report provided by the Heritage Foundation revealed exactly what you might expect from this bill:

  The JCT’s formal estimate shows a 10-year deficit impact of only $399 million. However, the 10-year aggregate estimate obscures the uneven distribution of the bill’s deficits. According to the JCT, the bill would generate increased federal deficits of $117.5 billion in FY 2024 and an additional $37.8 billion in FY 2025.

  In other words, this welfare expansion will cost three times more than the White House is willing to admit in the first year alone!

  Okay, so why am I getting so worked up about this?

  Why does it matter if the child tax credit is bumped up 5% in a half-hearted attempt to match the soaring cost of living?

  Here’s how the Heritage Foundation explains the problem:

  These deficits can be expected to drive further inflation and increasing interest rates as the government generates new money… divorced from increases in real productive capacity and as it crowds out private borrowing.

  A lot of Americans (and far too many of our political leaders) seem to believe that the government has a magical treasure chest of wealth hidden somewhere.

  Furthermore, they believe they’re entitled to their “fair share” of government-hoarded wealth. When their expenses go up, they want the government to compensate them for the difference.

  Price of gas too high? Get a “gas tax rebate” (this was a real thing!).

  Can’t afford a house? Don’t worry, there’s a government-sponsored entity that’s ready and willing to loan as much as it costs. Whether or not payments are affordable.

  All they want is their share of the secret wealth in the government’s treasure chest.

  But there’s no magic treasure chest.

  The government cannot make wealth! The government’s revenue comes from one of two things:

  • Taxation

  • Debt

  In an economic sense, taxation just shuffles dollars around. You pay your taxes and the government passes your dollars on to someone else. You have fewer dollars, they have more dollars, but the overall number of dollars doesn’t change.

  Issuing debt, though? That doesn’t make wealth – it just makes more dollars. Since the value of currency, like everything else, is based on supply and demand, making more dollars simply decreases the purchasing power of all dollars everywhere.

  It means more dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services.

  During the Covid panic, the federal government handed Americans tidy little piles of cash. Everyone was happy – at first. Then everyone got angry when prices rose – that free money didn’t go as far as it used to.

  That’s how inflation works.

  This is not a situation the government can spend its way out of! Goodness knows the Biden administration has tried…

  Over the past three years, President Biden has added $6 trillion to the national debt. That is a truly shocking amount of money!

  Let me put it in perspective…

  • Adjusted for inflation, $6 trillion is 20% more than the U.S. spent fighting World War II

  • It’s twice as much as the entire national debt of Germany (in just three years!)

  • By itself, $6 trillion would be the third biggest national debt in the world

  So it’s no surprise that the annual cost of living has risen, on average, $11,400 for the typical American family.

  Giving them more dollars doesn’t help!

  The Biden administration hasn’t figured this out yet. They see there’s a fire, they hear people complaining about the smoke – and so they dump another bucket of gasoline on the blaze. No, the last 6 trillion buckets of gasoline didn’t put the fire out – but maybe this one will!

  Hoping for relief? Well, it looks like the White House’s 2024 budget will rack up at least another $1.7 trillion in debt.

  Don’t ask yourself how many dollars you’ve saved, or how many you earn. Ask yourself instead what you can do with those dollars. What are they worth?

  More importantly, how much less with they be worth tomorrow?

  Inflation-proof your savings

  Dollars are essentially IOUs from the federal government. They have no intrinsic value – which means their purchasing power is subject to the whims of supply and demand (and nothing else).

  Some assets have intrinsic value due to their utility or other benefits they provide.

  Tangible assets are the only financial assets you can own and hold in your hand. They aren’t an IOU or a promise to pay. They can’t be printed, hacked or inflated into worthlessness.

  Physical gold and silver have served throughout human history as safe haven assets, immune from the whims of governments or central bankers. The price of physical gold has been relatively stable in the face of the economic turmoil that Bidenomics has wrought upon everyday Americans during his first term. In fact, the price of gold grew almost 13% overall in 2023 (easily beating inflation).

  Of course, getting your hands on some precious metals is just one of many different ways to bolster your resistance to inflation. Now might be a good time to take a look at your retirement plan, and reconsider how your assets are diversified.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 19:50

• Ukraine Drone Reaches Deep Into Russian Territory, Damaging One Of Its Largest Refineries
  Ukraine Drone Reaches Deep Into Russian Territory, Damaging One Of Its Largest Refineries

  There’s been yet another major attack against a Russian oil refinery. In this fresh Saturday incident, a drone launched by Ukraine’s SBU security service slammed into Lukoil refinery in Volgograd, which is among the country’s largest refineries.

  Regional reports say two drones in total hit the primary refining unit, “without which the plant will lose a significant part of its production capacity.”

  

  Ukrainian sources declared that the “The SBU continues to systematically destroy the infrastructure used by Russia to wage war in Ukraine.” A large fire at the plant resulted. “By attacking oil refineries that support Russia’s military-industrial complex, we not only disrupt fuel logistics for enemy vehicles but also reduce funds flowing into the Russian budget,” the SBU said. 

  The extensive fire has since been extinguished, but not before doing significant damage, apparently:

  The fire has already been extinguished, but at its peak, it spread over 300 square meters. Despite this, the governor of Volgograd Oblast, Andrey Bocharov, claimed that the drone attack was repelled.

  The Security Service of Ukraine has lately claimed responsibility for a string of drone attacks on Russian refineries over the past several weeks.

  The range of Ukraine’s drone and missile arsenal appears to have significantly increased of late, leading the Kremlin to suspect these are Western-supplied weapons being used on Russian territory. It’s also likely that Kiev could have targeting help from the US, UK, or France. Moscow has also of late complained especially that French mercenaries are on the ground in northern Ukraine.

  This new drone attack is believed to have been launched from Kharkiv, like other recent attacks. The distance from Kharkiv to the southern city of Volgograd is over 600km, which is a significant flight time for the suicide drone. Russian oil exports have remained strong throughout nearly two years of war, despite US-led sanctions, in large part due to countries like China and India.

  The Ukrainian Army launched suicide drones at Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad) last night.

  A massive fire started in one of the largest oil refineries in the country.

  It was the first time Ukraine struck Volgograd this war. pic.twitter.com/TlTaibhI2W

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 3, 2024

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

  These stepped up efforts by Kiev to target Russian energy is dangerous trend which looks to only continue, but which will invite greater Russian retaliation on Ukrainian cities, given also that Ukraine is receiving longer range missiles which were pledged last year:

  Washington plans to ship its first batch of ground-launched long-range bombs to Kiev this week. The arms were designed for the Ukrainian military and will give Kiev another option for deep strikes. 

  The new weapon was developed by Boeing and Saab. It combines a 250-pound guided bomb intended to be launched by an aircraft and straps it to a rocket motor. Washington believes it has a range of 90 miles. 

  Boeing and Saab pitched combining the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor in November 2022. President Joe Biden approved the transfer of the long-range bomb to Ukraine in February 2023. However, the delivery of the munitions was delayed because it needed to be developed and tested. 

  Politico spoke with four officials who confirmed the first batch would arrive in Ukraine this week. The officials touted the weapons as giving Ukraine “a significant capability.” “It gives them a deeper strike capability they haven’t had, it complements their long-range fire arsenal,” the US official said. “It’s just an extra arrow in the quiver that’s gonna allow them to do more.”

  This spate of attacks has also raise questions about the quality of Russian air defense systems around key infrastructure facilities, or if they are present at all for that matter.

  Russian oil exports made up about 30% of the country’s budget revenues. As of 2023, Russia became China’s number one oil supplier, taking the top spot long held by Saudi Arabia.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 19:15

• Joe Rogan Has Shattered The Media Monolith
  Joe Rogan Has Shattered The Media Monolith

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  It was just about two years ago that I wrote an article detailing how the mainstream media was losing the fight of its life against Joe Rogan. In 2022, I also wrote about how CNN had basically crumbled at the hands of alternative media.

  On Friday, news broke that Rogan was renewing his contract with Spotify, and that it would likely be worth (another) $250 million.

  The hilarious thing is that this renewal and the continued success of alternative media sources, like the very blog you are reading right now, come at a time when legacy media corporations are engaging in mass layoffs and losing both subscribers and viewership.

  

  When I started my podcast in 2018 and this blog in 2021, something Joe Rogan once said echoed in my ears:

  “You don’t have to be everything for everybody; you just have to be something for somebody.”

  And that was exactly why I wanted to start a podcast. The people that I wanted to hear from in the world of finance, like Peter Schiff and Bill Fleckenstein, were given zero time in the mainstream media.

  When they were invited on, they were heckled, ridiculed, and used as punching bags, despite often being the only people correctly predicting how the economy would go and representing the only counterbalance to an always bright, sunny, and cheery mainstream financial media.

  I didn’t really care if anybody ever listened to my podcast; I just wanted to have an excuse to invite people on whose perspectives I wanted to hear but wasn’t getting from the mainstream media. In other words, I became part of a media free market that wanted to test to see if my needs were similar to those of other people who followed the news in the industry.

  Lo and behold, about five years later, my podcast has over 6 million plays/downloads across platforms. It’s definitely not The Joe Rogan Experience, but it’s something for somebody. It’s the same with my blog. Those who are subscribers here know that I write to discuss issues that are on the fringe—issues specifically not covered by the mainstream media. They are not always worth covering, but some times they are — that’s the risk I run. Regardless, for the most part, you wouldn’t be getting it anywhere else so that makes it worth it for me to hash out. I don’t mind sorting through the muck on “the fringe.”

  ---

  🔥 6 Months Free: For those of you that are not yet subscribers, this link will afford you a year’s paid subscription for the price of just 6 months. It’s a discount that never expires for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: Get 50% off forever

  ---

  The crumbling of the once-great media establishments like the LA Times, who announced massive layoffs last week, and CNN, who has fired most of the key staff that was on board a few short years ago, goes to show that the free market has determined there is a significant need for other types of media.

  Back in the days of cable news, before streaming video and podcasts, there was really only one way to get your news. Today, the internet has revolutionized the industry and has become the vehicle for us in alternative media. No matter how “fringe” your view of the world is, there is now generally a media echo chamber of some sort you can go lock yourself in when you want to. From there, the free market and consumer dollars will determine who will be raging successes and who won’t.

  Generally, when you sign your second $200 million deal in less than a decade, it’s a pretty good sign that the free market has deemed you a success — especially when your biggest former critics, people like Brian Stelter, are walking around unemployed while you do it.

  And it isn’t some secret as to why the Joe Rogan Experience has been a success; rather, it’s quite simple: he has a range of guests, explores topics that are off-limits elsewhere, takes things in a calm, relaxing and jovial, humorous fashion, asks genuine, open-minded questions, and generally broaches serious topics with a healthy dose of lightheartedness and common sense.

  In other words, Joe Rogan approaches things with good faith and honesty.

  And this, pray tell, has been the main differentiating factor between a lot of the alternative media and giant media empires. The world is becoming aware of the fact that the giant media conglomerates all have a narrative—whether it is left, right, or otherwise—and they are all doing the bidding for their respective powers that be. And don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this, but it is among lobotomized automatons who are happy to have somebody else do their thinking for them, not the rest of us.

  

  A free market in any industry does well to allocate resources to where they belong. The mainstream media monolith is seeing its foundation crack because its viewership, the “resources” of the industry, is drifting to other sources.

  The beautiful thing about alternative media is that the overhead can be super low, and, in my case, I’ve been lucky enough to not really have to engage in any type of major marketing, save for a couple of emails that I send out each weekend. For the most part, it’s a one-man show. No producers, no multi-million dollar budget, no sponsors to bow to and no “guidelines” about what I can and can’t talk about.

  My friend Phil Bak casually asked me on Friday what I thought the marketing budget was for big media corporations.

  “Like fifty million a year or something,” I guessed.

  “Exactly,” Phil replied to me. “Fifty million f*cking dollars. And they can’t find a single interesting thing to say.”

  Unlike the dolts eating from the trough of their sponsors to determine their content, I’m lucky enough to get incredible content from friends of mine voluntarily because they, too, have been ignored by the mainstream. If they had opinions that were useless, there wouldn’t be a market for them. Instead, my subscriber list continues to grow.

  This means people are thirsty for an honest, open discussion and debate about the merits — especially in the world of finance, where modern monetary theorists proclaim themselves God while in the background their “theory” is self-immolating in plain sight.

  And so, less than a decade in to Rogan’s Spotify push, we have seen a major mutation of the media landscape, and my guess is that it is going to continue shifting as the days, weeks, and months go by. There will be more Rumbles, there will be more Barstool Sports, there will be more independent podcasts, there will be more grassroots news organizations, and, generally, there will be more honesty, candor, and fearlessness in the way news is reported. Some of the most important stories over the last two years, including ones about Covid and censorship, have been broken by independent investigative journalists like Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi.

  It is no mistake that these fearless individuals, bringing truth to light for those who seek it, have been welcomed onto the very same podcast platform that is earning Joe Rogan another $200 million contract. The poplace is thirsting for truth.

  And Rogan is personifying what the free market is telling the mainstream media machine: we’re done with authoritarianism, we can handle the truth, don’t infantilize us, you don’t know what’s best for us, let us make up our own minds and, in not so many words, treat us as adults with sovereignty over our own liberty.

  Congrats on the new contract, Joe, and thanks for the inspiration.

  —

  Thank you for reading QTR’s Fringe Finance. This post is public so feel free to share it: Share

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 18:40

• House GOP Propose $17.6B For Israel, With No Offsetting Cuts To IRS
  House GOP Propose $17.6B For Israel, With No Offsetting Cuts To IRS

  Next week, the GOP-led House will vote on a new, $17.6 billion Israel aid package that won’t include IRS funding cuts contained in their original bill, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Saturday.

  

  What’s more (oh boy!), the new House bill includes $3.3 billion to support US military operations in the Middle East as regional conflicts break out on multiple fronts, Axios reports.

  Johnson’s announcement comes as Senate negotiators prepare to roll out a comprehensive package that would fund Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific (oh, and border security funds are in there somewhere!).

  In a letter to House Republicans obtained by Axios, Johnson wrote that Senate leadership has “eliminated the ability for swift consideration” of an emergency spending package by refusing to include House leadership in the talks.

  “Given the Senate’s failure to move appropriate legislation in a timely fashion, and the perilous circumstances currently facing Israel, the House will … take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package,” Johnson’s letter reads.

  Johnson noted that the IRS offset was the “primary objection” Democrats had to the previous Israel bill, and that the Senate will “no longer have excuses … against swift passage of this critical support for our ally.”

  More via Axios:

  The backdrop: The House passed a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel in November, shortly after Johnson took office, but Democrats and even some Republicans were upset that its spending was paired with cuts to the IRS.

  • Just a dozen of the most staunchly pro-Israel House Democrats voted for the bill, many vocally criticizing the IRS piece, and it was blocked from consideration in the Senate.
  • The Senate has spent months trying to craft a comprehensive package that would pair Ukraine funding with border security provisions, but Republicans’ openness to such a deal has waned as the talks dragged on.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 18:05

• Is A Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Imminent?
  Is A Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Imminent?

  Authored by Tarik Solmaz via RealClear Wire,

  The recent victory of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te in Taiwan’s presidential election has heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, renewing the debate on a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. While most defense analysts do not perceive a war in the Taiwan Strait as imminent, some notable figures have often warned that China might be tempted to launch a military offensive against Taiwan anytime soon. A four-star U.S. Air Force general even suggested last year that Beijing might take military action against the island by 2025.

  

  Undoubtedly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been relentless in its pursuit of control over Taiwan. Since the presidency of Beijing-skeptic Tsai Ing-Wen began in 2016, the Chinese state has employed a large-scale hybrid warfare campaign against Taipei to subvert Taiwan’s independence-leaning government. China’s hybrid warfare efforts have comprised isolating Taipei diplomatically, undermining public trust through propaganda and fake news, cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and military intimidation through air defense identification zone (ADIZ) incursions and large-scale military exercises.

  Despite China’s prolonged hybrid warfare campaign, the pro-independence DPP’s candidate emerged victorious in the recent election. This victory prompts a reevaluation of China’s approach and raises questions about the potential for the escalation of hybrid warfare to a full-scale military operation. The fact that the Kremlin turned its protracted hybrid warfare campaign against Ukraine into a full-scale military operation on February 24, 2022, reveals that the hybrid model of warfare is not the sole element in the revisionist powers’ national security toolkit, and traditional warfare is here to stay. On paper, Chinese hybrid warfare activities against Taiwan may also escalate to conventional military operations at any time in the future. To assess the likelihood of a military invasion of Taiwan by China, it is crucial to understand the four key factors that led Beijing to adopt the hybrid warfare approach over the past eight years and whether those factors remain relevant.

  The first one is Taipei’s preference for the status quo. Beijing has long warned Taiwan that any attempt to declare formal independence from the mainland means war. Even though Taiwanese policymakers repeatedly asserted that Taiwan is already a sovereign and independent country and, thus, there is no need to proclaim independence, it is evident that they have refrained from making a formal declaration to avoid provoking Beijing. Due to Taipei’s hesitant position, China’s perception of the threat stemming from the Taiwanese independence movement has not reached the alarm threshold. Since the perceived threat has been significant but not vital, Beijing has preferred to employ the hybrid model of warfare, which falls somewhere between diplomacy and conventional warfare. Taiwan’s new president-elect, Lai Ching-te, has frequently emphasized during the electoral campaign that he desires to maintain the status quo with the mainland and has offered dialogue with Beijing. Lai’s emphasis on maintaining the status quo suggests this factor will likely persist.

  The second factor is the U.S. support for Taiwan. Although Washington cut off its diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979, it continued to maintain a robust informal relationship with Taiwan and to sell weapons to its army in the decades that followed. Furthermore, during the previous decade, China’s rise to become the world’s second-largest economic and military power has been perceived as a significant threat to its global interests by the United States. As a result, it has sought to create alliances to restrict its role in Asia-Pacific. In that regard, Washington has seen Taiwan as an important strategic partner and often stated that it will protect Taiwan if China carries out an outright invasion campaign on the island. Therefore, direct military intervention in Taiwan could prompt Washington to impose serious sanctions on China. Moreover, it could spark an all-out war between China and the United States. As such, in recent years, China has prioritized hybrid warfare operations against the island to avoid Washington’s possible countermeasures. The United States has not altered its position regarding a possible Chinese invasion campaign over Taiwan. Indeed, recently, as tension from China intensified, Washington approved a $300 million sale of equipment to help Taiwan upgrade its tactical information systems.

  The third factor involves China’s portrayal as a peaceful actor. Despite seemingly asserting a stance against the pursuit of regional or global hegemony and opposing the use of military force in international relations, China’s rapid economic growth raised concerns about potential dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, Beijing introduced the ‘peaceful rise’ concept in the early 2000s to allay suspicions and assure the global community that its expanding political, economic, and military capabilities would not jeopardize international peace and security. This policy remains essential for China to sustain economic growth and enhance diplomatic influence globally. An overt military operation against Taiwan would significantly damage China’s international image, as has been case with the Russian Federation. Hence, the Chinese leadership has opted for a hybrid warfare model to achieve political objectives concerning Taiwan, avoiding direct military confrontation. Ensuring China’s economic development still depends on its commitment to a peaceful rise, and there is no urgency for Beijing to veer away from the trajectory of peaceful development.

  The fourth and last key factor is that occupying the island might not be that straightforward in military terms. Beijing has consistently modernized and enhanced its military forces over decades, making the People Liberation Army (PLA) currently possess the world’s largest active-duty military personnel. Despite this, undertaking a potential invasion of Taiwan poses significant challenges for China’s military. China has not fought a conventional war since the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. The absence of recent experience in conventional warfare has left the Chinese military without an opportunity to test its doctrine and capabilities. Additionally, a prospective Chinese invasion of Taiwan would require a large-scale amphibious warfare operation. However, currently, the PLA lacks the military capability and capacity to conduct a full-blown amphibious operation against Taiwan.

  In conclusion, China’s reasons for adopting a hybrid warfare approach against Taiwan remain valid. Therefore, hybrid warfare operations still fit better into China’s cost-benefit calculus. China’s invasion of Taiwan seems unlikely in the short term. Instead, China would prefer to step up its hybrid warfare activities. The military aspects of China’s hybrid warfare operations may be more visible in the near future. Beijing may use maritime militias called ‘little blue men’ on a broader scale to harass and intimidate Taiwan.

  One day, Taiwan might experience a fate similar to Ukraine. However, the timing of such a scenario will depend on evolving circumstances, including Beijing’s perceptions of the threat posed by the Taiwanese independence movement, Washington’s stance on the Taiwan issue, and China’s military and economic posture. Changes in these factors may either heighten the probability of an all-out invasion campaign or contribute to the maintenance of peace.

  Tarik Solmaz is a Ph.D. Candidate and research assistant at the University of Exeter.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 17:30

• "Maybe Trump Is The Answer": Rapper 50 Cent Responds To NYC's $53M 'Cash For Migrants' Program
  “Maybe Trump Is The Answer”: Rapper 50 Cent Responds To NYC’s $53M ‘Cash For Migrants’ Program

  While New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has been complaining about “extremely painful” budget cuts, and warned that the flood of migrants thanks to the Biden administration’s open-border policies “will destroy New York City,” somehow – somehow, Adams’ administration has found it in the budget to allocate $53 million towards handing out pre-paid credit cards to migrant families living in Big Apple hotels, the NY Post reports.

  

  According to the Post;

  It’ll start with a group of 500 migrant families in short-term hotel stays and will replace the current food service offered there, according to City Hall.

  The cards can only be used at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores — and migrants must sign an affidavit swearing they will only spend the funds on food and baby supplies or they will be kicked out of the program.

  The Immediate Response Card initiative appears akin to the state’s food stamp program, dubbed SNAP, which provides lower-income New Yorkers with a credit card to cover the cost of meals, and will provide funds based on the same scale.

  If the program is a success, NYC will expand it to all migrant families staying (for free) in hotels – roughly 15,000, according to the report.

  “Not only will this provide families with the ability to purchase fresh food for their culturally relevant diets and the baby supplies of their choosing, but the pilot program is expected to save New York City more than $600,000 per month, or more than $7.2 million annually,” said Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak, apparently employing some type of heretofore unknown math.

  The program is similar to a bill proposed in California which would give unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants.

  50 Cent is not havin’ it

  In response to New York City’s program to take care of illegal migrants before their own homeless population, rapper 50 cent took to Instagram to tell his 31 million followers he might vote for Trump…

  

  “WTF mayor Adams call my phone, I don’t understand how this works,” he posted, adding “I’m stuck maybe TRUMP is the answer. “

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  A post shared by 50 Cent (@50cent)

   The comment comes days after rapper Snoop Dog said he has “nothing but love and respect” for the former President (who he once rapped about assassinating).

  Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., said in an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times that he’s still not sure who he’ll endorse in the election. But he made clear his view of the former president on a more personal level.

  “I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump,” Snoop Dogg said.

  What’s going on here?

  Slowly but surely. https://t.co/FHn0JLiE7S pic.twitter.com/8WfzVQmpKv

  — ZNO 🇺🇸 (@therealZNO) February 3, 2024

  TRUMP IS THE ONLY ANSWER—💯 pic.twitter.com/XcLYc3Ytma

  — Liberacrat Media™️ (@Liberacrat_) February 3, 2024

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  Illegal immigration is the biggest losing issue for Democrats since trans kids…

  And they’re just getting started.https://t.co/Z7LXdmjhwv

  — Emergent Perspective (@_emergent_) February 3, 2024

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 16:55

• Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food
  Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  In early 2020 in the midst of the covid lockdowns, blue states run by leftist governors pursued mandates with extreme prejudice. In red states like Montana, after the first month or two most of us simply ignored the restrictions and went on with life as usual. It was clear that covid was not the threat federal authorities made it out to be. However, in states like Michigan the vise was squeezed tighter and tighter under the direction of shady leaders like Gretchen Whitmer.

  

  Whitmer used covid as an opportunity to institute some bizarre limitations on the public, including a mandate barring larger stores from selling seeds and garden supplies to customers.

  “If you’re not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store,” Whitmer said when announcing her order.

  The leftist governor was fine with purchases of lottery tickets and liquor, but not gardening tools and seeds.

  She never gave a logical reason why she targeted garden supplies, but most people in the preparedness community understood very well what this was all about: This was a beta-test for wider restrictions on food independence. There was widespread rhetoric in the media throughout 2020 attacking anyone stockpiling necessities as “hoarders,” and now they were going after people planning ahead and trying to grow their own food. The establishment did NOT want people to store or produce a personal food supply.

  Another prospect that was being openly discussed among globalists was the idea that lockdowns were “helpful” in ways beyond stopping the spread of covid (the lockdowns were actually useless in stopping the spread of covid). They suggested that the these measures could be effective in preventing global carbon emissions and saving the world from “climate change.” The idea of climate lockdowns began to spread.

  The corporate media has since lied about the existence of the climate lockdown agenda, but articles and white papers extolling the virtues of shutting down the planet in the name of climate change are easy to find and read. The globalists and their academic defenders wanted PERMANENT lockdowns, or rolling lockdowns every couple of months, shutting down most human activity and travel outside of basic production.

  I have argued in the past that what Whitmer was doing in Michigan was a part of this agenda – That her garden supply ban was part of a wider goal that had nothing to do with public health safety and everything to do with stopping people from prepping. The covid controls were only meant to be a precursor to carbon controls.

  This past week we have seen more confirmation of this, as a study out of the University of Michigan claims that homegrown foods produce five times more carbon emissions than industrial farming methods.  In other words, private gardens could be considered a threat to the environment. The Telegraph and other corporate platforms have jumped on the story, and I believe this is cause for concern.

  The study includes analysis of various gardens from individual family plots to urban and community plots and claims that “garden infrastructure” for individual plots (such as raised beds) contribute far greater carbon pollution than large scale farming. The study seems to ignore the fact that raised beds are more efficient and grow more food in a smaller space, but I doubt they really care to take these kinds of things into consideration.

  The average person might be confused by this and assume the opposite is true – Wouldn’t growing foods at home be BETTER for the environment?

  Not if your funding relies on portraying independent food supplies as bad for the planet.

  The study is bankrolled by a host of international groups, including the European Union’s Horizon Program which lists “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” as one of its project goals.  These 100 cities are then supposed to act as flagship models for the eventual carbon agenda takeover of all cities by 2050.

  Such groups have billions of dollars at their disposal and focus most of that monetary firepower on climate change research (propaganda). Do I think that the Michigan study is rigged in favor of a predetermined outcome? Probably. When these studies are funded by globalist interests, their outcomes always seem to favor globalist goals. The study itself does not necessarily argue that people should stop gardening, but it does push the narrative that carbon controls are necessary, even at an individual level.

  The Michigan report might seem like a meaningless footnote.  However, as we witnessed last year with a study from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on natural gad appliances, these little and obscure studies are often used to justify large scale government interventions into people’s daily lives. The CPSC study inspired months of debates from Democrats in the US demanding that gas appliances including stoves be banned because they MIGHT cause health side effects, specifically in children (it turns out the study had no concrete basis for this claim).

  Leftists and globalists do not care about protecting your health; they care about how these studies can be used to fear monger, thus increasing their power. In other words, if you can rig the science, then you can rig the laws.

  We saw something similar to this in a UN study in 2006 which claimed that meat production contributed to nearly 20% of all carbon emissions and was worse for the environment than transportation. The study was exposed in 2010 as “flawed” (fraudulent), but for years the media and globalist organizations used its false conclusions as a springboard to demand limitations and bans on meat production in the name of saving the climate.

  If you think the war on farming which is raging right now in Europe is only intended to affect industrial farms, think again. The establishment is going to try to use the man-made climate change lie to dictate ALL food production, right down to your unassuming backyard garden.  And they won’t limit their efforts to the EU; they will come after American farms with the same restrictions.

  This is really what the globalist “net zero” programs and 15 minute cities are all about – They are based on the idea that all human activity needs to be monitored and managed. They say it’s for the good of the planet, but the systems they want to put in place from 2030 to 2050 sound like a new digital feudalism, a society where bureaucracies track and trace and micromanage every aspect of your life. The elites benefit greatly while never proving that carbon emissions are a danger to anyone.

  Why the obsessive focus on food? Because if people have their own food, then they might be more willing to rebel against further mandates. It’s really that simple.

  The end game is obvious – Control the food, and you control the world. Do it in the name of saving the planet and a lot of people will even thank you as you starve them.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 16:20

• Freedom Convoy Arrives At US Southern Border While Biden Drops Bombs In Middle East
  Freedom Convoy Arrives At US Southern Border While Biden Drops Bombs In Middle East

  The Take Back Our Border convoy reached the Texas-Mexico border on Friday night to show support for the Texas government in its ongoing standoff with radicals in the Biden administration over disastrous open southern border policies that have triggered the worst migrant invasion this nation has ever seen.

  Dozens of videos posted on social media platform X show the convoy of trucks arriving at Cornerstone Children’s Ranch in Quemado, Texas, late Friday night. The area is located about a quarter mile from the US-Mexico border. 

  The ‘Take Our Border Back’ convoy arrives in Quemado, Texas less than a quarter of a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border. pic.twitter.com/uo3vnngDVZ

  — Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 3, 2024

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  Some scenes from tonight’s Take Our Border Back revival at Cornerstone Children’s Ranch… anyone know this flag? pic.twitter.com/y11nODxHzc

  — Madeleine May (@madbmay) February 3, 2024

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  Countless truck drivers have converged in Texas, including many Canadians, for the Take Our Border Back convoy. pic.twitter.com/8VWMsB5zme

  — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 3, 2024

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  #NOW The “Take Our Borders Back” Convoy has arrived at Cornerstone Children’s Ranch near Eagle Pass border town for the rally tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/tRhBZ4GdqA

  — Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) February 3, 2024

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  Earlier on Friday, Take Back Our Border leader Dr. Pete Chambers and Senate candidate Ben Luna, R-NM, joined “Fox & Friends First” and warned about the out-of-control migrant invasion that is plunging this country into a crisis. 

  “The fentanyl is, I call it, a chemical warfare across the border. The drug trade is tremendous,” said Chambers, an Army veteran, adding the objective of the open southern border policies by Biden is “complete destabilization.” 

  Legacy corporate media automatically bashed working-class Americans who wanted common-sense border security, calling anyone associated with the convoy “Far-right conspiracy theorist. Americans are figuring corporate media is not their friend. 

  

  Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, musician Ted Nugent, and elected Texas officials spoke at the convoy staging area yesterday. 

  “The eyes of the world are on Texas right now. 

  “Now, more than ever, it’s required of us to stand up and fight for what’s right, because it’s unconscionable, it’s treasonous, what our own federal government is doing to us in actually sanctioning an invasion, a foreign invasion, of our country,” Palin said.

  Ted Nugent rocks the National Anthem at the Take Our Border Back Rally!🔥

  pic.twitter.com/ae4V7PZyLX

  — I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) February 2, 2024

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  “I’d like to apologize on behalf of ‘we the people, ‘ for allowing this piece of shit to get in the White House.”

  – Ted Nugent speaking at “Take Our Border Back” convoy rally in Dripping Springs, Texas. #protest #borderconvoy pic.twitter.com/iUb4rRbgeF

  — Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) February 2, 2024

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  The convoy plans two other rallies this weekend, with one event in Yuma, Arizona, and another in San Ysidro. 

  “Fellow citizens and compatriots … I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character to come to our aid with all dispatch,” Chambers wrote on the convoy’s website. 

  “If this call is neglected, we are determined to sustain ourselves as long as possible and act like soldiers who never forget what is due to our own honor and that of our country,” he continued.

  The convoy aims to “send a message” to the federal government about the migrant invasion facilitated by the Biden administration and shadowy taxpayer-funded NGOs.  

  Populist uprisings are emerging across the Western world (read: here) as radical leftist elected and non-elected officials have pushed widely unpopular policies that have angered the vast majority of the working poor. 

  Meanwhile, the Biden administration is more interested in starting another major conflict in the Middle East this weekend by dropping bombs on Iraq and Syria. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 15:45

• A Bitcoin Standard Unleashed
  A Bitcoin Standard Unleashed

  Authored by Michele Uberti via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  INTRODUCTION

  The transition from Fiat Standards to the Bitcoin Standard, though highly desirable, is not inevitable or necessarily imminent. The timing and occurrence of these changes hinge on the adoption choices made by individuals, organizations, and public entities. These decisions are influenced not only by rational considerations but also by emotional and irrational factors (greed and fear above all). The collective will, formed by the intentions of a critical mass with sufficient capital and agency, plays a crucial role in displacing central banks and the entrenched power structures in favor of a new system centered around Bitcoin. Despite Bitcoin’s evident technical, economic, and ethical superiority over other form of money, this struggle will undoubtedly be a formidable one, with the outcome far from assured.

  

  Nonetheless, it is crucial to reflect on the consequences that this potential revolution, if realized (as we all hope), could have on every facet of social existence. These implications span from the nature of states and international relations to the functioning of economic systems, prevailing value systems, and even the energy market and technological innovation. In this article, without the pretense of being exhaustive, we aim to briefly explore some of these aspects and suggest plausible trajectories.

  BITCOIN AND FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING

  As Hal Finney correctly forecasted, a hypothetical Bitcoin Standard would be incompatible with central banks but not necessarily with a fractional reserve banking system. Algorithmic limits on the number of transactions per block will certainly prevent Layer 1 from serving as a retail payment system. Over time, fewer transactions will occur on it, and these will be of a very high value (in practice, only whales or large public and private institutions, given the high costs, will be able to afford them).

  Some form of free banking 2.0 on Layer 2 would then be quite inevitable in the medium to long term for a Bitcoin-based monetary system. In the absence of a central bank as the lender of last resort and with much easier reserve verifiability than with gold, this Layer 2/layer 3 FRB (Fractional Reserve Banking) will be much more fragile than the current fractional reserve system supported by legal tender, central bank, and practical indistinguishability between the monetary base and the money supply. This will only reinforce the importance of Layer 1 as the solid foundation of the monetary system, similar to the role gold played in past millennia.

  MACROECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

  Ceteris Paribus, in the medium term, the adoption of a hypothetical Bitcoin Standard should significantly dampen economic cycle fluctuations, preventing excessive indebtedness, mal-investment, and credit bubbles in the private sector, leading to systemic debt crises. Monetary repression would also result in much slower but steady real growth rates in economies in the medium to long term. With the absence of the engine of monetary and credit expansion, i.e., the inflationary policies of central banks, the nominal growth of output within a Bitcoin Standard will be modest, but real growth will remain significant. In other words, any increase in multi-factor productivity will result in a decline in consumer prices measured in satoshis rather than an increase in nominal output. In this context, even in the short term, economic growth will depend on demographic, ecological, and economic factors rather than monetary or credit factors.

  In this regard, with the Bitcoin Standard, there will be a gradual shift of wealth from the financial sector, which has become voracious today, to the real and productive economy. This is a consequence of the significant downsizing of bond and money markets (reduction in the level of indebtedness of economies) and therefore the entire industry profiting from them.

  Among the businesses that will experience the most downsizing are centralized payment and clearing systems, traditional credit institutions, fiduciary agents such as notaries (replaced by smart contracts on Layer 2 and 3 of Bitcoin), and those involved in financial, real estate, and insurance intermediation.

  On the contrary, anything leveraging the potential of Bitcoin’s layers (for smart contracts) and DeFi will experience a real boom.

  (GEO)POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

  Regarding the immutability of the monetary base, it would force states into strict fiscal discipline as the option to monetize deficits or debt as a form of public spending financing would disappear. This will profoundly influence the ability of nation-states to provide welfare or wage wars. In the absence of a monetary printing press and, thus, the insidious tax called inflation, fiscal pressure and the allocation of public spending will become the subject of serious negotiations and political disputes, as they will directly affect the pockets of citizens/subjects/taxpayers.

  On one hand, this could encourage more direct forms of democracy (facilitated by the spread of blockchains and DAOs) to give citizens a greater say in tax and spending decisions. On the other hand, a world based on the Bitcoin Standard could lead to a much more fragmented and apolar geopolitical landscape, given the intrinsic unsustainability of maintaining such large and inefficient state apparatuses, resembling more the classic medieval feudalism. Instead of the sword/blood/robe aristocracy, Bitcoin whales would become the dominant social class, where non-coiners would be a kind of new serfdom. The former, individuals, families, and institutions with huge Bitcoin holdings (created in the early stages of adopting this technology, i.e., in the first two decades of its existence), would be able to provide welfare, work, and protection to citizens/subjects in exchange for loyalty, services, and obedience to their “feudal” rule. The latter, the vast majority of the population whose ancestors arrived too late to adopt and convert their fiat capital into Bitcoin (for various ideological or practical reasons, including economic constraints), would find themselves at the bottom of the pyramid and would be forced to earn their living through the sweat of their brow or (more likely, given technological advances) through the generosity, more or less interested, of philanthropic whales. This dynamic would also apply internationally: there would be pioneering regions or nations that, having adopted Bitcoin as legal tender first, would enjoy a significant relative wealth advantage that would be hard to match by latecomers.

  These would not necessarily be the currently dominant nations; in fact, some may not even exist at present. The ultimate result would be a much more fragmented international system than the current one, consisting of a mix of democratic, socialist, or oligarchic city-states, crypto-aristocratic fiefdoms centered around individual families, and large anarchic and chaotic regions. All these entities would be in competition/cooperation with each other, forming a completely new and constantly evolving geopolitical-ideological landscape. In a world where old identity affiliations (national, ideological, and religious) would overlap and mix with new identities based on the interpretation of the Bitcoin revolution. Given the technological assumptions and ideological foundations of Bitcoin culture, a “coinist” religion could emerge, tied to certain ritualistic and faith-based aspects that are already glimpsed among its staunch supporters (immaculate conception, decentralization, worship of Satoshi, algorithmic infallibility). In any case, the Bitcoin Standard would impose on the societies adopting it some economic norms closely influencing public morality. Among them are the sense of limit, the ethic of saving, prudence in investments, long-termism, honesty in commercial transactions, individual responsibility, fiscal discipline, and, of course, the independence and incorruptibility of money from state powers.

  NODES, MINING, AND GEOPOLITICS

  Nodes are the heart of the Bitcoin network and would, therefore, receive significant attention from political powers. Controlling full nodes (and thus potential miners) within a specific territory by public authorities would be extremely important for claiming sovereignty internally and influencing the international scene. Naturally, given other variables, nations capable of producing energy at lower costs or on a larger scale would have an advantage in allocating and thus controlling significant shares of the global bitcoin hashrate. An eternal struggle for control of the global hashrate will be the new center of geo-economic disputes. That being said, it is by no means guaranteed that most territorial political entities will be able to effectively exert this control, and it’s uncertain how they will go about doing so.

  While legitimate physical coercion might seem like the obvious choice, given the specific nature of states, it may not necessarily be the most successful approach in a geopolitically more fragmented and competitive landscape than the current one. Thanks to the high mobility of Bitcoin and the fiscal constraints imposed on traditional states by this monetary system, miners and whales alike could quite easily opt to move elsewhere if their property rights and entrepreneurial freedom end up in danger, finding sanctuary in more libertarian jurisdictions. On the flip side, a different scenario may unfold for those novel ‘neo-aristocratic’ state entities built around one or more Whales; in this case, the monopoly over mining and the necessary energy resources might be more pronounced, given the immense economic power held by their governing bodies.

  ENERGY MARKET IMPLICATIONS

  Bitcoin is not a commodity currency but an energy one. The power it encapsulates is the energy consumed to create and transfer it. As the lifeblood of the new monetary paradigm, therefore, energy will be even more at the core of the economic system than today. This will radically inform progress in the energy sector, generating a race for technological innovations on both the extraction and energy-saving sides. A whole range of energy sources previously neglected as uneconomical could now become convenient and accessible thanks to their use for mining. Think of the sun in African and Asian deserts, deposits of methane and natural gas in remote locations, or geothermal energy from volcanoes and geysers, or even some systems based on wave motion and temperature differentials in the depths of the oceans.

  With an ever-increasing demand for energy, there will be a growing incentive to generate more energy and do so more efficiently in a virtuous circle that could lead to a major energetical revolution, potentially bringing humankind closer to a level 2 civilization on the Kardashev scale, certainly contributing to electrifying the planet even in the remotest places. Another likely consequence of a Bitcoin Standard will be the reversal of roles between energy producers and consumers. The largest energy consumers (mining farms) will over time become the main energy producers in a vertical integration of assets and energy infrastructure that, starting from the bottom, will assimilate the entire energy industry. Whether this will lead to greater or lesser concentration versus decentralization of energy producers remains to be seen, but it will certainly depend on the commercial dynamics of the mining industry.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 15:10

• RNC Reports Worst Fundraising Year In A Decade
  RNC Reports Worst Fundraising Year In A Decade

  Authored by Austin Alonzo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2023 raised its lowest amount of money since 2013, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.

  

  On Jan. 31, the RNC, along with other Republican Party and Democratic Party national committees and congressional committees, filed their annual fundraising tallies with the regulator.

  The RNC, according to its year-end filing, brought in about $87.2 million in total federal receipts. That’s a sharp drop from the about $241.1 million it raised in 2019, the last year preceding a general election. Moreover, it’s significantly lower than the $176 million it raised in 2022.

  The GOP’s primary committee reported it had about $8 million on hand at the end of 2023. That’s the lowest amount it had on hand at the end of the year since 2014, when it had about $5 million in the bank. Additionally, at the end of last year the RNC was saddled with about $1.8 million in debt.

  By comparison, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reported it raised $119.9 million in total federal receipts in 2023. It also held $21 million on hand and was debt-free.

  On Feb. 1, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison posted on X that the Republicans need to “pray” for better fundraising.

  A person familiar with the RNC’s finances who spoke with The Epoch Times said without including transfers from elsewhere, the RNC beat every other Democrat or Republican committee in 2023 fundraising. Only the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised the RNC in 2023, they said.

  The RNC and DNC are the primary committees of their respective parties. The organizations are charged with developing and promoting the parties’ platforms and supporting candidates for local, state, and national offices.

  In the presidential primary race in 2023, the main fundraising arms of former President Donald Trump brought in more than those of President Joe Biden, according to newly released regulatory filings.

  An RNC official who spoke with The Epoch Times said the RNC raised about $12 million in January. Moreover, it is on track for a strong February thanks to gifts from major donors and grassroots supporters. The committee is confident it will have the resources to win in November, the official said.

  

  Congressional committees

  In 2023, FEC filings show the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) outraised their counterparts, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC), by about $26 million.

  Combined, the DSCC and DCCC raised about $195.6 million in total federal receipts in 2023. The NRSC and NRCC brought in about $169.3 million. However, the two GOP congressional committees held the advantage in cash on hand. They had about $17.8 million more in the bank at the end of last year.

  The committees exist primarily to raise money and donate to the campaigns of candidates running for seats in the House or Senate.

  In a statement, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene hailed its nearly $30 million fundraising victory over the NRCC in 2023.

  “The public is growing tired of Republican dysfunction and their unwillingness to govern responsibly,” Ms. DelBene said in a release. ”The DCCC will have the resources it needs to take back the majority to defend reproductive rights, stop extremism in its tracks, and help grow the middle class.”

  In the 118th Congress, Republicans are the majority party in the House. In the Senate, Republicans hold 49 of the 100 seats, and Democrats hold 48. Still, Democrats are considered the majority party because the three independent lawmakers, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), caucus with the liberal party.

  All 435 House seats will be up for election in November 2024. A third of the Senate seats will also be up for election.

  ActBlue Dominates WinRed

  The online fundraising battle continues to be a rout for the Democratic Party.

  In 2023, ActBlue, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 that raises money electronically for Democratic candidates and liberal causes, raked in about $754.4 million in total receipts, according to its annual disclosure report.

  WinRed, a GOP answer to ActBlue that debuted in 2019, brought in about $431.2 million in 2023, according to its year-end FEC filing.

  ActBlue enjoys a serious advantage in cash on hand. WinRed reported it had about $200,000 in the bank at the end of the year. ActBlue has more than $54.7 million.

  Both ActBlue and WinRed are hybrid political action committees.

  A hybrid PAC, according to the FEC, can solicit and accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions, and other political committees. It must maintain two bank accounts—one for independent spending on advertisements or voter drives and another for making direct contributions to federal candidates.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 14:00

• US Strikes Killed At Least 39, Including "Many Civilians," As Iraq Warns Stability Is On "Brink Of The Abyss"
  US Strikes Killed At Least 39, Including “Many Civilians,” As Iraq Warns Stability Is On “Brink Of The Abyss”

  Widespread reports say at least 39 were killed in the Friday US airstrikes on Iran-linked targets across Western Iraq and Eastern Syria, which used over 125 bombs and precision munitions, according to a Pentagon statement.

  There are reportedly civilians among the dead. The Baghdad government on Saturday said that 16 Iraqis, among them civilians, were killed – while on the other side of the border the Syrian Defense Ministry confirmed that both militants and civilians were killed but without providing a figure. The Syrian military said that “many civilian and military martyrs” died. The anti-Assad monitoring group, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the Syria strikes killed 23 militia fighters. 

  The official readout by US Central Command (CENTCOM) described that “The facilities that were struck included command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”

  

  The strikes lasted for over 30 minutes, having begun at 4pm Eastern Time, and additionally utilized B-1B bombers which flew over 6,000 miles after departing from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, among other aerial assets. This was supposedly for the element of “surprise” – despite the White House taking nearly a week to respond.

  On Saturday it has come to light that the Pentagon let Iraqi government officials know shortly before the strikes began. The Biden administration has come under fire especially from hawkish GOP Congress members over telegraphing the operation to the point that IRGC officers could vacate bases and military assets. According to new reporting in NBC:

  Iraq did receive prior warning of American airstrikes, contrary to the claims of Iraqi government officials, a senior administration official told NBC News today.

  Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani earlier described the White House’s assertion that Iraq had been notified of the United States’ intention to conduct airstrikes as “lies,” as the foreign ministry called in the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq to protest what they called the “blatant aggression” against Iraqi sovereignty.

  But according to one administration official, the Iraqi government was given short-notice warning that the U.S. would strike. “It wasn’t a huge heads up,” they said, “but it is not accurate to say they weren’t informed.”

  An official speaking to NBC further said that list of targets were tied directly Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a retaliatory response to the killing of three American soldiers on the Jordan-Syria border Sunday. Importantly, according to Al Jazeera, “Even though Washington said all its intended targets were supported by the Quds Force command of the IRGC, no Iranian personnel are believed to have been killed.”

  President Biden has said, “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.” He added: “But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.” Iran and Iraq are now warning that US action is stoking instability. According to FT:

  The Iraqi government said on Saturday that 16 people, including civilians, were killed in the US attacks, warning that they would “put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss”. 

  But as journalist and geopolitical commentator Aaron Maté points out it was Washington which has kept Americans in harm’s way to begin with, by refusing to finally and fully exit Iraq as the government and its people have urged, and by maintaining the oil and gas occupation of eastern Syria. Maté concludes that essentially Biden has sacrificed American troops and Mideast security for US-Israeli hegemony:

  What remains undoubtedly clear is that Biden has put US troops in harm’s way and provoked a wider regional escalation due to his devotion not only to Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza, but broader regional US hegemony. And because the bipartisan US establishment is in lockstep behind that agenda, the only question at hand is what “level” of aggression to commit.

  The US government is well aware that it has alternatives to enforcing the Israeli genocide of Gaza and the American military presence across the region.

  According to the Times’ Baker, US officials “have said for months that they did not believe Iran wanted a direct war with the United States.” Instead, these officials acknowledge, “Iran has used its proxy forces to keep up the pressure on the United States and Israel as Israel continues to pound Hamas in Gaza.” By “pound Hamas,” Baker means Gaza’s civilian population, the main victims of the US-supplied armaments that regularly pound Gaza.

  In Yemen, Biden understands that his strikes are failing to deter the Ansar Allah movement’s (aka the Houthis’) blockade of Red Sea ships in protest of the Gaza genocide. Days after the US strikes began, Biden was asked if the bombings are working. “Well, when you say, ‘working’ — are they stopping the Houthis? No,” Biden said. “Are they gonna continue? Yes.”

  

  This means that likely this large-scale tit-for-tat will continue and could easily spiral toward direct US-Iran war, which would also draw in Israel, and perhaps Russia would have something to say as well, given its military presence in Syria.

  * * *

  Below: the Biden administration’s strikes have received mixed – but mostly positive – reaction from the generals. Here are a few initial reactions courtesy of Peter Tchir’s Academy Securities…

  “President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin certainly did not speak softly in the run-up to today’s U.S. attacks in Iraq and Syria. We must now wait to see how much of its “big stick” the U.S. Central Command uses in the coming days. It took five days for the U.S. to conduct the retaliatory strikes, and the timing may be tied to today’s dignified transfer of our three U.S. service members. The strikes were focused on Iranian-backed Shia militia groups, and the timing certainly gave those groups (and any IRGC support personnel) time to evacuate the target areas. Iran continues supplying the weapons to the proxies that are used in these attacks against U.S. forces. If the administration is concerned with escalating to a hot war with Iran and does not want to attack Iran itself, they should at least put a strangle-hold on Iranian oil sales. President Biden must make this painful enough to Iran to get them to back their proxy forces off.” – General Robert Walsh

  “These strikes included a significant number of targets and weapons used by the United States. Interesting that the B-1 was used because flying directly from the U.S. provides an additional layer of surprise. Hopefully this sends a message to Iran and the IRGC that it is not in their best interest to continue supporting attacks against U.S. forces. Hard to tell at this point what IRGC leadership personnel were targeted.” – General David Deptula

  “The strikes were well coordinated against a set of targets focused on the IRGC Quds Force, the major trainer and supplier to the other proxies. The targets hit all facets of command and control, supply points, launch locations, and missile/UAV storage locations. We will see an analysis of battle damage and follow-up strikes to ensure that we achieved the desired effects. This included our full complement of capabilities such as aircraft launching from the U.S. directly to targets in the AOR. As expected, this was an increase in scale and scope, and a strike against the Iranian IRGC Quds Force, not just the proxies they support. This is more than just a single targeting effort; I am sure that there will be more in the next few days.” – General Frank Kearney

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 13:25

• California Bill Would Give Unemployment Benefits To Illegal Immigrants
  California Bill Would Give Unemployment Benefits To Illegal Immigrants

  Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

  On Jan. 1, illegal immigrants in California received free medical care.

  That was thanks to Assembly Bill 133, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in July 2021.

  Cost: $4 billion more a year, as an estimated 764,000 illegal immigrants are added to the already stuffed rolls of the 14.6 million Californians on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the Medicare program.

  

  At the signing almost three years ago, Mr. Newsom exclaimed, “We’re investing California’s historic surplus to accomplish transformative changes we’ve long dreamed of—including this historic Medi-Cal expansion to ensure thousands of older undocumented Californians, many of whom have been serving on the front lines of the pandemic, can access critical health care services.”

  Oops! That was when the state enjoyed a nearly $100 billion budget surplus. Now it’s suffering a deficit of $38 billion, according to Mr. Newsom’s Jan. 10 budget proposal. Or $58 billion, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Jan. 13 analysis of that proposal.

  Next up: Senate Bill 277, by state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles). It would give unemployment benefits to illegal aliens. According to the analysis by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, “This bill establishes, until January 1, 2027, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Excluded Workers Program (EWP) administered by the Employment Development Department (EDD) to provide income assistance to workers ineligible for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.”

  And here are the new costs:

  • $270.7 million to set up the program. The taxpayer dollars would go “primarily to develop a new information technology (IT) system. EDD’s UI program is a federal-state partnership, with the current IT system largely funded through federal grants. However, federal rules would preclude EDD from using existing systems to administer the EWP, thus requiring EDD to establish a new, separate IT system exclusively for the EWP.”

  • Annual costs to run the IT system “ranging from $39.3 million to $53.8 million.”

  • “Ongoing costs of benefit amounts, ranging from $330 million to $2 billion, paid to EWP claimants.”

  Here’s the problem, though. Health care involves an actual, physical patient needing to be patched up or given medications, or preventive medicine. So there’s a limit. But giving unemployment benefits to illegal aliens would make the EDD system even more ripe for fraud than it already is. Many illegal immigrants pay into the system now. But how do we know they’re actually doing the work claimed? What if they’re laid off officially, collect EDD benefits, but then are hired back unofficially for the same jobs? By definition, “illegal” involves at least some measure of illegality.

  

  Employment Development Department paperwork in Irvine, Calif., on April 2, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  EDD Fraud

  Then there’s the EDD’s long-existing fraud problems. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of Jan. 24, the EDD still owes the federal government $20 billion borrowed to pay for the massive fraud committed on its system during the unemployment crisis in 2020 from COVID-19.

  And last October, CalMatters reported on the cost for each California employee: “The current debt has triggered a $21 increase per employee that employers must pay in payroll taxes starting this year. Employers’ rates will keep rising an additional $21 per employee each year until the state pays off the debt to the federal government, for a total of $945 per employee through 2031, according to projections by the Legislative Analyst’s Office based on the average state unemployment insurance tax rate.”

  The “employer” payment, by the way, over the long term actually is paid, through reduced wages, by those employees at the company.

  In explaining the bill last June, Ms. Durazo’s website shamelessly pulled the “race card”: “SB 227 would address a longstanding racist exclusion that has had a devastating economic impact on immigrant communities, California’s industries, and the wellbeing of our state particularly during times of disaster, such as wildfires and historic winter storms. Millions of undocumented immigrant workers work in jobs that help California prosper; they are unable to access unemployment benefits when they experience job loss.”

  Actually, if SB 227 impacts the state budget for $2 billion—or maybe a lot more if the EDD’s fraud risk crops up again—everyone, of all races, creeds, and colors, will be hurt by either cuts to other state programs, or tax increases. Moreover, also included should be benefits that illegal immigrants get already, beginning with the aforementioned Medi-Cal care, plus free education for their children in public schools.

  

  Illegal immigrants who passed through a gap in the U.S. border wall await processing by Border Patrol agents in Jacumba, Calif., on Dec. 7, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

  Tough to Make SB 227 Law

  Last year, numerous rallies were held across the state for SB 227. CBS News Bay Area reported on April 13, “A group of workers from the Bay Area and across California gathered at the State Capitol on Thursday, urging lawmakers to pass a bill to make unemployment benefits available to undocumented immigrants. …

  “After almost an hour and a half, the bus reached Sacramento. More than 100 undocumented workers from all over the state were already gathered.”

  The bill was not passed last year, but continued to 2024. “Probably the earliest action that could take place on that would be June,” Jennifer Richard, Ms. Durazo’s chief of staff, told me. “But the most important part would be seeing if there was some kind of funding in the budget. And right now that’s not looking so good because of the budget shortfall that we’re facing.”

  There’s the rub: The $38 billion or $58 billion budget deficit. Even if SB 227 passes the Legislature, it likely would face a veto by Gov. Newsom. Indeed, in 2022 he vetoed a similar bill, Assembly Bill 2847, due to budget concerns.

  As I wrote in The Epoch Times on Jan. 19, “California Gov. Newsom’s 2024 Presidential Hopes Fade,” he’s looking to 2028. He’s term-limited as governor, so he doesn’t have to care about getting reelected here.

  But he has to get that budget deficit under control, or it will be a heavy albatross hanging around his neck once he leaves office in January 2027 and takes aim at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 12:50

• Visualizing Past Interest-Rate-Cut Cycles & 2024 Forecasts
  Visualizing Past Interest-Rate-Cut Cycles & 2024 Forecasts

  A key question mark for the U.S. and global economy is around when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in 2024 and by how much.

  After a rapid set of rate hikes throughout 2022, the U.S. Federal Reserve now faces the challenge of timing its easing of monetary policy to ensure a soft landing for the economy.

  Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte created this visualization (from their 2024 Global Forecast Series) using data from the Federal Reserve to chart past interest rate cut cycles and visualizes forecasts by top banks and institutions on when they expect the first rate cut of 2024 and the number of cuts they expect by end of year.

  

  Looking Back at Past Interest Rate Cuts Cycles

  While interest rate cycles are an economic balancing act which must be carefully managed, rate hikes and cuts of the past have typically been steep and swift.

  Looking back at past interest rate cuts for historical context, we can see how quickly these easing cycles played out, especially those in the 1970s and 1980s.

  

  Rate cuts typically begin once the Federal Reserve has confirmation that the economy has slowed down and inflationary pressures have subsided. Nearly every interest rate cutting cycle has seen the economy enter a recession right before or after rate cuts have started.

  “There is always a delay between when central banks raise interest rates and when the economy feels the effects.”

  – Simon Rabinovitch, The Economist

  While the recessions occur around the time rates are cut, they’re usually a delayed effect from the tighter financial conditions caused by rate hikes, with cuts bringing looser and more accommodative financial conditions for the economy down the line.

  Institutional Forecasts for Interest Rate Cuts in 2024

  After some of the most rapid rate hikes in history kicked off this latest interest rate cycle in 2022, market participants and banks are leaning towards similarly rapid set of rate cuts in 2024.

  Most institutions, including J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, are expecting the Fed’s first rate cut to occur at the mid-point of the year in June. There is a group of outliers which includes UBS, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, that are expecting the first rate cut as early as March.

  When it comes to the total amount of interest rate cuts we’ll see in 2024, the majority of institutions are forecasting around 100 to 125 basis points (bps) in rate cuts, which would bring the Federal Funds Rate to around 4-4.25%.

  Rate Cuts or Not, is a Recession Inevitable?

  While nearly every interest rate cycle of the past has experienced a recession around the time of rate cuts, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is optimistic that this time may be different.

  “I have always felt, since the beginning, that there was a possibility, because of the unusual situation, that the economy could cool off in a way that enabled inflation to come down without the kind of large job losses that have often been associated with high inflation and tightening cycles.

  So far, that’s what we’re seeing.”

  – Jerome Powell, Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve

  With FOMC members themselves projecting more conservative rate cuts in 2024 with a forecasted median year-end rate of 4.6%, time will tell whether more conservative or agressive rate cuts this year will manage to keep the economy out of a recession.

  *  *  *

  This visual is from Visual Capitalist’s 2024 Global Forecast Series Report:

  Get full access to the series, which compiles insights from 700+ expert predictions for what will happen in 2024, by becoming a VC+ member today.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 12:15

• Will The Fed Elect Biden?
  Will The Fed Elect Biden?

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

  The Federal Reserve guards its independence with indefatigable ferocity.

  

  It is so intent on keeping it that it will practically do anything for the politicians that might otherwise take it away.

  It’s been like this for one hundred years and more.

  The irony should be obvious.

  If you have to acquiesce to your masters to retain your decision-making autonomy, you do not really have it at all. And the Fed never has had it. It has actually two masters: the largest and most powerful banks and the largest and most powerful forces within government. Most of the time these days, those are the same people.

  The Fed is there to serve them while imposing costs on the rest of us.

  Everyone associated with the Biden administration has been propagandizing for months and years about the glorious results of Bidenomics. All corporate media echos this gibberish even though most people know it is completely untrue. The data is fake. When it is not fake it is not relevant. When it is relevant, the underlying reality is terrible.

  You can see it in the savings rates alone. It is going down, now at 3.7 percent (historical rates have been closer to 10 percent). This is true even though for the first time in more than a generation there is finally a positive return on savings!

  Without savings, you don’t get sustainable investment. Without that, prosperity dies a gradual death.

  How could personal savings be going down? The answer is unbearably obvious. People do not have discretionary income to save. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, despite record numbers of multiple jobholders. The most reliable data we have reports real income as down.

  

  What buoyancy there is in American economic life is due to growing debt and government spending which means more debt. It simply cannot last. It’s a ticking time bomb. The substance of a genuinely prosperous society is being eaten out before our very eyes. You know this in your heart.

  In the last four years, the Fed has stolen 20 cents on the dollar of your purchasing power. They sent you money in the mail and then took it away with the hidden tax called inflation. Then they raised rates to curb the inflation just when American households had run out of money to save.

  Who ended up with the trillions in newly printed dollars? The banks. Great reset businesses like wind turbine companies. Online learning platforms. New billionaires were minted at your expense and you are left holding pockets of change. Now the IRS wants those.

  But here’s the thing.

  The Fed has said it is prepared to lower rates this year. Not now but later. Perhaps closer to the election so the credit-addicted financial markets can get another injection of narcotic to make it float as high as possible. The idea here is to create the illusion of prosperity in service to the deep state that absolutely prefers that Donald Trump not get a second term.

  The idea of rate-cutting, in theory, is to dig the economy out of recession or prevent one. It does not work for the long term but that’s the theory. This is what’s called countercyclical policy. It’s a discredited disaster but the Fed does it anyway.

  As a rule, a long history of failure does nothing to dissuade the Fed from repeating the same.

  But if the economy is all peachy keen and everything is just hunky dory, why would the Fed need to be talking about cutting rates? What possible purpose could it solve?

  You can observe the mainstream financial press warming the public up now for this eventuality. They are answering the obvious question the following way. The Fed is just being cautious and deploying earned slack in their interest rate management in service of the American people.

  I’m sure you believe this!

  There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for cutting rates now. They have barely been positive in real terms for a few months of the last quarter century. The policy of zero interest gave rise to bloated companies, absurd financialization, DEI, ESG, and an entire overclass of wildly high-paid credentialed elites who do nothing but the devil’s work.

  So good riddance. But rates are now barely positive according to all official inflation and rate data. Indeed they need to be vastly higher if they are going to be anything approaching free-market reality.

  

  (Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

  Right now we have an economy running on fakery. The Fed’s plan to cut more later this year is a political strategy and nothing more. It will do long-term damage. It will further the credit/debt addiction and it will install a regime that is currently working to convert the United States into a prize for the great reset, ruled by the World Health Organization and throwing aside its pro-freedom patrimony for a ghastly and malicious hellscape.

  Meanwhile, the path could reignite inflation, just as it did after 1976. But, heck, the Biden junta will be running things and the goal will have been achieved.

  I’m not being partisan here. I’m only suggesting that having a giant money-printer down the street from the White House might not be the best path for guaranteeing democratic fairness or sound money. The mix of politics and monetary policy is utterly toxic. And if this year proceeds like it appears to be mapped, we are about to find out just how nefarious this mix is.

  And, hey, if this Fed caper doesn’t work, they always have Taylor Swift and her Pfizer-salesman boyfriend.

  They have laid very clever plans but what the Fed and the White House cannot control is the massive loss of trust among the public, and they cannot quell the growing public anger about immigration disasters and declining American prosperity and freedom. The illusion works until it suddenly does not work anymore.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 02/03/2024 – 11:40