• Turkey Expected To Become US' Largest Supplier Of Artillery
  Turkey Expected To Become US’ Largest Supplier Of Artillery

  Authored by Ahmed Adel via GlobalResearch.ca,

  Turkey is set to become the United States’ largest supplier of artillery shells as NATO allies have exhausted their stocks and now struggle to ship ammunition to Ukraine. Turkey’s indirect support for Ukraine is also supplemented by direct support, such as producing drones and warships, yet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offers himself as a viable partner in searching for peace between Ukraine and Russia.

  

  “Turkish supplies of trinitrotoluene, known as TNT, and nitroguanidine, which is used as a propellant, would be crucial in the production of Nato-standard 155mm calibre ammunition — potentially tripling production, according to officials familiar with the discussions,” a Bloomberg report said, adding: “Turkey is already on track to becoming the biggest seller of the artillery shells to the US as early as this year.”

  The surge in demand has delayed global orders and has put pressure on defence supply chains, especially for components such as TNT.  According to the outlet, to help alleviate this issue, Turkish defence company Repkon’s production lines are expected to produce about 30% of all US-made 155mm artillery shells by 2025.

  The Pentagon said in a statement about investment in Texas’ defence industry with Turkish counterparts that working with allies “is key to building a global defence industrial base.”

  Additionally, Washington purchased 116,000 rounds of battle-ready ammunition from Turkish company Arca Defense, with delivery expected later this year and further purchases believed to be concluding soon to be ready for delivery in 2025.

  As Bloomberg admitted,

  “The US and European efforts are part of a race to catch up with Moscow, whose war machine has put it in a position to produce or procure – according to some estimates – 4 million rounds this year, including shipments from North Korea. By contrast, the European Union expects to triple its production of artillery shells this year to around 1.4 million units.”

  It is unsurprising that Turkey has been awarded a lucrative contract, given the recent announcement that Erdogan will visit the White House on May 9, the first time since US President Joe Biden took office.

  The agreement with Ankara also reveals a delicate balance between the NATO allies, whose relations have been strained by the Russian military operation in Ukraine and Turkey’s months-long block on Sweden’s membership in the Atlantic Alliance. However, with Turkey greenlighting Sweden’s accession and plans to contribute to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, the country is now being rewarded with export contracts and approval to upgrade its aging F-16 fighter jet fleet.

  The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used by the Ukrainian military against Russian forces. The drone maker, Baykar, has initiated the construction of a factory in Ukraine, and the company’s CEO said in February that they aim to complete the project within approximately 12 months and produce around 120 units a year.

  At the same time, it is recalled that in February, France, Greece, and Cyprus blocked financing for the supply of Bayraktar drones and artillery shells for Ukraine, which were to be purchased with European funds. Turkey was set to be financed from EU funds for some time, but once the order was confirmed, the three countries swiftly blocked the financing.

  Although the initiative failed, the US recognised Turkey’s rapprochement with the West and is now rewarding the country with imports and exports in the defence sector. This is despite the fact that the issue of the acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 is not resolved, which is the reason Turkey was booted from the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet program to begin with.

  Erdogan announced his offer to host a peace summit between Ukraine and Russia earlier this month following a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

  “Since the beginning, we have contributed as much as we could toward ending the war through negotiations,” Erdogan said.

  “We are also ready to host a peace summit in which Russia will also be included.”

  Although Erdogan claims to have contributed as much as possible to ending the war through negotiations, his country has also contributed to prolonging it. It is also recalled that during Zelensky’s visit to Turkey, he visited the shipyard where the two corvettes are being built for the Ukrainian Navy. At the same time, Turkey is providing drones to the Ukrainian military and is now replenishing the US’ artillery stocks. This is even though Ukraine has no chance of winning the war, meaning Turkey is not an honest broker for peace.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/02/2024 – 02:00

• Blaming Russia For "Havana Syndrome" Pushes The Opposite Narrative Than Intended
  Blaming Russia For “Havana Syndrome” Pushes The Opposite Narrative Than Intended

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

  For Russia to have successfully used a mobile directed energy weapon over 1,500 times, including against the US’ “top 5%, 10% performing officers across the Defense Intelligence Agency,” then it must have deeply penetrated the US Government in order to discover those elite targets’ identities and locations.

  CBS News, The Insider, and Der Spiegel released the findings of their joint investigation on Sunday blaming Russia for “Havana Syndrome”, which refers to the mysterious ear and head pain that over 1,500 US Government (USG) staffers across the world claim to have experienced since 2016. It appeared timed to coincide with Congress’ plans to vote on Ukraine aid sometime later this month, with the intent obviously being to scare lawmakers into approving more funds for America’s proxy war on Russia.

  

  It might have the opposite effect than intended, however, since those outlets’ dramatic claims paint a picture of deep Russian intelligence penetration of the US’ diplomatic and security services that can’t be remedied by simply sending more money to Ukraine. If what they wrote is true, then Russia has created a mobile directed energy weapon (DEW) that it’s already successfully used over 1,500 times, including against the US’ “top 5%, 10% performing officers across the Defense Intelligence Agency”.

  This startling statistic comes from the recently retired Army lieutenant colonel who ran the Pentagon’s investigation into the matter. He claimed that this elite echelon of victims had all “worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and done extremely well” but were then “neutralized” after their injuries. His allegations contradict the Intelligence Community’s (IC) official review from last year that no DEWs nor foreign adversaries were responsible for these “anomalous health incidents”.

  Those who take the IC’s official review at face value suspect that the prior hysteria about “Havana syndrome” was just a means of fearmongering about Russia, which they also naturally believe is the motive behind the latest joint investigation’s findings. Meanwhile, those who suspected that the IC’s official review was a cover-up take the latest joint investigation’s findings at face value, which means that they truly believe that Russia has deeply penetrated the US’ diplomatic and security services.

  There’s no credible evidence to suggest that this is the case, especially since Russia would have presumably been much better prepared for responding to America’s diplomatic and military provocations throughout the course of their ongoing proxy war if it had moles within both. Nevertheless, the only way that one can believe that it’s systematically targeting members of those institutions who had all worked against it “extremely well” in the past is if it knew who they were and where they lived.

  That in turn obliges one to believe that it must have deeply penetrated them in order to obtain this highly classified information, thus meaning that Russian spies are more highly placed than anyone had thought even after the witch hunt that followed the Russiagate hysteria. Once again, there’s no credible evidence that this is the case, and another argument against this theory is that Russia isn’t targeting any similarly prominent Ukrainian diplomats or security officials despite being at “war” with their country.

  Russia may be behind the “Havana Syndrome” attacks against U.S. officials, investigation by 60 Minutes, Der Spiegel and The Insider claims.

  Havana Syndrome may have its origin in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by the Russian GRU’s infamous Unit 29155. pic.twitter.com/n7X0MIx1mw

  — Clash Report (@clashreport) April 1, 2024

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

  Reflecting on the abovementioned insight, it’s much more likely that Russia has nothing to do with “Havana syndrome” and that the latest joint investigation’s findings are just a desperate attempt to scare lawmakers into approving more Ukraine aid ahead of their planned vote later this month. Any penetration of the IC at the level that this conspiracy theory implies would have led to the past two years unfolding in a very different way and Russia not being caught off guard by the proxy war that broke out.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 23:40

• 'Rich' Gen Z Women Are By Far The Most Optimistic About 'Getting Richer' In 2024
  ‘Rich’ Gen Z Women Are By Far The Most Optimistic About ‘Getting Richer’ In 2024

  The jury is still out on how the global economy is expected to perform in 2024, but as seen during the pandemic, economic turmoil sometimes provides opportunities for the wealthy.

  Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualizes the percentage of high net worth individual (HNWI) respondents who expect their wealth to increase in 2024, categorized by generation and gender, from the Knight Frank Next Gen Survey, accessible in their latest wealth report.

  

  The survey covered 600 global HNWIs, who are individuals with more than $1 million in assets or make more than $200,000 a year, and then categorized their responses by gender and generation.

  Affluent Gen Z Women Eye Financial Gains in 2024

  At a glance, there’s a very apparent generational difference in the expectations of getting richer in 2024.

  About half (52%) of the surveyed Baby Boomers think their assets will grow, compared to Gen X (56%), Millennials, (69%), and Gen Z (75%).

  

  Note: Percentage of respondents who said they expect their wealth will increase in 2024.

  There’s also a noticeable gender difference. Men tend to be more optimistic than women, with one glaring exception.

  A staggering 81% of the surveyed high net worth Gen Z women expect to make hay this year, making them the most optimistic of all the groups.

  This corroborates a trend where Gen Z women were also the most optimistic in retirement planning. As CNBC reports, a combination of newer avenues of financial resources, and an openness towards advice, has given them a more optimistic attitude than their older counterparts.

  Meanwhile, American Millennials are expected to become the richest generation ever as a $90 trillion asset transfer between Boomer parents and Millennial children begins to take place over the next two decades.

  A huge percentage of that wealth comes in the form of property assets accumulated by generations before them. This especially includes houses, whose prices have skyrocketed over the last two decades.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 23:20

• America’s Controversial Stealth Fighter Jet Can Now Carry Nukes
  America’s Controversial Stealth Fighter Jet Can Now Carry Nukes

  Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  It was a routine Pentagon announcement during a regular briefing the Friday before the president typically submits his annual defense budget request to Congress on the second Monday in March.

  As of October, a spokesman for the Department of Defense’s (DOD) F-35 Joint Program Office told Pentagon beat writers, that “certain” Air Force F-35As have been operationally certified to carry the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb.

  

  While the revelation hasn’t drawn much interest from general news media in the United States, it has spurred extensive commentary within the defense-tech industry. And it is echoing loudly in Europe, most certainly within the Kremlin where Russian President Vladimir Putin has been openly discussing the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

  The F-35A nuclear certification and introduction of the B61-12 bomb are key components in a tactical nuclear weapons upgrade in Europe by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in response to Russian saber-rattling—and advances—in battlefield nuclear weapons.

  While NATO’s U.S.-built F-16A/Bs and F-16C/Ds and United Kingdom-built PA-200 Tornadoes are also fighter jets authorized to carry nuclear weapons, the F-35A Lightning II is now the first “fifth-generation” stealth fighter to be “dual-capable” of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons, according to the Pentagon.

  The F-35A will soon be among NATO’s primary attack-strike jets. Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey are all stocking their air forces with F-35s, with Germany explicitly doing so because it would be nuclear-capable.

  The March 8 announcement also confirmed the full-scale production of the B61-12 bomb. Their predecessors were housed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. According to some reports, they’ve been replacing them with new bombs since December 2022.

  October’s nuclear certification was two months earlier than the January 2024 deadline the Pentagon set. Although only publicly acknowledged by the United States on March 8, Dutch military officials wrote in a November X post that their F-35As had achieved “initial certification” to carry nuclear weapons.

  Since Pentagon policy prohibits the release of information about NATO partner military capacities, the announcement only addressed “certain” U.S. Air Force F-35As in Europe, with the U.S. fighter wing at Lakenheath in the United Kingdom likely among those upgrading.

  

  “A lot of this is just information warfare, SOP [standard operating procedure] and optics that we got F-35As and allies who have F-35As in Europe,” retired Army Col. John Mills told The Epoch Times.

  Mr. Mills, a 33-year Army veteran and former Director for Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs under the Secretary of Defense, said the F-35A “has always been about Europe.”

  “The message is that the F-35s are now there, and they are nuclear certified, and B61-12s are in storage ready to go, ready to be used, if necessary, out of Lakenheath,” he said.

  Mr. Mills, who has spoken and written extensively on military matters, including about the F-35A in a column in The Epoch Times, said the announcement was aimed squarely at Mr. Putin.

  “Of course,” he said. “He’s the target.”

  “If anything, it does create a little bit of angst on the part of the Russians, because that means the [F-35-As] have more potential platforms, more different areas, more places for the Russians to keep track of,” said Mike Fredenburg, founding president of the Adam Smith Institute of San Diego. He writes frequently on defense tech for a wide range of publications, including National Review and The Epoch Times.

  “The F-35 has pretty good range for a single-engine fighter. It is stealth, and so you could obviously get closer to Russian air space before being effectively targeted than you could, let’s say, with an F-15,” noting that with 600 to 700 F-35s in U.S. and allied air forces, “we have hundreds of them, and at any given time, some of them are probably capable of flying.”

  Mr. Fredenburg admits: “I’m not a huge fan of the F-35.”

  So little so that for those who have followed the aircraft’s checkered development for the past 30 years, he had to quantify how truly significant the F-35A certification is. “I don’t want to say it’s insignificant. It does, I think, potentially create some more instability because nobody else has many stealth fighters,” Mr. Fredenburg told The Epoch Times.

  

  

  “I’d say it’d be more significant if you were putting [a nuclear weapon] on a platform that was more reliable, that you could count on. I guess I could say that.”

  A Long, Haunted History

  “First of all,” Mr. Fredenburg said, “you have to look at the history. From the very beginning, it was doomed. It was too heavy. There’s no way you can make an engine powerful enough to fly a plane that big. The plane is the largest single-engine plane in the world.”

  When first envisioned in the early 1990s, the F-35 was touted by Lockheed Martin as an all-purpose, next-generation stealth joint-force single-engine fighter that would replace up to 16 different types of warcraft, including the Navy’s F-14, the Air Force’s F-16, and the Marine Corps’ Harrier jump jets.

  That was nearly two generations ago.

  Design began in 1994. After a series of delays, dozens of F-35-equipped squadrons were supposed to be operational at a cost of $233 billion by 2010.

  “It didn’t even come close to that,” Mr. Mills said.

  By 2016, the project’s cost had doubled. It remains more than a decade behind schedule and billions over budget with mixed results, some say.

  “What they did is, you know how you ‘soup up’ your car? Put nitrate in it or something like that? Mr. Fredenburg said. “You might be able to get it around a few times before it blows up, but that’s what they did here.

  “They ‘souped up’ the F-22 engine and made it super, super hot to get the horsepower, that thrust, and there’s no way that engine was going to be durable.

  “So,” he continued, “it’s got an engine that can’t do the job. It won’t be reliable ever. Ever.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 23:00

• M-16 Era Ends: Army's 101st Airborne Division Receives Next-Gen Assault Rifles
  M-16 Era Ends: Army’s 101st Airborne Division Receives Next-Gen Assault Rifles

  Army Futures Command announced last week that troops from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, have received the Army’s next-generation rifles and light machine guns chambered in a new 6.8mm round. These new weapons are replacing the decades-old M-4 and M-16 battle rifle platforms. 

  Military Times reports soldiers from 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell were handed XM7 Next Generation Rifle and XM250 Next Generation Automatic Rifle ahead of training in April. 

  Produced by firearm maker Sig Sauer, the XM7 is a 6.8×51mm gas-operated, magazine-fed assault rifle that replaces the M-4 carbine for close combat fighting. The XM250 is a 6.8×51mm gas-operated, belt-fed light machine gun that replaces the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW. Both rifles are chambered in 6.8×51mm, a new round for the Army that will increase range and improve lethality against the most advanced body armor used on the modern battlefield. 

  XM7

  

  XM250

  

  The fielding of these two rifles “is a culmination of a comprehensive and rigorous process of design, testing and feedback, all of which were led by soldiers,” Col. Jason Bohannon, manager of soldier lethality for the Program Executive Office Soldier project, said in a statement. 

  Bohannon continued: “As a result, the Army is delivering on its promise to deliver to soldiers the highest-quality, most-capable small-caliber weapons and ammunition.”

  The latest figures from the Army’s fiscal 2025 budget request show a plan to purchase 111,428 XM7 rifles and 13,334 XM250 automatic rifles. The service also wants to purchase 124,749 XM157 Fire Control devices, also known as next-gen optics, which would be standard on battle rifles through 2030. 

  Both next-gen rifles “ensure increased lethality against a broad spectrum of targets beyond current/legacy weapon capabilities; increased range, accuracy, and probability of hit; reduced engagement time; suppressed flash/sound signature; and improved controllability and mobility,” the Army’s budget explains.

  The new rifles come as the threat of major conflict across the world has never been higher. Conflicts could quickly spiral out of control in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There is also rising concern about China in the Pacific. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 22:40

• Top Journalism School Mandating Diversity Course To Earn Degree
  Top Journalism School Mandating Diversity Course To Earn Degree

  Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Mandatory wokeness has crept into one of the top journalism schools in the United States.

  

  The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is requiring students to complete the course Diversity and Civility at Cronkite (DCC) in order to earn their bachelor’s degree in journalism.

  The course, which also applies to students studying sports journalism and digital media, redefines such traditional phrases as “America is a melting pot” as race-based microaggressions and teaches future journalists to avoid assuming “unearned benefits” that come with “heterosexual privileges.”

  Examples of outdated heterosexual privileges given in the curriculum include excluding biological males who identified as female from traditional sex-segregated places like women’s locker rooms and women’s prisons.

  “To object to a man using a women’s bathroom is an example of discrimination against transgender individuals,” reads a chapter in the course entitled “Sexuality and Gender Identity.”

  Also part of the seven-unit course is required reading material entitled “A Guide to Gender Identity Terms.”

  It includes lessons that emphasize the importance of asking someone for their preferred pronouns and using them.

  “You should offer your own pronouns first and then ask for the other person’s pronouns,” the reading material states. “While it can be awkward at first, it can quickly become routine.”

  The course also teaches students to view statements like “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” as a microaggression that translates into “People of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race,” and “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough,” as implying that “People of color are lazy and/or incompetent and need to work harder.”

  In response to inquiries from The Epoch Times, the state-run college described the mandatory course as “an entry-level course intended to bring thoughtful, open-minded discourse to issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, income, geography and other aspects of personal identities.”

  “The goal of the course is to help students appreciate people’s differences and to channel disagreements toward civil discussion,” the college said in a statement. “With that view, students should be better able to approach reporting and communications projects with a multicultural perspective and inspire mutual respect among students from various backgrounds and beliefs while at the university, and beyond.”

  Opt-Out Possible

  A spokesperson for the Walter Cronkite School, which is part of Arizona State University (ASU) also told The Epoch Times that students may opt out of specific discussions by sending their professor a private email requesting to do so.

  Timothy Minella, Senior Constitutionalism Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy told The Epoch Times that the required journalism course is especially disturbing because it is being mandated by a public, taxpayer funded college.

  “Students who decide to major in these subjects are not necessarily signing up to be progressive activists,” he said. “A public university that should be serving the entire public, not just the liberal slice of it, needs to return to its core mission of education, not indoctrination.”

  Mr. Minella, who recently wrote a critical analysis of the course after obtaining student assignments and teacher syllabuses through a public records request, said he was especially shocked by an assignment for students contemplating a career in public relations.

  The assignment, as shown by records obtained by Mr. Minella, was based on an NPR interview with Demi Lovato, a pop star who has changed her gender identity multiple times.

  It asks students: “Imagine you’re working at a PR firm and you have a client whose first album is about to drop. Your client’s gender identity is nonbinary and they use they/them pronouns. They have a massive press tour planned. How do you prepare journalists to talk with your client?”

  Mr. Minella said the designers of the course “seemingly attempted to include every aspect of leftist identity politics” they could think up.

  Pushing Diversity

  The growing controversy of state colleges pushing transgender and critical race theory has become widespread.

  On March 2, in a 84 to 30 vote, the South Carolina House approved a bill to ban mandatory diversity training for both students and staff at state universities.

  The bill also bans any diversity mission statements as part of their admissions and employment process. If passed, it would add South Carolina to 22 states that passed similar legislation.

  The issue also rages on in secondary public schools across the United States.

  Earlier this week, two civil rights lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a group made up of a Little Rock  high school teacher, students and their parents against Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and state Education Secretary Jacob Olivia, over the state’s LEARNS Act. LEARNS stands for Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, Networking, and School Safety.

  It bans the teaching of CRT and gender ideology in public schools. The group claims the law violates their Constitutional rights to free speech.

  In other recent legal action on the issue, the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel (LC) won its battle with the Osseo Area School District in Minnesota for mandating a course for high schoolers entitled “LGBTQIA+ History and Culture Lesson.”

  In a March 28 email to LC, the school district wrote that “teacher opt-out religious accommodations will be approved” and “students may choose to leave prior to or during the lesson.”

  Mr. Minella said diversity is being pushed to extremes in schools. By his calculations, he found that in the school year 2023, more than 400 students at the Walter Cronkite school, spent more than 2,000 hours of class time learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

  According to Mr. Minella, there are at least 100 classes offered at the journalism school that includes “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion,” in its core curriculum.

  In addition to the report on the DCC course at the Walter Cronkite School, The Goldwater Institute recently filed a lawsuit against ASU on behalf of two professors who were allegedly threatened with disciplinary charges for refusing to participate in the college’s diversity training.

  In response to inquiries by the Epoch Times about the lawsuit,  an ASU spokesperson said in an email that “universities are” and that the school is “reserving comment until the board is fully briefed at its next board meeting.”

  Its journalism school is named after legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite, dubbed the “most trusted man in America” by a public opinion survey conducted in 1972.

  In a 1973 interview for Playboy Magazine, Mr. Conkrite, who died in 2009, said that “being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause—but examining each case on its merits.”

  He also said in the interview that “most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they’re not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen.

  “If they’re preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can’t be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.”

  Not everyone agreed he was the most trusted man in America, including Arizona Republican and one-time presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater—the namesake of The Goldwater Institute.

  Mr. Cronkite was often accused by conservatives back then of taking cheap shots at Mr. Goldwater, known as the “Grand Old Man of The Republican Party.”

  On the day of President John. F Kennedy’s funeral, the CBS newsman reported that Mr. Goldwater was giving a political speech in Indiana instead of attending the President’s funeral when the U.S. Senator was actually in the state to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.

  The five-term Senator died in 1998.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 22:20

• In Russia Mass Deportations Of Muslim Migrants Surge After Moscow Terror Attack
  In Russia Mass Deportations Of Muslim Migrants Surge After Moscow Terror Attack

  There have been widespread reports of mass deportations of Muslim migrants from Russia in the wake of the March 22 terror attack on the Crocus City Hall venue in a Moscow suburb which killed at least 140 people and left hundreds more wounded and injured.

  This trend is said to be the result of a significant uptick in raids by authorities on apartments and dorm complexes known to house Central Asian migrants, amid concerns that Islamic radicals could carry out more attacks.

  

  President Vladimir Putin has put blame on Islamic extremists for the major attack which involved four gunmen planting explosives and randomly shooting into crowds; however, he and Kremlin officials also believe the men had assistance from Ukraine or possibly US or other foreign intelligence.

  The alleged gunmen, who reportedly tried to escape across the Ukrainian border, are all Tajik nationals. A number of other foreigners have also been arrested in the days after the attack. Washington has said ISIS-K was behind it, while condemning Moscow’s allegations that the US or Ukraine could have had something to do with it.

  The regional pro-opposition outlet Meduza has said that in the last week of March, St. Petersburg courts “received 584 cases of administrative offenses in connection with non-compliance with migration legislation.”

  The report indicated that at least 418 foreigners were then ordered to go to special holding facilities to await expulsion from the country. “Another 48 people must pay a fine and leave the Russian Federation on their own,” Meduza wrote.

  In Russia, after the Crocus City Hall mass murder of 143 people by Tajik Muslims, the mass deportations have begun.

  The airport is jammed packed. pic.twitter.com/VRIlNFplXa

  — David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) April 1, 2024

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

  An organization of human right lawyers who work in Russia, Perviy Otdel, observed in a statement Friday that in the St. Petersburg region, “Temporary detention centers for foreign citizens are packed, surrounded by special vehicles and buses heading to the airport.”

  The Amsterdam-based Moscow Times linked the surge in deportations to the Crocus City Hall terror attack:

  The countries where the migrants were being sent to were not specified, though it is known that labor migrants in Russia mostly hail from poor Central Asian countries.

  Bailiffs reportedly refer to St. Petersburg’s mass deportations as “Operation Anti-Migrant,” with raids targeting local hostels and apartments. Similar raids were reported in Moscow and other Russian cities.

  Anti-immigrant sentiment surged after four gunmen — who were later identified as Tajik nationals — stormed Crocus City Hall last Friday, killing 144 people and injuring 382 in the shooting and massive fire at the popular concert venue.

  The backlash against Russia’s sizeable Tajik immigrant community is expected to grow. Recent years have seen over one million unemployed Tajiks enter Russia in search of work.

  🚨 Russia: Yesterday Vladimir Osechkin relayed info from FSB sources that an order for indiscriminate mass raids and repressions against Muslims came down in ‘response’ to the Crocus City Hall massacre. Today, the FSB made mass arrests at the Wildberries warehouse in Electrostal. pic.twitter.com/pjr5OkhECN

  — Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) March 27, 2024

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

  A separate Moscow Times report has found that “Between 2012 and 2018, over 2,000 Tajik citizens joined terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, making Tajikistan the third highest sender of foreign fighters to the war on a per capita basis.”

  The report continues: “Most joined Islamic State, with some taking up key positions, including the group’s War Minister Gulmurod Halimov, who used to serve as head of Tajikistan’s OMON paramilitary police force.” This means Russia’s monitoring of and crackdown on this migrant community is likely only to grow from this point.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 22:00

• Abigail Shrier's 'Bad Therapy' Exposes How Therapeutic Culture Harms Children
  Abigail Shrier’s ‘Bad Therapy’ Exposes How Therapeutic Culture Harms Children

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

  Preventive mental health therapy for children may be doing more harm than good—and there’s research to prove it, author Abigail Shrier suggests in her new book “Bad Therapy.”

  “What you might not know is that the stuff that travels under the headline ‘mental health’ is really harmful for kids,” she said at a recent book-signing event hosted by the Lincoln Club at Newport Beach. “I’m telling you that according to the best psychological research available, it’s exactly what you would want to do if you wanted to break kids down.”

  In “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up,” which hit The New York Times’ best seller list, Ms. Shrier investigates the mental health industry and its negative impact on children, and concludes that when it comes to preventive therapy—especially for children—more is not always better.

  

  ‘Irreversible Damage’

  Ms. Shrier’s previous book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” led her to the explore the potential harmful effects too much therapy can have on children.

  “Irreversible Damage,” exposed the “social contagion” and phenomena behind the sudden spike in the number of teenage girls identifying as transgender.

  “Twenty percent of seventh-grade classes were deciding they were transgender, and the terminus of this journey, as they call it, was a double mastectomy and infertility,” Ms. Shrier said.

  

  She knew from talking to parents of gender dysphoric children that gender ideology was a social contagion that was spreading, and that a worldwide controversy was brewing. But, at the time, she said, liberals thought she was “picking on a tiny minority of kids who weren’t harming anyone,” and conservatives were asking her, ‘Why would you write about that?’”

  “Nobody wanted to talk about it,” she said.

  “Irreversible Damage” lit a political firestorm with the progressive left and remains a cultural lightning rod. The New York Times condemned the book in a review prompting Target stores to pull it from their shelves and triggering some Amazon employees who threatened to quit their jobs in a failed attempt to get the book banned. 

  The influential book not only shocked parents but it led them to question the gender ideology they discovered was being pushed in schools across America and sparked the parental rights movement across the nation.

  ‘Bad Therapy’ 

  Ms. Shrier began her latest book, “Bad Therapy,” with a couple of questions: “Why was the generation that had gotten the most treatment, the most wellness techniques, the most regular emotional regulation techniques, the most anti-bullying classes, the most miserable? And, why do they have no interest in growing up?”

  She decided to attend a conference about a multi-tiered system of support devoted to the mental health of children in California.

  “I thought I should go and find out what our schools were doing to support the kids I knew were in distress,” she said. “Well, by the end of the three-day conference, I learned that actually every kid is in therapy. They just call it something else. They call it social emotional learning, or anti-bullying classes, and they look a lot like group therapy.”

  Ms. Shrier also discovered a whole body of research on the known harms of therapy such as a study of burn victims who left therapy feeling worse than the control group and people who had lost a loved one feeling sadder than those who didn’t go to therapy, she said.

  “First responders responding to catastrophe have left therapy feeling worse about themselves and their lives and what they went through than those control groups that didn’t,” she said.

  It was then that Ms. Shrier began to realize the symptoms society was seeing in children are “exactly the symptoms you would see in a population that had gotten way, way, way too much therapy,” she said.

  Social Emotional Learning

  Ms. Shrier went to the schools to find out how social emotional learning, or SEL, is taught to children.

  “How do you actually teach SEL? Well, let’s start by sharing a time when you’re happy. Well, that’s boring. Nothing to teach there. Control your joy? Let’s start by all sharing the time when we felt sad, when we felt misunderstood, when we thought we might be bullied,” she said. “Now we’re on a roll. Now we have something for the teachers to teach.”

  The problem is that parents are often blamed for the child’s sadness at school because, after all, “Whose job is it to keep kids safe?” she asked.

  “So now, we’re criticizing parents,” she said. “It’s completely built into the system. And, I’m not saying that because it’s a conspiracy. I’m just saying, naturally, if you want to teach wellness and emotional regulation, the way to do it is to focus on a time when kids felt sad.”

  Ms. Shrier predicts in the book that social emotional learning would lead more children to be sad, anxious, phobic, and alienated from their parents.

  When she finished the book in October, Ms. Shrier didn’t know researchers in Australia and England wondered the same thing and were conducting experiments on wellness techniques and anti-bullying, she said.

  As it turned out, two new studies showed that “kids ended up being sadder and more anxious, more depressed and more alienated from their parents than the control group,” she said.

  Rise of the Expert Class

  The rise in the expert class to break down parental authority has been happening for generations, she said.

  Society began to regard informal relationships “as hazardous and somewhat sinister,” and instead placed their trust in “experts.”

  “So, we didn’t trust grandma as much even though she had raised good kids to adulthood, but to this parenting expert whose oldest child was five, we listened,” she said.

  But, while the overtreatment of children who don’t need therapy is causing damage, she said there are still children and adults who do need therapy.

  “There are kids who need it. But, if you don’t treat them well, you’re only introducing risk,” she said. “They stand to gain nothing.”

  Ms. Shrier stressed that she’s not opposed to therapy or medication.

  “If you have a severe phobia and are afraid to leave your house, by all means get the therapy. It will help you leave your house if it’s done right. If you’re so germophobic you can’t shake people’s hands, get the therapy. … If you have a severely anorexic kid … get your kid the help they need of course,” she said.

  

  Parents need to know that therapy for a child is “an entirely different experience than therapy with an adult, because an adult can say to a therapist, ‘Listen, I really appreciated that, but I wouldn’t call my mom emotionally abusive,’ or ‘Listen  I know you’ve said in the past that’s toxic, but I’m not going to cut off my parents,” Ms. Shrier said.

  Society now treats a healthy-minded child who is a little worried or a bit anxious by sending them to therapy, exposing them to risks such as increased anxiety, increased depression, alienation from their parents, and demoralization, the feeling that they are limited by a mental health diagnosis, and in some ways the sadness of all treatment dependency, she said.

  Children are left feeling that “they can’t do for themselves,” or make decisions, without consulting an expert or an adult, which hinders them from gaining confidence and growing up, she said.

  “We’ve never had an American generation that believes less in its ability to rise to a challenge than this one,” she said.

  ‘They’ve Been Told a Lie’

  Ms. Shrier interviewed a young woman who has received preventive, or prophylactic, therapy since she was 6 years old, when her parents divorced. The woman, called Becca in the book, never stopped going to therapy.

  Although Becca, now 17, has never been diagnosed with a mental illness, she continues to see a therapist to discuss her “anxiety,” Ms. Shrier said.

  When Ms. Shrier asked what Becca and her therapist were currently working on, she replied that the therapist was helping her prepare to make friends in college.

  “This is what we’re seeing in the rising generation. They don’t believe they’re up to the basic challenges of adulthood. They think they need a mental health day off,” she said. “They don’t want to have kids or get married either because they think they’re sick. In some ways, it’s the saddest thing of all, because they’ve been told a lie that they’re all mentally ill; it’s just a question of degrees.”

  ‘Who Objects to Wellness?’

  Policies governing therapy are almost always couched in language that makes them difficult to challenge.

  “They are always being sold as something you can’t object to, like wellness,” she said. “Who objects to wellness?”

  “That’s how all the conversion therapy bans got passed, she said. These bans were sold as a way to stop the cruel practice of trying to force gay young people to go straight, but then they slipped in gender identity language,” Ms. Shrier said.

  So now, therapists who tell a girl she’s a girl and not a boy can be accused of conversion therapy and lose their license, she said.

  Therapeutic Culture

  Therapeutic culture has worked its way into “everything,” Ms. Shrier said.

  And, while anti-bullying classes may sound like a good idea on the surface, how they’re taught and by whom has side-effects, she suggested.

  “You know what you need to do to teach kids not to bully? Teach them right from wrong: ‘Don’t pick on someone smaller than you. Don’t join in,’ and ‘I’m going to be really disappointed if you do. That’s not a behavior we expect in this house. It’s wrong.’ That’s how you teach anti-bullying,” she said.

  “You know what you don’t do? Go into a class with a school counselor and teach all the kids they’re so fragile that if anyone says anything they don’t like they’re going fall apart, because now you have kids who don’t believe they can survive anything. That’s what they’ve been told over and over.”

  The remedy is simple, she said.

  “This is the easiest thing in America to fix. We’ve got a lot of problems, but this one is so easy,” she said. “Mom and Dad can fix it tomorrow. It doesn’t even take any money. You just need to assert your authority and tell kids what’s what. That’s it.”

  Children are dwelling far too much and too long on their problems, and not learning how to perform errands and tasks that build confidence, she said.

  “If a kid takes his problem to a pastor, or grandma, or an aunt, at some point, the aunt or the grandma is going to say, ‘You’re fine. We’ve talked about this enough. Go play!’” she said. “And guess what a therapist won’t say. ‘You’re fine.’ That’s the problem.”

  Almost any activity would be better for children than social emotional learning or “talking about our bad feelings” in schools, she said. “Paint the gym, play ball—they could literally do anything—pick up trash on the side of the highway, and it would be better for them than sitting around talking about their pain,” she said.

  It’s “not fair” to children who have gone through a traumatic experience to talk about their pain right before a math test, she said.

  “You’re not helping them, but you might convince a kid who hasn’t gone through something really hard that actually they were abused, too,” she said.

  How Much Therapy is Too Much?

  Ms. Shrier told The Epoch Times in an interview that while researching “Irreversible Damage” she realized that at the core of the “social contagion” she exposed were the children’s therapists and school counselors.

  “In almost every case, a kid had a therapist or school counselor that encouraged them in the idea that they might be transgender,” she said.

  It was “obvious and disturbing” that mental health professionals had left children “worse off or introduced a new problem,” she said.

  Since too much therapy can increase anxiety and depression, “it can introduce new symptoms, like the idea that you can have gender dysphoria,” she said.

  Ms. Shrier interviewed Arthur Barsky, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and world expert on illness anxiety disorder, somatic symptom disorder, or what used to be called call hypochondriasis—the condition afflicting hypochondriacs.

  Mr. Barsky, she said, told her hypochondriasis isn’t about people imagining pain, but rather hyperfocusing on the normal pains we all feel.

  “If you make that an organizing principle of your life, the pain will magnify,” she said. “That’s what these kids are doing to their emotional lives.”

  Today’s children, many who are leading unhealthy lifestyles, think the solution must be diagnosis, therapy, or medication, but too much therapy has led them to every kind of diagnosis, including gender dysphoria, Ms. Shrier said.

  Parents ‘Terrified’

  ‘Helicopter moms,’ the term for overprotective parents who hover over their children fearing they will be traumatized at school or away from home, have given rise to a new generation of parents who are even more afraid, according to Ms. Shrier.

  “They’re frantic,” she said. “It’s much worse than helicoptering. It’s surveillance parenting.”

  These parents “are actually tracking their kids with an app on their phones,” and calling teachers demanding their children not be seated next to students who might hurt their feelings, she said.

  “They’re calling coaches. They’re calling bosses,” she said.

  And they’re convinced they must protect their child from being “called a bad name at elementary school” because if they don’t the trauma will devastate them, she said.

  “They can never look away,” she said. “They’re terrified of emotional injury. They’re terrified of bullying.”

  ‘Surveillance Parenting’

  While generations of older Americans, including conservative opinion hosts, have mocked the rising generation, often calling them “snowflakes” who need “safe spaces” and “therapy dogs” so they don’t melt over comments they find offensive, Ms. Shrier says the problem runs much deeper than thin-skinned youth.

  “It’s worse than that,” she said. “Kids are not able to deal with normal problems in adult life because they’re genuinely believing themselves sick.”

  American society has been immersed in trauma and therapy culture for more than a generation, and its effects are “profound,” she said.

  “Now kids don’t say ‘I’m shy,’ they say ‘I have social phobia.’ They don’t say ‘I’m worried,’ they say ‘I have anxiety.’ They don’t say ‘I feel sad,’ they have depression,” she said. “That is proof that they were swimming in the language of psychopathology.”

  These parents bought into the notion that preventive therapy was an innocuous intervention, “but it’s not,” she said.

  “It’s false. It’s never been true, but they believed that,” Ms. Shrier said. “Where did they get that idea? They’d all been teased, they’d all been neglected, they’d all had their hearts broken, so why did they become convinced in one generation that their children couldn’t survive that?”

  The answer: “Because the experts told them.”

  This parental generation trusted the mental health experts and believed the “trauma narrative” they were selling, she said. Some became “obsessed” with normal problems children face at school because they grew up to think everybody can use therapy like “a mental tune-up,” even though there is a body of research called iatrogenesis “when a healer introduces a harm.”

  Most parents weren’t aware of the negative side effects therapy can cause, especially for children who don’t need it, Ms. Shrier said.

  Preventive Mental Health

  Some of this therapeutic culture stems from rising divorce rates over the last few decades.

  “A lot of us went to therapy as adults and we thought that really helped, and we assumed it would be the same for a kid,” she said. “It’s not.”

  Mental health experts—the American School Counseling Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Psychological Association—that had nothing to say as children headed into the second academic year of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the lockdowns were “the most obvious detriment to kids’ mental health,” she said, “now present themselves as the cure.”

  These mental health experts behave more like groups that want to enrich themselves than people who are “actually trying” to help the mental health of children, she said.

  “Now, if you need therapy, if you have a disorder, if you have a real problem, it’s worth the risk. It’s when you don’t have a problem, that you only stand to face the risk because you don’t stand to benefit,” she said. “So, I’m not against treatment. What I’m against is what they call ‘preventive mental health,’ which has no proven track record of helping anybody. And, by the way, of course it can’t. It’s treating people who don’t have a problem.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 21:40

• Which US College Major Is The Worst For Finding A Job?
  Which US College Major Is The Worst For Finding A Job?

  Finding a job can often be a Sisyphean task in this rapidly changing modern economy. Highly sought after skills come and go, following the greater tides of technology change, marketplace behavior, and shifting consumer patterns.

  After all, take a look at what’s happening in the tech world.

  Education plays an important role in this job hunting business of course. And some skill sets are losing their sheen, with their practitioners having a harder time than others in securing gainful employment.

  But which ones are the worst right now?

  We visualize the top 10 U.S. college majors, ranked by their unemployment rate, including their underemployment rate for additional context. These figures are of recent college graduates (those aged 22–27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher) and are sourced from the New York Federal Reserve, current up to February 2024.

  

  ℹ️ Underemployment is when workers are working less than full-time or in insufficient jobs for their training.

  Ranked: U.S. Majors with the Highest Unemployment Rates

  Heading the first three spots on this list are all the majors with “art” in their name.

  Nearly 8% of recent Art History, Liberal Arts, and Fine Arts graduates are unemployed, with more than 50% of them underemployed.

  

  At fourth place, 7.8% of recent Aerospace Engineering majors have not found a job—a surprising statistic since engineering is regarded as one of the more stable majors to study.

  In fact from same data source, Industrial and Mechanical engineers have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

  However, aerospace engineering jobs tend to be clustered around the big companies in an otherwise small industry, with additional requirements for security clearances. Tellingly, the underemployment rate for aerospace engineering graduates is less than 20%, which is the best out of this list.

  At fifth, sixth, and seventh place are History (7.5%), English (6.6%), and Mass Media (6.3%) of which the former two have also seen a rapid decline in undergraduates in the last decade.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 21:20

• Scientists Uncover Mechanism Viruses Use To Cause Cancer
  Scientists Uncover Mechanism Viruses Use To Cause Cancer

  Authored by Emma Suttie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Viral infections are thought to be a central cause of between 10 to 20 percent of cancers worldwide, representing a significant portion of the global cancer burden.

  

  A recent discovery may further our understanding of how viruses cause cancer.

  Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic uncovered one of the mechanisms that a type of virus called Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) uses to induce cancer.

  The study, published last month in Nature Communications, found that the KSHV virus activated a specific pathway responsible for cell metabolism and the way cells grow and multiply. Using current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved breast cancer drugs, they were able to reduce the replication of the virus, stop the progression of the lymphoma, and shrink existing tumors in preclinical models.

  Jun Zhao, of the Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center, who holds a doctorate in genetic, molecular, and cellular biology is the study’s lead author.

  “Our findings have significant implications: viruses cause between 10% to 20% of cancers worldwide, a number that is constantly increasing as new discoveries are made. Treating virus-induced cancers with standard cancer therapies can help shrink tumors that are already there, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem of the virus,” Mr. Zhao explained in a news release. “Understanding how pathogens transform a healthy cell into a cancer cell uncovers exploitable vulnerabilities and allows us to make and repurpose existing drugs that can effectively treat virus-associated malignancies.”

  Kaposi Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus

  Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, also known as human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8), is “A type of virus that causes Kaposi sarcoma (a rare cancer in which lesions grow in the skin, lymph nodes, lining of the mouth, nose, and throat, and other tissues of the body). Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus also causes certain types of lymphoma (cancer that begins in cells of the immune system),” according to The National Cancer Institute.

  According to the news release, Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus is similar to other herpesviruses in that it is often asymptomatic and stays in the body laying dormant after primary infection. However, when the immune system becomes weakened or compromised, as it does in many elderly people, transplant recipients, or those with HIV or AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), the virus can reactivate. In these high-risk immunocompromised groups, the reactivated virus “can trigger aggressive cancers.”

  Cancer cells replicate quickly and reprogram the body’s metabolism to help them grow and spread. Most viruses don’t produce their own energy or the molecules they need and therefore hijack the body’s cells to do the work for them. However, the researchers found that the KSHV virus assumes control of two host proteins (CDK6 and CAD) which causes the virus to replicate more quickly and the cells to multiply and spread out of control.

  The news release also states that KSHV-induced cancers are “fast-acting, aggressive and difficult to treat,” and that an estimated 10 percent of people in North America and Northern Europe, and 50 percent of people in Africa have KSHV, although the numbers are thought to be much higher because the virus can present without symptoms and often goes undiagnosed.

  A University of Pittsburgh article about KSHV writes, “It is highly likely that over 95% of persons who are healthy and infected with KSHV do not have symptoms and never will,” and that problems develop once a person’s immune system becomes compromised.

  Viruses and Cancer

  In addition to KSHV, several other viruses are known to cause human cancers. According to the American Cancer Society, the following viruses can cause cancer in humans:

  • Human papillomaviruses
  • Epstein-Barr virus
  • Hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus
  • Human immunodeficiency virus
  • Human T-lymphotropic virus-1
  • Merkel cell polyomavirus

  The American Society of Microbiology states that “Viruses can lead to cancer by associating with host proteins, proliferating when the human immune system is weakened, and hijacking proliferating human cells. Compared to other viruses, human tumor viruses are unusual because they infect, but do not kill, their host cells.” This process allows the human tumor viruses to initiate ongoing infections.

  The research team discovered that the combination of Palbociclib—a drug that is FDA-approved to treat breast cancer and works by blocking CDK6—and a compound that blocks CAD (the two host proteins that are hijacked by the virus) caused a substantial reduction in tumor size and improvements in cancer survival rates in preclinical models. According to the news release, “Most tumors virtually disappeared after about a month of treatment, and remaining tumors shrank around 80%. Survival increased to 100% for selected lymphoma cell lines.”

  Future Impact

  The findings could lead to new options for the treatment of KSHV-associated cancers, which include Kaposi’s sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and HHV8-associated multicentric Castleman disease. They could also potentially extend beyond KSHV-associated cancers to other viruses that cause cancer using the same or similar mechanisms.

  As for what the findings mean for the future, Mr. Zhao says, “Cellular metabolism could be hijacked by both viruses and cancers for pathogenesis. By investigating these metabolic rewiring mechanisms, we aim to find the Achilles’ heel of cancer-causing viruses and non-viral cancers. I’m excited to see what the future of this work holds.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 21:00

• La Niña Forecasted To Fuel Explosive Atlantic Hurricane Season 
  La Niña Forecasted To Fuel Explosive Atlantic Hurricane Season 

  Hurricane season doesn’t start until June 1st—or about two months from today, April 1st. Weather forecasters have already warned that the Atlantic Hurricane season could be super active, and that’s a major problem for anyone trying to plan a vacation in the Bahamas later this year or operators of offshore oil/gas wells across the Gulf of Mexico. 

  “The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is forecast to feature well above the historical average number of tropical storms, hurricanes, major hurricanes and direct US impacts,” AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Forecaster Alex DaSilva said.

  DaSilva explained: “Sea-surface temperatures are well above historical average across much of the Atlantic basin, especially across the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and the Main Development Region [for hurricanes].” 

  Besides the very warm Atlantic Ocean water temperatures adding fuel to the fire, the development of La Niña (read: “The Coming Collapse Of El Nino And Flip To La Nina”) in the Pacific results in less disruptive winds, known as wind shear, over most of the Atlantic basin, which means tropical systems will form more easily. 

  

  All three Atlantic hurricane seasons, 2020, 2021, and 2023, La Niña was present and featured well above the 30-year historical average of 14 named storms. 

  DaSilva forecasts 20-25 named storms across the Atlantic basin in 2024, including 8-12 hurricanes. He expects four to seven major hurricanes and four to six storms to land on the Gulf and East Coast. 

  

  And, of course, corporate media will blame fossil-fuel-caused climate change for an active hurricane season while Gen-Z climate buffoon Greta instills more climate anxieties into her hopeless young followers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 20:40

• California's Deficit Is $222 Billion And The State Is $1.6 Trillion In Debt
  California’s Deficit Is $222 Billion And The State Is $1.6 Trillion In Debt

  By Mike Shedlock of MishTalk

  Governor Gavin Newsom bragged of a surplus, but California is seriously underwater. The next recession will hit the state extremely hard.

  

  Golden State Budget Fantasy

  The City Journal founder Ed Ring comments on the Golden State Budget Fantasy

  While finalizing the upcoming fiscal year’s state budget back in May 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom boasted of an extraordinary projected surplus: $97 billion. The governor immediately collaborated with an enthusiastic state legislature to spend it all. Of course, new spending on new programs and benefits tends to become permanent.

  This has happened repeatedly in California. Between fiscal year 2012–13 and fiscal year 2022–23 (the year with the projected $97 billion surplus), per capita general-fund spending doubled, from just over $3,000 per resident to just under $6,000. (All figures are in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars.)

  The State Office of Legislative Analyst’s latest report projects a $73 billion dollar deficit for the next fiscal year. It won’t be easy to paper over this debt, but the state may use its opaque accounting system to hide the ball.

  California’s general-fund budgets are reported on a cash basis. The state’s balance sheet, however, uses “accrual-based accounting.” Without getting too far into the weeds, this is an apples v. oranges situation. Instead of the algebraic perfection of private-sector income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows, government accounting provides no easy way to reconcile what you see on the budget.

  Some watchdogs, however, have succeeded in cracking the code. John Moorlach, one of the only certified public accountants to serve in the California State Senate, just published a review of the state’s fiscal health, focusing on the balance sheet. According to Moorlach, California’s balance sheet is in trouble.

  Moorlach declared in a March California Insider interview that the state “now has the largest unrestricted net deficit in the US: $222 Billion.” In plain English, Moorlach is saying that California’s state government accounts have liabilities that exceed assets by $222 billion. No matter how creative Newsom and his financial wizards may be, someday that money will have to be paid.

  A remedy that California has turned to over the years and will undoubtedly turn to now is to accumulate additional long-term debt. Emulating the federal government, but lacking its dollar-printing ability, California’s state and local governments and agencies have racked up over a trillion dollars in debt, primarily in bonds and unfunded pension liabilities. These liabilities, too, must be paid. Since that’s all but impossible, the liabilities must be serviced with payments that, just as at the federal level, will eat up more and more of the operating budgets.

  How Much Is California in Debt?

  The above link says over a trillion. That’s being very generous to California. Click on it to discover … California State and Local Liabilities exceed $1.6 Trillion.

  California’s total state and local government debt now stands at almost $1.6 trillion, or about half the state’s GDP.

  That isn’t an alarming ratio when compared to the national debt, which has now soared to 128 percent of U.S. GDP with no end in sight. But Californians carry this $1.6 trillion state and local debt ($40,000 per capita) in addition to their share of the national debt (about $90,000 per capita).

  That article was from February of 2022. I suspect the liabilities are now close to $2 trillion.

  Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA

  On February 4, I noted the Cost of Running a McDonalds Jumps $250,000 in CA Due to Minimum Wage Hikes.

  A blowback is underway.

  California Restaurants Cut Jobs

  On March 26, I commented California Restaurants Cut Jobs as Fast-Food Wages Set to Rise

  Proposition 103 Backfires

  Citing wildfire risk, State Farm will not renew policies on 30,000 homes and 42,000 business in California.

  

  Also on March 26, I commented Proposition 103 Backfires, State Farm to Cancel 72,000 California Policies

  Blame the state, not insurers.

  Congratulations to NY, IL, LA, and CA for Losing the Most Population

  

  People in California, increasingly getting sick of the state’s progressive madness, are voting with their feet.

  For discussion, please see Congratulations to NY, IL, LA, and CA for Losing the Most Population

  Absolute Basis Losers

  • New York: -631,104

  • California: -573,019

  • Illinois: -263,780

  California Leads the Nation in Unemployment

  The BLS metro shows unemployment rates were up in 218 of 389 metro areas. Nonfarm employment only rose in 59 areas.

  

  On March 15, I noted Unemployment Rates Rose in 218 of the 389 Metropolitan Areas

  Unsurprisingly, California has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 5.7 percent vs. 4.1 percent nationally.

  A Booming Economy?

  California has massive problems although the stock market is at a record high and the economy is allegedly booming. The next recession will hit California exceptionally hard, and it’s not too far off. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 20:20

• Leaked Cell Phone Location Data Reveals 200 Mystery Guests On Epstein's "Pedo Island"
  Leaked Cell Phone Location Data Reveals 200 Mystery Guests On Epstein’s “Pedo Island”

  Data from nearly 200 mobile devices reveal the exact path taken by visitors to Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious ‘pedo island,’ which was tracked to 80 cities around the world spanning 26 states or territories.

  

  The data, obtained by Wired, came from recently bankrupt company Near Intelligence, which allegedly traced the phones which went to and from Little Saint James island, where Epstein allegedly ran an underage sex trafficking network.

  

  Near Intelligence, which rebranded itself Azira amid an internal fraud scandal and other controversies, mapped out more than 11,000 coordinates from 166 locations. Some of the locations point to gated communities in Michigan, Florida, as well as homes in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantuckett and a nightclub in Miami, according to the report.

  The coordinates that Near Intelligence collected and left exposed online pinpoint locations to within a few centimeters of space. Visitors were tracked as they moved from the Ritz-Carlton on neighboring St. Thomas Island, for instance, to a specific dock at the American Yacht Harbor—a marina once co-owned by Epstein that hosts an “impressive array” of pleasure boats and mega-yachts. The data pinpointed their movements as they were transported to Epstein’s dock on Little St. James, revealing the exact routes taken to the island. -Wired

  The tracking data, which dates back as early as July 2016, also includes routes taken inside Epstein’s ‘waterfront temple’ to toe beaches, pools and cabanas located on the 71-acre island. The surveillance data ends on July 6, 2019 – the day Epstein was arrested (for the second time).

  Of course, the report excludes “any precise location data that could be used to identify properties or individuals, to protect the privacy of anyone uninvolved in Epstein’s crimes,” however Wired suggests they document “the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender.”

  

  The data also tracks people to Epstein’s 8,000-acre New Mexico ranch as well as his waterfront mansion on El Brillo Way in Palm Beach, where Epstein was accused of trafficking and sexually abusing numerous “minor girls” as part of his scheme.

  As Wired also reports, “Near’s data is notably missing any locations in Europe, where citizens are safeguarded by comprehensive privacy laws.”

  Several ad exchanges, according to The Wall Street Journal, have reportedly terminated arrangements with Near, claiming that its use of their data violated the exchanges’ terms of service.

  Officially, this data is intended to be used by companies hoping to determine where potential customers work and reside. But in October 2023, the Journal revealed that Near had once provided data to the US military via a maze of obscure marketing companies, cutouts, and conduits to defense contractors. Bankruptcy records reviewed by WIRED show that in April 2023, Near Intelligence signed a yearlong contract with another firm called nContext, a subsidiary of the defense contractor Sierra Nevada. -Wired

  “The pervasive surveillance machine that has been developed for digital advertising now enables other uses completely unrelated to marketing, including government mass surveillance,” according to Vienna-based researcher Wolfie Christl of Cracked Labs.

  The disgraced financier was mysteriously found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial for sexually abusing and trafficking young women and girls for years along with his partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell.

  

  Near Intelligence filed for bankruptcy in December amid liabilities of around $100 million, less than 12 months after being listed by Nasdaq. An independent investigation commissioned by the board concluded that multiple executives engaged in a years-long “concealed scheme” by which they allegedly cheated the company out of tens of millions of dollars. One of said executives has filed a claim against the company alleging defamation.

  Since the BK was filed, the company ‘quietly resumed operations,’ rebranding itself as newly incorporated Azira.

   

   

   

   

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  In February, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged federal regulators to investigate Near Intelligence over allegations by the Wall Street Journal that its data had been used by a third-party to geofence “sensitive locations,” which included roughly 600 reproductive clinics at the behest of a conservative group.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 20:00

• Tackling The Difficult But Urgent Task Of Depolarizing America
  Tackling The Difficult But Urgent Task Of Depolarizing America

  Authored by Adeline Von Drehle via RealClear Politics,

  The North Hall of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut, acts in 2024 much like the town of Gettysburg acted in 1863: as a space to handle our differences as citizens of the United States.

  

  Braver Angels is one of several grassroots organizations to crop up over the past few years that places focus on the depolarization of Americans. They host debates – like the one at St. Stephen’s – where people on different sides of the political aisle can come and respectfully argue with one another under the watchful eye of a moderator. Their volunteers lead workshops, like “Skills for Disagreeing Better,” in which attendees are taught how to navigate a conversation with a political opposite. Members can attend weekly lunches and TED-esque speeches.

  “We are not trying to make everyone a moderate,” said Jessie Mannisto, Braver Angels’ director of debates. “We want to take the emotion out of politics – what we call affective polarization – while we address the difficult questions that are facing us as a society so we can function as a single country.”

  Affective polarization refers to the phenomenon where one’s feelings toward members of their own political party trend positive, while their feelings toward the opposing party become increasingly negative. Readers will be deeply familiar with the sensation, even if they’ve never heard its name before.

  It is affective polarization that leads a conservative voter to think of their liberal counterpart as a morally corrupt person, and the liberal to return the favor by slinging insults ending in “-ist” and “-phobic.” On a personal level, it can dissolve friendships and family bonds.

  While it can be unreliable to gauge how divided a society is by looking at numbers alone, polling shows a historically polarized nation.

  The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions doubled in two decades from 10% to 21%, according to Pew Research Center. In 1965, about 65% of married couples had the same party registration. Today, the figure is greater than 85%. Republicans and Democrats were asked by political scientists Lilliana Mason if they agree that members of the other party “lack the traits to be considered fully human – they behave like animals,” and about 30% in both parties agreed.

  If numbers aren’t your thing, some anecdotal evidence ought to bolster claims of a deep American divide.

  There have been three impeachment inquiries and two impeachment trials in seven years. News juggernauts like MSNBC and Fox have been written off by one side or another as completely biased. An estimated 30% of Americans believe Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate, and about 2,000 of those people felt so strongly about this fact that they stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in attempt to stall democratic processes.

  This isn’t the most divided time in American history, though people like to say it is. Your neighbors probably aren’t ready to take up arms against you. But this growing problem feels important enough to some that they would seek out an organization like Braver Angels.

  One woman, Rachel (who preferred her last name be left out), decided to search for a depolarizing organization when she noticed she was completely surrounded by like-minded people in a world she described as “fully liberal.” She found it difficult to express her views to her parents, who live in a conservative Illinois town.

  “I would like a society where people with disagreeing viewpoints talk to each other and get to know each other,” said Rachel. “It’s so easy to demonize each other when you don’t know each other.”

  The hope is that by getting people together who disagree with one another and facilitating “repair in citizen-to-citizen relationships,” as the Braver Angels website puts it, there will be less animosity between political parties. 

  We might be able to take an example from a historical social experiment in which the psychologist Muzafer Sherif divided Boy Scouts into two camps. At the end of one week, they learned there was another group at the far end of the campsite. Each group was irrationally disgusted with the other, and the ice only thawed when they were forced to problem-solve together.

  This is kind of like what Braver Angels and organizations like it are attempting to do with the American public. By hosting events where a passionate liberal can have a calm, respectful, face-to-face conversation with their conservative counterpart, volunteers hope to mend our fraying republic.

  “One powerful thing we do is dissolving stereotypes,” said Justin Conner, a Braver Angels workshop facilitator. “Asking yourself why someone thinks differently from you can stimulate self-awareness as the listener. Then ask, where do I see truth and value in what they’re saying and where are some of my ideas flexible?”

  It is incredibly easy to dismiss a post on X or leave a nasty comment on someone’s Facebook page. It is much harder to demonize a person you have spent one or two hours having a civil conversation with, whose eyes have met your own. This is the goal of a depolarization organization.

  “It really is about creating compassion for different perspectives, and depolarization results from that,” said Conner. “Instead of trying to attack the other side, we want to have a much more healthy and robust debate of ideas, which is in many ways the foundation of the country.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 19:40

• Just 38% Of Voters Think Biden Lives Through 2nd Term: Poll
  Just 38% Of Voters Think Biden Lives Through 2nd Term: Poll

  Just 38% of voters think President Ron Burgundy Joe Biden would survive a second term in office, according to a new poll by the Daily Mail and J.L. Partners.

  

  Biden – who last month was essentially found too old and feeble to prosecute by the special counsel’s office investigating his mishandling of classified information, would be 86 at the end of a second term.

  If he doesn’t make it, Kamala Harris would become the left’s new vessel to advance policies with the stroke of a pen. To that end, 36% of those polled believe that Harris will be president by the end of the term, while 29% say they “don’t know” (because they don’t understand how succession works?).

  

  When it comes to Trump, 54% are confident that he would be alive after another term in office, with 21% ‘not confident.’

  

  “Voters think Biden is too old, and they are not changing their mind,” said J.L. Partners co-founder James Johnson.

  “The difficulty for Biden is that views of him are not shaped through events such as his State of the Union address—which people who had seen it felt was fiery—but through consumption of the hundreds of viral social media clips of Biden stumbling and slurring.”

  “That solid perception that he is too old feeds through to a sense he is too weak, and it is a major problem for him going into November,” Johnson continued. “Frankly, they do not think he is up to the job—and that makes his re-election a much harder task.“

  As Modernity.news notes:

  A vote for Biden in November could be a vote for this as president…

  SUPERCUT!@VP Kamala Harris, failed philosopher pic.twitter.com/dPDiCoybOj

  — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 25, 2022

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

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 19:20

• The Implications Of Fatal Debt? Expect More Lies
  The Implications Of Fatal Debt? Expect More Lies

  Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz/gold,

  If you want to understand the direction of debt, rates, the USD, inflation, risk asset markets, gold and the US endgame, it might be better not to listen to the experts.

  

  In fact, Johny Cash is a far better source…

  Five Feet High & Rising

  In a classic 1959 tune by Johny Cash, the singer asks: “How high’s the water mama?”

  This question is then answered by a riff which chants, “she said it’s two feet high and risin.’”

  And with each subsequent refrain, the water level goes to three feet, four feet and then five feet, “high and risin’.”

  In short: An obvious flood.

  And when it comes to debt in the land of the world reserve currency, Johny Cash may have something to teach Jerome Powell and the other DC children drowning the US (and its debt-soaked Dollar) into a slow but steady debt flood.

  Boring?

  I’ve often said that good journalism, like honest economics, is boring.

  One has to understand “hard” indicators like bond yields (which move inversely to bond price) and the high-school level basics of supply and demand forces.

  But as I’ve also said countless times, and will say countless times more: The bond market is THE thing, because bonds are all about DEBT.

  If you understand bonds, and in particular, the Fed’s hidden (real) mandate to save Uncle Sam’s sovereign IOU’s from sinking in price, then you will be able to easily foresee (rather than date predict) the future of risk assets, gold, BTC, the USD and yes, inflation.

  The complex truly is that simple.

  How High’s the Debt Mama? 120% and Risin’

  And if you turn to Johny Cash and ask “How high’s the debt level mama?” well… the blunt answer informs just about everything you need to know.

  So, let’s keep it simple.

  Simple, Not Boring

  Debt is WHERE it all begins, and it tells you exactly HOW the American song ends.

  And just how high is the water (debt) mama?

  Ten years ago, US public debt was $17T “and risin’.”

  Today it’s $34.5T “and risin’.”

  America’s debt to GDP is 120%, its deficit to GDP is around 6%, and every 100 days we add another $1T in borrowing to our shameless bar tab of debt addiction masquerading as capitalism.

  

  Even our own Congressional Budget Office will confess that unless we issue more debt (and print more debased money to monetize it), our Medicare and social security piggy bank will be empty by 2030.

  Meanwhile, the USA is staring down the barrel of $212T in unfunded liabilities yet only $190T in assets.

  In other words, and based on objective math, America literally has the balance sheet of a banana republic.

  No Crisis?

  Apologists (i.e., truth and math-challenged politicos), however, will tell you there is no crisis, even as the water levels rise past our closed eyes.

  The clever ones will remind us that America’s USD comprises 85% of FX transactions, the vast bulk (80%) of international trade settlements, and is in constant “milk-shake” demand from the Eurodollar, derivative and SWIFT payment systems.

  In other words, the Dollar is gonna be just fine.

  Hmmm…

  Facts vs. “Just Fine”

  As warned from day-1 of the myopic (and suicidal) sanctions against Putin in which the US weaponized the world reserve currency, those days of a “just fine” USD simply ended.

  Not all at once, but slow and steady, like a flood’s water line…

  In just 2 years, we’ve seen undeniable signs of de-dollarization from the BRICS+ nations and an extraordinarily telling shift in the petrodollar dynamics (20% of 2023 global oil sold outside the USD), which would have been otherwise unimaginable in the pre-sanction era.

  But, if you remain convinced that America and its reserve currency have magical immunity from the de-dollarization’s slow drip greenback demise, let’s get back to the oh-so boring but oh-so honest cries of the US Treasury market.

  Why?

  Again. Because the bond market is everything.

  As important, the bond market has everything to do with debt, and current US debt is drowning the nation and diluting the USD, one slow trillion at a time.

  Sound sensational?

  Pounding A Fact-Based Fist

  For years, I have pounded my fist reminding readers and viewers that debt destroys nations and currencies. Every time, and without exception.

  And for years I have pounded my fist saying the Powell’s “war on inflation” was a ruse, as every debt-soaked nation needs to debase its currency to inflate away debt.

  And from day-1 of Powell’s claim (lie) that inflation was “transitory,” I’ve been calling his bluff. 

  For years, I’ve argued that the Fed would simply lie about inflation (i.e., grossly under-report it) in order to make it appear statistically lower than what we actually knew/felt it to be.

  Even Larry Summers, who is the classic arsonist (from his repeal of Glass-Steagall to deregulating the derivatives markets) now playing at fireman, has publicly stated that the actual US CPI scale, using pre-1983 housing methods, peaked last year at 18%, not the official 3.7% range…

  If we then tack on a US debt/GDP ratio that is 30% higher today than in 2009, we mathematically see that despite Powell’s repressive “higher-for-longer” rate polices, we’ve made zero dent in our debt—instead, we’ve increased it.

  In other words, our war against inflation is a loss; and our debts have increased.

  And in the last couple of years, I’ve been pounding my fist that Powell would pivot from rising rates, to pausing rate cuts to eventually cutting rates followed in turn by outright money printing (or rather mouse-clicking Dollars) to “pay” Uncle Sam’s debt at the expense of our currency via what Luke Gromen calls “super QE.”

  And all modesty aside, I think I/we have been right…

  Right or Wrong?

  Already, and as of last week, Powell has openly projected rate cuts in 2024, and they are likely to come by or near September.

  We’ll see.

  For now, just the promise (words) of rate cuts have been enough to send Pavlovian (Fed-dependent) markets to all-time-highs despite a real economy already under water.

  And the subsequent decline in the Market Option Volatility Estimate (“MOVE” Index) was a neon-flashing sign that the market is getting ready for a new flood of dollar-diluting liquidity…

  

  Where’s the QE, Matt?

  But what about my forewarned QE?

  What about that ultimate moment when Powell admits full defeat in his so-called “war” on inflation (while quietly seeking inflation) and openly does what many off us (nod again to Luke Gromen et al) already know he will do, that is: Debase the currency to “save” a rigged-to-fail (i.e., debt-based) USA?

  Clearly, it seems, I/we have been wrong about that QE, no?

  Well…Not so fast.

  Coming Through the Back Door

  In fact, Powell, along with his former Fed colleague-turned-mind-numbing Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, have been doing un-noticed back-door QE at staggering levels too complex (or obvious) for the mental midgets in our so-called main stream media to even notice.

  Shocker? Hardly…

  Facts Are Stubborn Things

  The fact is that five times in the last four years, DC has been doing QE by just another name (what I call “backdoor QE”) to avoid the embarrassment of direct QE.

  Notwithstanding the “not-QE” (which really was QE) in 2019 when the Fed bailed out a cash-dry repo market (which, by design, no one understood), the DC magicians have been doing trillions worth of QE-like liquidity measures without having to call it, well QE…

  That is, the Fed and Treasury Dept. have been pulling liquidity out of the drying Treasury General Account, the now retired “BTFP” measures, and the intentionally confusing reverse repo markets.

  More recently (and equally as well intentionally confusing to the masses), the Fed is quietly on the verge of allowing the Fed banks to use unlimited leverage to buy unlimited amounts of USTs off the Fed’s balance sheet via the removal of what the fancy lads call “Supplementary Reserve Ratios.”

  This latest trick, by the way, is just off-balance sheet QE, and yet another symptom of the big banks becoming branch offices of the Fed, as our already centralized America becomes even more grotesquely, well…centralized, which is a classic symptom of a desperate and debt-soaked regime.

  But just in case none of the foregoing tricks of backdoor QE have convinced you of what basically amounts to just QE, we can get our clearest signals from—you guessed it: THE BOND MARKET.

  That is, one of the most obvious examples of “backdoor QE” is the Treasury Department’s open yet ignored trick of issuing most of its recent debt from the short duration end of the yield curve.

  What The T-Bills Are Saying

  By issuing more short-term IOUs in the form of T-Bills, this takes the supply-push inflation pressure off the openly unloved 10Y USTs, whose price declines (and subsequent as well as fatally unpayable yield/rate spikes) not only crushed regional banks, but Uncle Sam’s wallet as well.

  OK. Yield curves and duration implications may sound, well… boring, but stick with me because this really, really matters.

  The extreme levels of T-Bill issuance (as opposed to 10Y IOUs) has immense implications and is a flashing neon sign that the US is not heading into an economic crisis, but is in fact, ALREADY in a crisis.

  Today, T-Bill issuance is at a two-decade high, and comprises greater than 85% of all US Treasury issuance.

  This short-end issuance is far more like QE, i.e. simple money printing—which, we remind you, is highly inflationary/reflationary.

  Hard to believe? See for yourself:

  

  The last time we saw such QE-like desperation from the T-Bill side of the yield curve was during the Great Financial Crisis and the COVID crisis.

  No Crisis? Huh?

  But according to our so-called “leaders,” we are not at all in a crisis today. As they keep reminding us, we are at “full employment” (eh-hmmm) and nominal GDP is growing at 6%.

  Then again, nominal GDP “growing” on the back of over $23T in UST issuance (bonds, notes and bills) is simply debt-driven “growth,” and debt-driven growth is not growth, it’s just debt.

  

  In short, and as Luke Gromen concluded far better than I: “You know the debt crisis is real when the US resorts to short-term debt issuance.”

  Summing Up

  Whenever one is dealing with truth-challenged profiles like the Fed, Treasury Dept or White House, it is far better/simpler to watch what they do rather than what they say, as the difference is approximately 180 degrees…

  All of the evidence above (from debt levels, de-dollarization trends, petrodollar shifts, backdoor QE measures and T-Bill over-issuance) screams of an open and obvious debt crisis which ALWAYS indicates a consequent currency crisis.

  Always.

  And as I have said for years, including a public discussion with Brent Johnson, the US can’t afford a strong USD because its debt levels require a weaker, inflated USD, regardless of its “relative”/DXY “strength.”

  The string cite of evidence above (and beyond just rate cuts) is simply a cleverly veiled way of the Fed and Treasury telling us they want (need) a much weaker USD to save their necks at the expense of the dollar in your portfolio, checking account or wallet.

  Gold, of course, is sniffing this out.

  So are the stock markets and BTC.

  So are the global central banks, who are stacking gold and dumping USTs at record levels.

  The COMEX and London exchanges are also sniffing this out, as physical gold and silver is going from churn motions to actual physical delivery at record levels.

  Meanwhile, even the BIS has made gold a Tier-1 asset.

  Just saying…

  The empirical (rather than “sensational”) evidence of an unloved UST and distrusted (debased and weaponized) USD is there for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

  Gold has hit all-time-highs (and will go much, much higher) simply because the USD is going much, much lower.

  But, of course, no one in DC will say the quiet part out loud.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 19:00

• Canada Marks Most Rapid Population Growth In 66 Years
  Canada Marks Most Rapid Population Growth In 66 Years

  Thanks to an influx of immigrants in 2023, Canada has experienced its most rapid population growth in six decades, according to True North.

  

  As of January 1, 2024, the nation’s population reached a staggering 40,769,890, marking a 3.2% increase from the previous year, the highest annual growth reported since 1957. Canada’s real-time population clock shows that the country’s population has now broken 41 million, just months after breaking the 40 million threshold.

  In Q4, 2023 alone, Canada’s population increased by 241,494 people between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.

  “In 2023, the vast majority (97.6%) of Canada’s population growth came from international migration (both permanent and temporary immigration), and the remaining portion (2.4%) came from natural increase,” reads a report published last week by Statistics Canada.

  According to the report, temporary immigration has primarily fueled the population increase – as a record 804,901 non-permanent residents, including temporary workers and international students, while 471,771 permanent migrants also arrived in alignment with targets set by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

  According to a recent report by True North’s Candice Malcolm, the number of illegal migrants has exploded tenfold since Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. She said that the total number of newcomers in Canada is approximately 2.2 million people annually.

  Amidst this rapid growth, interprovincial migration has also seen notable shifts, with Alberta recording a significant net gain, the largest seen since comparable data became available in 1972. -True North

  That said, Ontario saw an exodus of 36,197 people to other provinces, which followed a loss of 38,816 people in 2022. 

  Marc Miller, Canada’s Immigration Minister, previously said that the number of foreign workers and international students had resulted in a system that was “out of control,” and recently announced a new target to be introduced in September that would bring temporary residents from 6.2% of the population to 5% within three years.

  Senior BMO economics Robert Kavcic suggested that this reduction could bring Canada’s population growth from more than 3% to around 1%.

  “The 400,000-500,000 range is just about the sweet spot for net immigration that provides needed long-run labour supply, while also being absorbable,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 18:40

• Russia Voices Outrage As Death Toll Rises To 11 After Israeli Attack On Iran's Damascus Embassy
  Russia Voices Outrage As Death Toll Rises To 11 After Israeli Attack On Iran’s Damascus Embassy

  Update(1838ET): Monitors cited in AFP report the death toll from Monday’s Israeli air strike on the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus has risen to 11. “The death toll from the Israeli strikes on the Iranian embassy annex has risen to 11: eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters, none of them civilians,” AFP quoted the war monitor as saying.

  Regional and international reaction came hours later, with Lebanese Hezbollah — a close ally of Iran — vowing that Israel will be “punished” for the attack. As we detailed earlier (below), several top IRGC commanders were killed in the strike at a moment a high-level military meeting was taking place.

  Russia’s Foreign Ministry reacted as follows: “We strongly condemn this attack on the Iranian consular office in Syria. We consider any attacks on diplomatic and consular facilities, the inviolability of which is guaranteed by the relevant Vienna Conventions, to be categorically unacceptable.”

  However, Russia has by and large taken a back seat when it comes to responding to Israeli attacks on Syria. Israeli aircraft typically fire on Syria from over nearby Lebanese airspace, but Syrians have increasingly wondered why Moscow doesn’t use its significant anti-air systems parked in the region to defend against such attacks on its ally the Assad government. But Russia and Israel apparently reached a status quo deal years ago, which allow for the Israeli raids as long as they are ostensibly targeting ‘Iranian assets’. 

  Among the slain in Monday’s attack was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who reportedly oversaw Quds Forces operations in Syria and Lebanon. Clearly Israeli’s intelligence capabilities are significant regarding Iranian movements and operations inside Syria, given Israel clearly knew the where and when of the top level meeting.

  

  A strike like this — against an embassy which is supposed to be ‘protected’ by international diplomatic norms upheld by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations — is somewhat unprecedented and so marks a massive escalation by Israel. 

  David Asher, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior State Department official under the Trump administration had this to say in terms of what’s likely to come next:

  “This is a huge strike against Iran’s Qods Force. Expect to see Iranian missile retaliation directly against Israel. Things are moving beyond proxy war into direct conflict. Crude prices should make a decisive move higher on macro risk,” he told ZeroHedge.

  Others are currently speculating that Israel may be trying to provoke a war with Iran to get the US directly involved on its side. The Hezbollah situation along Israel’s northern border continues to be at crisis levels, given that an estimated 80,000 Israeli citizens remain evacuated from their homes. 

  Recent months have seen Israeli officials float a bold plan for a US-enforced ‘buffer zone’ which would remove Hezbollah from near the Israeli border. While the plan calls for an international peacekeeping force, those troops would essentially become an occupying force in the eyes of Hezbollah and the Iranians. But Israel likely perceives that it needs full Washington support and military backing if it were to pursue a final ‘end all’ battle with Hezbollah, which would certainly collapse all of Lebanon into chaos and crisis. Without doubt, the Netanyahu coalition government wants to see regime change in Tehran as well.

  * * *

  Update(1450ET): Tehran is vowing a “harsh” response to the Israeli attack on its embassy and consulate earlier in the day, which killed at least five to eight people, reportedly including IRGC leaders. Iran’s foreign minister slammed it as “a violation of all international obligations and conventions” while the Syrian government denounced it as a “terrorist attack”. 

  Iran’s Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari was not injured in the attack, which appeared to have occurred at the moment a high level meeting was taking place. Iranian state media has since confirmed the death of Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the elite Quds Force of the IRGC. There are further indicators that two more top IRGC commanders may be among the slain…

  #Israel‘s strike in #Damascus today is a huge development & a major escalation.

  3 #IRGC-QF Generals:

  – Brig. Gen. Mohammed Zahedi (Commander, #Syria & #Lebanon)
  – Gen. Hossein Aminullah (Chief of General Staff, #Syria & #Lebanon)
  – Maj. Gen. Haj Rahimi (Commander, Palestine) pic.twitter.com/IiEWDYcPQk

  — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) April 1, 2024

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

  “Tasnim reported that Zahedi’s deputy was also killed in the strike,” regional media further confirms.

  Depending on Iran’s response, this could be the start of an all-out regional war. For months now, Iranian-made ballistic missiles and drones have rained down on Israel, fired by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. This new brazen Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy takes things into uncharted territory, and also opens up the potential for the Iranians to target Israeli embassies abroad.

  The annex or consular building next to the embassy in Mezzeh district was flattened in the strike…

  

  * * *

  There are emerging reports and accompanying video confirmation that an Israeli airstrike destroyed part of the complex of the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital on Monday.

  Syrian state media is also reporting that Israel conducted a rare daytime strike in the vicinity of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Video shows that the entire front of the embassy complex and drive along with a side annex building have been destroyed. 

  Watch: Airstrikes target a building near the Iranian embassy in Syria’s capital Damascus. Syrian state media says that Syrian air defenses intercepted “hostile targets” in the vicinity of the capital.#Iran #Syria

  Read more: https://t.co/OS9HjjesdS pic.twitter.com/byPNocn9t6

  — Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) April 1, 2024

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

  However, the embassy building itself is standing and appears to have not been directly struck in the attack. Regional reports say an annex of the main embassy was taken out.

  This may have been a targeted strike on a top Iranian security official, given Reuters is now reporting that the strikes killed the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria, Mohammad Reza Zahedi…

  • ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE ON DAMASCUS KILLS LEADER OF IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS MOHAMMAD REZA ZAHEDI, SECURITY SOURCE TO REUTERS
  • IRAN’S ARABIC LANGUAGE AL ALAM TV SAYS IRANIAN CONSULATE BUILDING IN SYRIA HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED

  Below is local footage showing a row of vehicles on fire in the attack aftermath:

  Did Israel miss the Iranian embassy or is this a warning?

  6/ pic.twitter.com/ySNhNLyYoq

  — Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 1, 2024

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

  Amid unverified early reports, a regional monitor has said the death toll is at eight killed in the strikes on the Iran embassy annex in Damascus.

  According to Israeli media, the attack occurred during a meeting of top-level officials:

  Initial reports citing Iranian media say senior IRGC official Mohammad Reza Zahedi was killed in the alleged Israeli strike. 

  The strike occurred during a meeting involving senior regional figures, adding a layer of complexity to the incident. New images released by Syrian media outlets depict the aftermath of the airstrike, revealing significant damage to the targeted building and its surroundings.

  Reuters cites Iran’s SSN news website, which alleges that the Israeli airstrike specifically targeted Iran’s consulate and ambassador’s residence in Damascus.

  Earlier on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed damage to Eilat navy base on the Red Sea, in what appeared to be an unprecedented targeted drone launch by Iran-backed Iraqi militia.

  

  Oil prices are already reacting to this increased geopolitical tension…

  

  This was a very high risk strike also given the Iranian embassy is right next door to the Canadian embassy. 

  The building that was hit is literally in the middle between the embassy of Iran and the Canadian embassy. For Israel to go for such a strike there’s possibly a senior target. pic.twitter.com/qHvr540cxF

  — Ali Hashem علي هاشم (@alihashem_tv) April 1, 2024

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

  The Mezzeh area of Damascus is also lined with restaurants, malls, and bars — and also is home to an important military airport and some key government facilities.

  There’s a lot of daily foot traffic at the Iranian embassy too, given that Damascus has long been a Shia pilgrimage spot and sees a constant influx of Iranian visitors.

  

  An Al Jazeera correspondent, Zeina Khodr, has highlighted international law and norms regarding banning aggression against countries’ sovereign diplomatic sites in the following…

  “Killing of top Iran Quds Force commander in Damascus is a major blow … but Iranian media says bldg destroyed was part of Iranian consulate – Israel hit a diplomatic mission which should enjoy immunity – Israel has crossed red lines – how will Iran react?“

  

  This now opens up the possibility that Tehran could strike back at Israel’s embassies and consulates abroad, in yet more worrying and unpredictable escalation.

  Moon of Alabama writes, “Israeli officials in embassies around the world will now be forced to limit their movements in the general public as they are the most likely targets of revenge strikes.”

  developing…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 18:38

• With 'Friends' Like Mexico's Obrador, Who Needs Enemies Like Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, & The Ayatollahs?
  With ‘Friends’ Like Mexico’s Obrador, Who Needs Enemies Like Putin, Xi, Kim Jong Un, & The Ayatollahs?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who prefers to be known as AMLO for short – issued to the Biden administration blackmail demands that sounded more like existential threats.

  AMLO warned the U.S. that the current influx of some 10 million illegal aliens through the southern border will most certainly continue—unless America agrees to his ultimatums.

  One, Obrador says the U.S. must now send $20 billion in de facto bribery payments to Latin American nations, many of them corrupt and dysfunctional.

  Apparently, he thinks it is America’s fault that millions of Latin Americans are fleeing these failed states northward, not the inept and corrupt governments that create such misery.

  Two, AMLO demands amnesty for vast numbers of Mexican illegal aliens currently unlawfully residing inside the U.S.

  He apparently also thinks there is no such thing as U.S. immigration law. Or, if there is, such statutes do not apply to citizens of Mexico. Can we ask Mr. Obrador to simply grant permanent visa-free, no-questions-asked residence to any American living in a vacation complex in Mexico?

  Three, he also requires America to lift sanctions against anti-American Venezuela. That communist government currently is part of the new China/Russia/Iran strategic axis. It is sending thousands of its citizens northward to enter the U.S. illegally.

  Many of them are criminals, as the recent murder of Laken Riley by a felonious Venezuelan illegal alien attests. Dictator Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan regime recently threatened to invade and annex oil-rich Guyana, its smaller neighbor to the east. Maduro’s “security forces” have routinely murdered hundreds of political opponents. This rogue state is apparently Mexico’s newest ally.

  Four, AMLO further requires the U.S. to stop its long embargo of communist Castroite-controlled Cuba, a decades-long avowed enemy of the U.S.

  

  And what, AMLO was asked, would happen if the U.S. were to refuse Mexico’s blackmail threats?

  Obrador abruptly snapped:

  “The flow of migrants will continue” – an admission that Obrador himself has the power to stop or turn on illegal immigrant influxes into the U.S.

  Translated, that means we can expect that another 2-3 illegal aliens will leave Mexican territory to enter the U.S. unlawfully in 2024. Or if Joe Biden is attuned to the political disaster he has created by illegal immigration for his party in November, we should expect this cynical administration quietly—in the fashion on the eve of the last midterms of cancelling student loans, draining the strategic petroleum reserve, or currently slow-walking resupplies to Israel—to send cash to Obrador to limit inflows before the election.

  In his long interview, AMLO also denied that Mexico is one of the most violent countries in the world, despite currently having the ninth highest murder rate among nations. AMLO claims further that there is no corruption in America, although Mexico also ranks among the world’s most corrupt nations.

  As far as the nearly 100,000 American deaths per year attributed to Mexican cartel-produced and illegally imported fentanyl—often deliberately disguised as both illicit and prescription drugs to mask its toxicity and increase its usage—Obrador claims that the fault is solely on Americans who take the drug. He believes Mexicans simply supply the demand regardless of its legality and in such a way to ensure thousands of accidental overdoses.

  AMLO adds quite dishonestly that there is no real drug use in Mexico. Consequently, the cartels supposedly do not threaten the stability of his government. He apparently shrugs that they are an American, not Mexican, problem, despite the cartels’ annual murdering of several hundred Mexican politicians and candidates.

  Finally, under his “Mexico First” policy, AMLO warns he will not pass any law or adopt any policy that is American-inspired.

  Much of AMLO periodic tough-guy rhetoric—in the past he has bragged of the huge expatriate Mexican community and the power it now exercises over American politics—is simply the bluster of an insecure, smaller neighbor overshadowed by its northern colossus, and both mindful and resentful of an often shared troublesome history.

  In addition, Obrador is a radical socialist. He believes a nation’s prosperity is achieved through forced state, or indeed, international redistribution from the wealthier to the poorer—not by guarantees of free markets, individual freedom, consensual government, or the rule of law. Thus, Mexico’s problem is not its misuse of rich natural resources, lack of the rule of law, corrupt federal, state, and local governments, or the cartels, but simply exploitation by its northern neighbor. Obrador never asks himself why a resource-poor Japan or Switzerland is rich and a resource-rich Mexico is poor.

  Two further questions arise in response to Obrador’s unhinged hostility.

  One, why is AMLO now so emboldened to threaten the United States with even more millions of illegal aliens leaving Mexico soil to enter the U.S. unlawfully?

  And two, how will America answer such a belligerent neighbor?

  Obrador is feisty and full of anti-American venom now for a lot of reasons.

  

  One, he was easily able to transit from his country 10 million illegal immigrants into the United States. He believes that with the existing 50 million foreign-born American residents, America is rapidly becoming a country of enough Latin American ex-patriates to ensure Mexico’s influence over American policy.

  In projectionist fashion, Obrador also believes that the American melting pot is dead, replaced by the tribalist salad bowl, in which ethnic groups form large, permanent, and unassimilated blocs and vie for government money and influence against rival ethnicities.

  In such a Hobbesian U.S., Latinos, Obrador believes, will come out on top and thus greenlight Mexico’s agenda. The idea that Mexican immigrants will likely quickly assimilate, integrate, and replace their Mexican identity and allegiance with an American persona, he believes, is now passé.

  More disturbingly, AMLO assumes that Biden deliberately destroyed the U.S. border in order to welcome in the world’s poor and needy en masse. Biden, he believes, is engineering the new demographics. He has enticed a constituency that will repay de facto amnesty with fealty at the polls, and in the next census, he will thus help redefine dozens of congressional districts to favor Democrats. Thus, Obrador thinks his open-border policies synchronize with the open-border wishes of the Biden administration.

  Two, Obrador sees the U.S. decoupling from China. Billions of dollars in American overseas investment are leaving China and being rerouted to Mexico. Hundreds of new factories producing everything from cheap consumer items to cars are now appearing in Mexico entirely for U.S. export.

  Obrador assumes that without such outsourcing and offshoring to Mexico, the U.S. would suffer supply chain disruption, higher consumer prices, and shortages of vital goods—and thus be forced to return to its unhealthy dependence on China. So he believes Mexican labor in the U.S. and Mexican factories at home are indispensable to the U.S. economy, and thus he can say or do what he wishes to any president he chooses.

  Three, while Obrador was for a while scared of Trump, he has utter contempt for the bumbling Biden administration in general, and, in particular, for an enfeebled Joe Biden himself. On a recent Biden trip to Mexico, Obrador beamed as he was filmed personally propping up a shaky Biden as he descended from the stage.

  In Obrador’s view, any country that would open wide its border, welcome in 10 million foreign nationals, without legal sanction, without audit, without even processing, deserves the contempt he extends to it.

  Just as he scans the world stage and sees Biden’s humiliating exit from Afghanistan, its passive response to serial Iranian-fueled terrorist attacks on American installations in the Middle East, and its passivity when China launched a spy balloon over the U.S., so too, like other American belligerents, Obrador feels Biden’s America is now there for the taking. Thus his emboldened threats that no Mexican president of the past has ever leveled.

  Finally, what can the U.S. do to reestablish its sovereignty and remind Mexico that its belligerency, its export of deadly fentanyl, its deliberate sandbagging of U.S. immigration law, its alliances with America’s worst enemies, and its greenlighting of the Mexican cartels’ anti-American, transborder mayhem all have existential consequences?

  So what should the next president do to restore mutual respect and cooperation between our once amicable two countries? Five easy steps.

  1. Quietly finish the wall across the entire border.

  2. Begin deporting to Mexico the ten million illegal aliens who have unlawfully entered and resided in the U.S. over the last three years. Let Mexico disperse them to their countries of origin.

  3. Tax at 10% the $60 billion in remittances that annually flow into Mexico from the U.S. Remittances are Obrador’s largest source of foreign exchange and made possible only by American state and federal governments’ subsidization of Mexican national residents, that in turn frees them to send billions back home to Mexico.

  4. Declare the cartels international terrorist organizations. Begin sanctioning all Mexican banks, corporations, and known Mexico officials that traffic and do business with the cartels.

  5. Deploy the U.S. military to the border, not merely to create deterrence and aid the border patrol, but to end all cartel entry into the United States and to stop all unauthorized cross-border intrusions by Mexican paramilitaries.

  Do all that, and paradoxically, Obrador will begin praising the U.S. and ask once again to cooperate in restoring a secure border.

  Like so many passive-aggressive bullies, Obrador respects the strong adversaries he slanders but he has utter contempt for the weak leaders he praises.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 18:20

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• Why Is NATO And The Kiev Regime Terrified Of Russia's 'Zircon' Hypersonic Missile?
  Why Is NATO And The Kiev Regime Terrified Of Russia’s ‘Zircon’ Hypersonic Missile?

  Authored by Drago Bosnic via infobrics.org,

  

  Even before the horrendous Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, the Russian military’s long-range strike capabilities were sending shivers down the spines of NATO aggressors and their Neo-Nazi junta puppets. Weapons such as the 3M22 “Zircon”, a scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile, have been inducted into service in recent years and are now also being transferred to land-based platforms, specifically the K300P “Bastion-P” coastal defense system. With a 1500 km range (perhaps even more) and Mach 9 speed, the “Zircon” is over 3 times faster and its range is at least double that of the P-800 “Oniks” supersonic missiles originally used by the aforementioned platform, further enhancing Russia’s already unprecedented long-range strike capabilities (to both the Neo-Nazi junta’s and NATO’s horror, as previously mentioned).

  This has become even more noticeable in the aftermath of the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, as the Russian military is now hunting for the organizers, both the Kiev regime’s intelligence services and their NATO overlords. With such a range (at least 1500 km or possibly even beyond 2000 km), the usage of “Zircon” allows Moscow to target any location on the territory of Ukraine. However, it should be noted that the Eurasian giant always had this ability. The difference now is that it can do so much faster and with far less warning time. The usage of air-launched and ground-based hypersonic missile systems such as the 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” and “Iskander-M” is still very much relevant, as evidenced by the latest elimination of high-ranking NATO officers (although their deaths will surely be attributed to “sudden” skiing accidents).

  However, the “Iskander-M” can use a massive 700 kg HE warhead that is best used against frontline targets and higher concentrations of troops in the rear. Virtually the same goes for much faster “Kinzhal” missiles. In addition, these can sometimes be detected by NATO ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, particularly airborne and space-based, giving the Neo-Nazi junta officers and their foreign “advisers” just enough time to run away (albeit not much and certainly not always). The launch of an “Iskander” can be detected by early warning systems, while ISR can pick up the MiG-31K/I deployment. This information can be relayed to the Kiev regime or any NATO personnel on the ground. On the other hand, detecting a scramjet-powered “Zircon” can be a lot more problematic.

  Then the numbers come into play:

   – Kiev: 3 minutes 30 seconds;

   – Lvov: 5 minutes 20 seconds;

   – Dnepropetrovsk: 2 minutes 30 seconds;

   – Vinnitsa: 3 minutes 40 seconds;

   – Kharkov: less than 4 minutes;

   – Odessa: less than 1 minute.

  Imagine being an officer of the SBU, GUR (Neo-Nazi junta’s military intelligence) or some of the NATO occupation forces. You’re stationed in a building, living in the illusion that you’re safe when the Russian SVR or GRU learns about your location and relays this information to units in Crimea who then fire a “Zircon” at that building. This is how much time you’d have before impact. However, let’s consider the best-case scenario and imagine that NATO ISR assets detect the missile immediately after launch (which is extremely improbable). This is how much time you’d have to evacuate. Is it possible to run away in time? Certainly, but that doesn’t mean it’s very likely. On the contrary, the sheer panic resulting from a warning would surely make the evacuation a lot more difficult. The same goes for the “Kinzhal” and “Iskander” missile launches.

  However, the primary reason why the “Zircon” is a lot more dangerous for high-value targets (HVTs) in the rear is because it has a much smaller warhead (around 300 kg), meaning that the Russian military is more likely to use it in long-range strikes. Firing an “Iskander” or “Kinzhal” could cause unacceptable damage to purely civilian infrastructure in the surrounding areas, both due to their larger and more destructive warheads, particularly in the case of “Kinzhal”, with the speed also giving it massive kinetic energy. That’s why these more destructive missile systems are far likelier to be used against purely military targets such as large troop concentrations and important hostile equipment, particularly SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems and MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) known to use PGMs (precision-guided munitions), etc.

  On the other hand, precisely because of the large-scale deployment of “Zircon” missiles, Russia has more options to strike decision-making centers in Ukraine. This explains the panic in NATO and the Pentagon, which are now in a dilemma about how to ensure the safety of their occupation forces in Ukraine. I suggest everyone watch closely for news about the “sudden deaths” of NATO officers in various “freak accidents” in the coming days and weeks. We might soon learn about American, Polish or some other NATO majors, colonels and even generals “mysteriously” and “inexplicably” dying while skiing in the Alps, falling out of helicopters, choking on croissants while having breakfast or suffocating when their throats swell from hot coffee, etc. Still, the Kiev regime insists there’s nothing to worry about, as it can “shoot down anything”.

  Namely, according to their latest claims, they’ve “shot down at least two ‘Zircon’ missiles“. Expectedly, the Neo-Nazi junta insists they’ve achieved this with “US-made missile defense systems over Kyiv, on March 25”. I presume we can proceed now that you’re done laughing and catching your breath. The report never named any system specifically, but it can be assumed that future claims will attribute the supposed “kill” to the atrociously overhyped “Patriot” SAM that has been failing everywhere for the last 30+ years, even against rather primitive ballistic missiles, but is “suddenly so successful” against the latest hypersonic ones. In addition, it’s rather interesting how they can “achieve” that, but have been absolutely helpless against over 300 P-800 “Oniks” missiles. Not a single one has been shot down, despite being 3-4 times slower and less maneuverable than the “Zircon”.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/01/2024 – 02:00

• Did The COVID Psyop Fail?
  Did The COVID Psyop Fail?

  Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

  As you all know, I have not been one to believe that the tides are turning. But lots of people think they are. They cite many victories, in court, in the streets, with family and friends.

  

  The fact that the agenda has not sent out a second wave of horror and fear propaganda is also rather telling to these folks. Where is the next pandemic? What happened to Covid’s diabolic never-ending run of mutations, what happened to Monkey Pox? What happened to Disease X?

  Yes, all this could still happen, but it seems there have been more false starts—starts that didn’t go anywhere. But if so, you would think they wouldn’t have put them out there just to not have them continue. It’s been rather weird, like an electrical storm you see on the horizon with its threatening lightning strikes, but it never gets close enough to warrant closing the cellar door.

  How about CBDCs? And the Digital IDs? You hear a lot about these, but nothing that is concretely happening to implement them. Is it happening in other places? Australia? Germany? The UK? Of course, a lot is said about it, on YouTube, and in alt media. Lots of talking heads, but how imminent is it? Actually, I won’t dwell on this, I have no doubt all of this is coming, but has the dragon been wounded? Even a little bit? Has this march into oblivion been slowed down?

  Maybe there is no wounding of the general juggernaut of world rule by the schmucks who are claiming power. Although even that sacrosanct organization may have suffered from shell damage. Wasn’t DAVOS not all that they expected this past year? Hasn’t there been some pretty obvious whiplash from some leaders in their little club? How about the UN and the “sustainable development” circus? How is that going?

  Anyway, I digress. Although the health of the world agenda, including all of these projects I mention, are all part of it, Covid, and pandemics in general, are the specific topics of this article.

  I don’t buy any of this talk of victory for a New York minute. This is like cancer, you can’t claim victory until it is ALL gone, every last scrap of it. Remissions are nice, but if you’ve still got cancer in your body somewhere, it is only a time-out. I feel that this is similar. Even if one cell survived, it would start multiplying again and wouldn’t stop until it was big and gnarly and spitting out all the garbage this monster has been known to spit out. So, I don’t buy it…but…

  Is it possible that at least one battle was won? Maybe, but just because they have pulled the troops back doesn’t mean they didn’t still take the city and got essentially what they stormed in for. I may still say that is a possibility. I mean, what did they want as a consequence of their Covid campaign? Did they want 100% compliance, with billions of sheep bowing down to them? Did they want everyone locked up in their own little cage, ala 1984, each of us in a squalid apartment with just a giant TV in the middle of it so Big Brother could blab at us all day long? If that is true, then indeed the psyop failed, because they didn’t get that—at least not yet.

  But what if they got this: a toxic injection placed in billions of people worldwide that will kill untold millions over the course of about 20 years? Not only that, but the injection will render another untold millions sterile. Do the math here: how many people would need to be sterilized over 20 years to reduce the population worldwide by 1 billion? 2 billion? What other havoc could such a death jab wreak? What untold horrors are yet to overcome us? Your guess is as good as mine. Think zombies here, think soulless ghouls, think humans with no empathy, think lost humanity.

  And that’s just the physical consequences. What about the psychological success they have had with the Covid campaign? Sure, many participants have shot them the bird regarding more boosters, and have ignored more threats of losing jobs over vaccine resistance. Sure, the courts have ruled in Canada that the illustrious leader here performed a no-no with his reckless enactment of the Emergency Act, and as a result, lawsuits are flowing into the courts. Does all this mean that no one fell for the psychological operation? That no one was mentally affected by the lockdowns, the masks, the closure of schools, churches, and other institutions? Does it mean that we have all recovered from the trauma of those three years, and mentally and emotionally we are just back to square one—all normal again?

  If anyone reading this knows anything about hypnosis, they probably understand what hypnotic suggestion is all about. It is real, folks. What has been altered subliminally in our unconscious minds could be quite formidable. We are being programmed for better performance in future projects the agenda has in store for us. Most of the shrews reading this are safe from this brainwashing (hopefully) because we closed our eyes during the deadly meteor storm perpetrated by the fear-mongering agenda (watch The Day of the Triffids to understand that reference!) But those out there who got caught up in it and drank the delayed-reaction Kool-Aid—are all like sleeper spies from the Cold War, soon to be re-activated at some future date to continue complying with TPTB’s bidding.

  Here I go again. I am supposed to be entertaining the possibility that the Covid psyop failed, not suggesting evidence to prove its great success. Sorry. Well, maybe it didn’t go as well as they wanted it to go. It does seem there was a lot more gas in the tank and that they could have pushed it a bit further than they did. They were doing pretty well, but they just fizzled out. Maybe they did expect more people to get vaxxed, maybe that was a disappointment. They sure looked like they were going for the whole enchilada with all their “you’ve GOT to get vaccinated!!” hoopla. Maybe they got too much pushback from us shrews. So many angry shrews showed up pretty quickly. And the shrews that were already on the scene, who were not surprised with all these shenanigans to begin with, just got louder and louder. Sure, not many sheep flipped, but some did. Their booster campaign is floundering (in my opinion, only because they turned the heat down, or off entirely).

  So maybe they did get nicked a bit. Maybe a few arrows penetrated the armour, and they backed off a step or two. Maybe we did surprise the bastards with our resolve, tenacity, wit, and refusal to play the game.

  But then again, maybe not.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 23:20

• In Easter Ruling, Judge Orders Release Of 'Border Riot' Migrants Who Overwhelmed National Guard
  In Easter Ruling, Judge Orders Release Of ‘Border Riot’ Migrants Who Overwhelmed National Guard

  A group of migrants involved in a riot at the southern US border have been ordered to be released by an El Paso magistrate judge.

  The swarm of migrants overwhelmed Texas National Guard soldiers who were trying to organize them into groups to be taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). At one point, a migrant attempted to grab a soldier’s firearm, one National Guard source told the NY Post.

  

  Following the riot, authorities confiscated knives and shanks from some of the migrants.

  “These people were willing to assault military,” said the Post‘s source. “They were willing to assault law enforcement. They have complete disregard for our laws.“

  In an Easter Sunday decision, presiding Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta ordered the rioters released after accusing the El Paso DA’s Office of being unprepared to proceed with detention hearings for each defendant, so they should be released, the El Paso Times reports.

  This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today

  We were there and saw it all happen. Absolute chaos here. pic.twitter.com/VN6Kf663ie

  — Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

  “It is the ruling of the court is that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” Acosta ordered, noting that they will only remain jailed if there’s a federal immigration hold blocking their release.

  The arrests were made by the Texas Department of Public Safety in connection with a March 21 stampede of asylum-seeking migrants — mostly men from Venezuela — who torn down razor wire along the Rio Grande and rushed the border fence at Border Safety Initiative Marker No. 36 in the Riverside area of El Paso’s Lower Valley.

  Some migrants face charges of assault of a public servant for knocking down National Guard troops before order was regained. The migrants had sought to surrender themselves to U.S. Border Patrol in bids for asylum.

  It was unclear if Acosta’s decision applied only to the “riot participation” charge, or the assault and criminal mischief charges related to the border incident.

  BREAKING: A riot just broke out here in El Paso

  Hundreds of migrants decided they had enough of TX National Guard returning them to Mexico and rushed the border wall here.

  Thankful to be here w/ @JamesBreeden pic.twitter.com/sY84y8QiYi

  — Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024

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

  It is unknown how many migrants were booked on the charge of “riot participation,” a Class B misdemeanor – though Acosta referred to “hundreds of arrestees,” who he says are entitled to individual detention hearings within 48 hours.

  The DA’s office requested a continuance to have the hearings at a later date, however Acosta rejected the request.

  “So if the DA’s office is telling me that they are not ready to go, what we’re going to do is we’re going to release all these individuals on their own recognizance,” Acosta said at the hearing.

  Meanwhile on Sunday, two other migrants – including a Colombian man, had separate hearings on criminal mischief charges for allegedly cutting border fencing. After being jailed with a $2,000 bond each, Magistrate Judge Antonio Aun also released them on personal recognizance bonds, however both men have immigration holds.

  Last week, Texas sent 700 National Guard soldiers to El Paso, including 200 with the Texas Tactical Border Force, to reinforce the border.

  As the El Paso Times notes further, ‘Operation Lone Star video shows troops boarding a transport plane and on the border with riot shields moving migrants back so crews could replace rolls of damaged razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande.’

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 22:45

• PBOC's Yuan Flip-Flop Sows Confusion Among Traders
  PBOC’s Yuan Flip-Flop Sows Confusion Among Traders

  By John Liu and Zheng Wu, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and analysts

  1. The use of a familiar tool to stabilize the yuan sowed confusion and touched off a debate among investors. The People’s Bank of China stepped in to halt a drop in the currency last week by strengthening the fixing, and traders said state-owned banks then proceeded to dumped dollars onshore.

  The move helped to stabilize the foreign-exchange market but it also left traders wondering about the People’s Bank of China’s intentions. Investors were baffled because the yuan’s earlier selloff had been triggered by a weaker-than-expected reference rate.

  Authorities have allayed fears of a steep decline in the currency for now. The yuan is trading near the weak end of the band allowed by the reference rate, and state banks are selling an undisclosed amount of dollars to prop up the Chinese currency.

  But the PBOC’s mixed signals have unsettled the market and the yuan may become even more volatile if policymakers relax their grip on it again.

  

  2. Xi Jinping’s remarks on monetary tools generated a buzz but they’re unlikely to signal a move toward quantitative easing. The Chinese leader was quoted in a newly published book as saying the central bank should increase the buying and selling of government bonds, fueling speculation that Beijing was planning to embark on aggressive monetary easing.

  A closer examination of the context in which the comments were made suggests otherwise. Xi was probably expressing a view on how the PBOC can fine-tune its market operations, not ramp up purchases of government bonds to flood the economy with liquidity, according to Bloomberg Economics.

  There is still room for the PBOC to ease policy by lowering interest rates or the required reserve ratio. On the whole, the central bank is likely to exhaust all conventional tools before resorting to QE, and any move to trade government bonds will probably be part of efforts to better manage the sovereign yield curve.

  

  3. Xiaomi’s stock surged 12% in the US on Thursday after the Chinese smartphone and appliance maker launched its first electric vehicle. With aggressive pricing, pre-orders for the SU7 models topped 50,000 within 27 minutes of their debut.

  Xiaomi’s ambitious EV bet arrives at a challenging time. Carmakers from Tesla Inc. to BYD Co. are engaging in a price war as sales growth slows, with the former recently cutting production at its plant in China.  To make matters worse, trade tensions are compounding the pressure on the highly competitive sector. China’s EV exports to the European Union slumped in the first two month of the year amid a probe by Brussels into unfair subsidies.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 22:10

• Watch: Denver Official Caught On Tape Begging Illegals To Leave The City
  Watch: Denver Official Caught On Tape Begging Illegals To Leave The City

  A top Denver official was caught on tape in a local migrant shelter begging illegals to go to other cities, as Denver – a so-called ‘sanctuary city,’ can’t support them.

  

  “The opportunities are over,” said Mayor Mike Johnson’s political director Andres Carrera, who also serves as the city’s Newcomer Communications Liaison, in an exchange with newly arrived migrants.

  “New York gives you more. Chicago gives you more. So I suggest you go there where there is longer-term shelter. There are also more job opportunities there,” Carrera continues in the video obtained by 9News.

  A top official in Denver was just caught on tape begging illegals to leave the city:

  Denver Newcomer Liaison: “Any city. We can take you to the Canadian border, wherever.”

  He promises them that there are better stuff awaiting them in Chicago and NY.

  Denver is a self-designated… pic.twitter.com/NjsnmlTEHe

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 31, 2024

  “We have received too many migrants and that is why we ran out of resources,” Carrara tells a crowed inside Denver’s primary migrant shelter.

  “We are not going to block you if you want to say here,” he continues. “If you stay here you are going to suffer even more and I don’t want to see this.”

  To facilitate their departure, Denver is offering to pay for migrants’ onward bus fare to a destination of their choice, which other ‘sanctuary cities’ have decried, 9News reports.

  The migrants Carrera is seen speaking to on video arrived in Denver on March 26 on a bus organized by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to a city spokesperson.

  Abbott has bragged about flooding Denver and other so-called “sanctuary cities” with migrants who have crossed the U.S. border with Mexico.

  Denver has implemented strict limits on how long newly arrived migrants are allowed in city shelters; two weeks for individuals and six weeks for families with children.

  “You don’t have to walk anywhere, we can buy you a free ticket,” Carrera tells the group, which shows children milling around him as he speaks with their parents. “You can go to any city. We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever!”

  A city spokesperson later said that Denver won’t buy bus tickets to Canadian cities, but will help Migrants get to US cities near the Canadian border if they ask.

  Chilly Reception

  Wrapping up his remarks, Carrera asks the crowd “Okay, who wants to travel to different cities where there is more work?”

  Crickets ensue.

  “Who wants to stay in Denver?” he then asked.

  “Todos,” a migrant replies – everyone.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 21:50

• "Turkish People Demanded Change": Erdogan Suffers Shocking Defeat In Country's Municipal Elections
  “Turkish People Demanded Change”: Erdogan Suffers Shocking Defeat In Country’s Municipal Elections

  In a historic upset, Turks dealt President Tayyip Erdogan and his party their biggest electoral blow yet in Saturday’s nationwide local vote that reasserted the opposition as a political force and reinforced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the president’s chief rival amid raging inflation and the highest borrowing costs since the president swept to power more than two decades ago.

  With most of the votes counted, Imamoglu declared victory in the Istanbul mayoral race after leading by 10 percentage points while his Republican People’s Party (CHP) retained Ankara and gained 15 other mayoral seats in cities nationwide.

  According to Reuters, it marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP) in their more than two decades in power, and could signal a change in the country’s divided political landscape. Erdogan called the March 31 election outcome a “turning point” in a post-midnight address, and in a rare moment of public humility said the election results were not in line with his expectations, and vowed pledged self-criticism over the election results as he added that he still has 4 more years to fix his mistakes, while predicting that the positive results of the economic plan would become apparent in the second half of the year.

  Erdogan and the AKP fared worse than opinion polls predicted due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts said.

  “Those who do not understand the nation’s message will eventually lose,” Imamoglu, 53, told thousands of jubilant supporters late on Sunday, some of them chanting for Erdogan to resign.

  “Tonight, 16 million Istanbul citizens sent a message to both our rivals and the president,” said the former businessman, who entered politics in 2008 and is now widely touted as a likely presidential challenger.

  Erdogan, who in the 1990s was also mayor of his hometown Istanbul, had campaigned hard ahead of the municipal elections, which analysts described as a gauge of both his support and the opposition’s durability.

  Addressing crowds gathered at AKP headquarters in Ankara, the capital, Erdogan said his alliance had “lost altitude” across the nation and will take steps to address the message from voters.

  “If we made a mistake, we will fix it” in the years ahead, he said. “If we have anything missing, we will complete it.”

  Elsewhere in Ankara, thousands more supporters had earlier waved Turkish and party flags for a speech by reelected CHP Mayor Mansur Yavas, who trounced his AKP challenger in another disappointment for Erdogan.

  According to 92.92% of ballot boxes opened in Istanbul, Europe’s largest city and the country’s economic engine, Imamoglu had 50.92% support compared with 40.05% for AKP challenger Murat Kurum, a former minister in Erdogan’s national government. Polls had predicted a tight contest in Istanbul and possible CHP losses across the country.

  Yet partial official results reported by state-run Anadolu Agency showed AKP and its main ally giving up mayoralties in 19 key municipalities including big cities Bursa and Balikesir in the industrialised northwest, possibly reflecting strains on wage earners.

  In an even more shocking result, and a first in 35 years, the CHP led nationwide by almost 1% of the votes the results showed.

  AKP was set to win mayor’s seat in 23 cities, down from 39 in 2019. CHP is leading the race in 36 provinces, compared with 21 in the last election, TRT reported.

  At stake in Istanbul is control of a city of almost 16 million people with a $6.6 billion annual budget. Social aid payments from municipal budgets are critical to voters hit by Turkey’s cost-of-living crisis. How those funds are allocated are decided at municipal councils, making dominance there is just as important as winning the mayor’s seat.

  * * *

  Mert Arslanalp, assistant professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bogazici University, said it was Erdogan’s “severest election defeat” since coming to national power in 2002.

  “Imamoglu demonstrated he could reach across the deep socio-political divisions that define Turkey’s opposition electorate even without their institutional support,” he said. “This makes him the most politically competitive rival to Erdogan’s regime.”

  In 2019, Imamoglu had dealt Erdogan a sharp electoral blow when he first won Istanbul, ending 25 years of rule in the city by AKP and its Islamist predecessors, including Erdogan’s own run as its mayor in the 1990s. CHP also won Ankara that year.
  The president struck back in 2023 by securing reelection and a parliamentary majority with his nationalist allies, despite a years-long cost-of-living crisis.

  Analysts said the economic strains, including nearly 70% inflation and a slowdown in growth brought on by an aggressive monetary-tightening regime, moved voters to punish AKP this time.

  “The economy was the decisive factor,” said Hakan Akbas, a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group. “Turkish people  demanded change and Imamoglu is now the default nemesis to President Erdogan.”

  

  Erdogan said ending the second election cycle in less than a year will itself bring a reprive for the economy.

  In front of the Istanbul Municipality building, flag-waving supporters said they wanted to see Imamoglu challenge Erdogan for the presidency in the future.

  “We are very happy. I love him so much. We would like to see him as president,” said Esra, a housewife.

  Then again, Erdogan is not known for willingly parting with power and there is a case to be made that Imamoglu’s days as Erdogan’s challenger may be numbered: even after his second Istanbul victory in a row, Imamoglu has another battle to fight. He is accused of insulting members of the Supreme Election Council, which could result in his being banned from political office.

  Rising popular support for the Islamist New Welfare Party, which took an even more hardline stance than Erdogan against Israel over the Gaza conflict, also sapped AKP support. The party took Sanliurfa from an AKP incumbant in the southeast.
  Imamoglu was reelected despite the collapse of the opposition alliance that failed to topple Erdogan last year.

  The main pro-Kurdish party, which backed Imamoglu in 2019, fielded its own candidate under the DEM banner in Istanbul this time. But many Kurds put aside party loyalty and voted for him again, the results suggest.

  In the mainly Kurdish southeast, DEM reaffirmed its strength, winning 10 provinces. Following previous elections, the state has replaced pro-Kurdish mayors with state-appointed “trustees” following previous elections over alleged militant ties.

  Violence erupted earlier in the day, including one incident in the southeast in clashes by groups armed with guns, sticks and stones, killing one and wounding 11. In another, one neighbourhood official, or “muhtar”, candidate was killed and four people were wounded in a fight, Anadolu reported.

  Several others were hurt in other incidents while one person was shot dead and two were wounded overnight ahead of the vote in Bursa, the Demiroren news agency reported.

  * * *

  It was too early to observe a market reaction, but according to former Goldman and IIF strategist Robin Brooks, the market won’t like the election result in Turkey, as it was “hoping for an end to election-related stimulus and a return to orthodoxy. This result sends the opposite signal. Markets will see this as keeping Turkey in perpetual election mode. More pump-priming. More devaluation…“

  Markets won’t like the election result in Turkey. They were hoping for an end to election-related stimulus and a return to orthodoxy. This result sends the opposite signal. Markets will see this as keeping Turkey in perpetual election mode. More pump-priming. More devaluation… pic.twitter.com/bQtiTJXbpX

  — Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) March 31, 2024

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

  Considering a Turkish Lira short has been our favorite FX trade for the past year (as we have indicated on our premium subscriber data feed for the past year) we certainly agree.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 21:32

• PBS Segment Claims Trump Wants To "Purge" Gay People From America
  PBS Segment Claims Trump Wants To “Purge” Gay People From America

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  In a ludicrous paranoid segment on PBS NewsHour this week, the network’s White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez claimed that Donald Trump is not only planning to roll back “civil rights,” but also to “purge” LGBT people from the country.

  

  Barron-Lopez and anchor William Brangham made the assertions while discussing Trump’s real criticism of transgender surgery and hormone therapy being carried out on children, and biological men competing in women’s sports.

  “On the campaign trail, Trump has been talking about what he plans to do if elected in November, and that includes rolling back the rights of millions of LGBTQ people. It’s part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups,” Brangham asserted.

  He then introduced Barron-Lopez, who claimed Trump “plans quick action if elected,” against LGBT people.

  She then suggested that Trump and “roughly 100 right-wing organisations led by the Heritage Foundation,” have a secret plan to wipe out LGBTQ people… or something.

  What does the dastardly plan consist of? Eliminating DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) from government mandates and banning federal funding for teaching Critical Race Theory.

  OK, those things are not civil rights. If anything they are in direct opposition to civil rights because they discriminate based on skin colour.

  Barron-Lopez, who is also a CNN political analyst, then complained that Trump will “rescind health-care protections for transgender people and urge Congress to define gender as male and female, fixed at birth.”

  Without any actual explanation or evidence she further asserted that “this plan also is trying to stop any and all acknowledgement of an acceptance of gender identity and LGBTQ people, period.”

  The correspondent then quoted Professor Thomas Zimmer at Georgetown, “who studies authoritarian regimes,” noting “Trump wasn’t necessarily able to institute this in 2017, when he first took office, because he didn’t have the amount of loyalists that he plans on having across the board. And with these new loyalists, Zimmer said, he can advance a white Christian evangelical ideal of American society.”

  VT of Zimmer was then played where he stated “It is opposed to egalitarian democracy because it fundamentally does not agree that all people are equal or deserve to be treated as equal citizens. Only those who belong to the “true people,” to real America, deserve that. And so everyone else needs to either be purged from the nation or, at the very least, accept their sort of lesser place in society.”

  Barron-Lopez then stated “Professor Zimmer added that that type of purging he’s talking about takes roots in the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, where they essentially tried to sweep away anyone across American society that would deviate from perceived norms.”

  Watch:

  On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has been talking about what he plans to do if elected in November. That includes rolling back LGBTQ rights.

  The proposal is part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups.@lbarronlopez reports. pic.twitter.com/VvzgddCZn2

  — PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) March 27, 2024

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

  So they’re saying essentially because he believes there are two sexes, that means Trump wants to root out and “eliminate”sweep away” all LGBTQ people.

  What a juicy slice of leftist kookery that was.

  What are “LGBTQ rights” and how are they different from the rights we all have?

  — Nu Nyo 🇺🇸🇸🇪🇮🇱 (@Nu_Ny0) March 27, 2024

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

  Modern “teachings” of race and racism teach bias toward certain races, which is a particular ideology, which again, doesn’t belong as part of a primary or secondary public school curriculum. This is not hard.

  — A (@BlueObserverA) March 28, 2024

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

  More fear mongering.

  That’s all the left does.

  — MAGA American Craig🍊 (@yzrider53) March 28, 2024

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

  Not defining gender as male and female has muddied medical research and messaging. If people want to take on a different identity in their own time, no one is stopping them.

  — A (@BlueObserverA) March 28, 2024

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

  What rights would be rolled back?

  — G-Dada, Free-Speech Test Pilot (@gregzink) March 28, 2024

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

  Fact Check: False. 🤥

  — 🏔Matt🏔 (@MountainMatt76) March 28, 2024

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

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 21:00

• Minnesota Law School Drops Exclusion Of Whites And Males From Diversity Scholarship
  Minnesota Law School Drops Exclusion Of Whites And Males From Diversity Scholarship

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  There is a curious resolution of a civil right complaint against University of Minnesota Law School over a diversity fellowship sponsored by the law firm of Jones Day. Despite being created by a law firm and administered by a law school, the fellowship violated federal law in excluding white and male applicants. The law school finally threw in the towel, but there remains an uncertainty over whether the school is engaging in a subterfuge by opening up the scholarship while retaining its original purpose.

  

  The Jones Day Diversity Fellowship launched in December 2022 to extend full tuition for three years at the law school. The scholarship also allows the recipient to work as a summer associate at Jones Day, one of the most sought-after firms for summer employment. The firm website maintains that “We aggressively pursue hiring, retaining, and developing lawyers from historically underrepresented groups and backgrounds.”

  Various conservative sites have slammed the diversity fellowship, which was the subject of a civil rights complaint by Adam Kissel.

  The September 2023 complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is now closed following a settlement to drop any “preference based on race or sex.”

  The question is what difference the settlement will make in actual awards.

  Law schools have been accused of “gaming the system” on admissions criteria for years to circumvent federal law and governing cases on the use of race or gender. Those concerns only increased after the Supreme Court categorically rejected the use of race in admissions in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.

  Critics are still unclear on how Jones Day and Minnesota Law School will achieve its diversity goals without applying such a preference, even if the applications are not limiting on the basis of race.

  The university maintains that it will not impose threshold exclusions of whites and males but will select applicants “based on their commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion” and “whose life experiences bring unique, extraordinary, or other fresh perspective to campus, including first generation college graduate and students from socioeconomically challenged backgrounds.’”

  This is a recurring complaint for Minnesota. It came under fire last May when the Office of Undergraduate Students created a paid internship program application to only non-White applicants.

  The question going forward is whether there is a viable basis to challenge the program on an “as applied” theory. If whites males continue to be excluded, the challengers could return to allege that nothing changed beyond the language.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 19:50

• AT&T Reveals Easter Weekend Surprise For Customers: 73 Million Accounts Leaked On Dark Web
  AT&T Reveals Easter Weekend Surprise For Customers: 73 Million Accounts Leaked On Dark Web

  Millions of AT&T Inc. users received bad news from the third-largest US retail wireless carrier this Easter holiday weekend: Their personal data has been leaked onto the dark web. 

  In a press release on Saturday, the telecommunications giant said it has “determined that AT&T data-specific fields were contained in a data set released on the dark web approximately two weeks ago” and contains “personal information such as social security numbers.” 

  “It is not yet known whether the data … originated from AT&T or one of its vendors,” the company said, adding, “Currently, AT&T does not have evidence of unauthorized access to its systems resulting in exfiltration of the data set.”

  The statement continued: “Based on our preliminary analysis, the data set appears to be from 2019 or earlier, impacting approximately 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and approximately 65.4 million former account holders.” 

  

  According to Bloomberg data, AT&T is the third-largest US retail wireless carrier, behind Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. It’s also the largest telecom company that has disclosed the theft of its customers’ personal information. 

  In 2022, T-Mobile paid $350 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over leaked data from over 50 million customers. Then, in 2023, the cellphone carrier revealed another major breach of “basic customer information” on 37 million customers. 

  Of, course, in the PR world, save the bad news for a holiday weekend… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 19:15

• Have We Reached Peak ESG? Corporate America Fools Around And Finds Out
  Have We Reached Peak ESG? Corporate America Fools Around And Finds Out

  Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

  “Go woke, go broke.”

  This catchphrase has become more than a clever play on words. Like all clichés that make their way into common social expression, it’s a cliché because it’s generally true, at least in its sentiment.

  It was just a few years ago that the corporate giants of America took it upon themselves to champion the woke environmental, social, and governance (ESG) “standards” of politically correct attitudes and behaviors, and apply them to their business models.

  

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Well, as we’re now seeing, quite a lot can and will.

  Companies Take on the Woke Yoke

  Many companies that took the ESG woke ideology to heart, that is, to their business, have seen less than ideal outcomes. Ask the good folks at Bud Light about losing money with their foray into the “S” “social” aspect of the ESG movement.

  The Disney brand is another woke company that has lost billions in a series of box office flops from films that push the ESG woke ideology, especially the LBGTQ+ social messaging, not to mention the billions lost in market value as share prices have fallen.

  Going Woke Isn’t Fatal to Big Business, but It Hurts

  The reality is that in most cases, boycotts of woke businesses won’t destroy global companies such as Anheuser-Busch or Disney, at least not in the short term. International conglomerates have multiple revenue sources, which often include long-term government contracts and other long-term business relationships that will keep them in business and likely profitable for the foreseeable future. In other cases, there simply isn’t an alternative choice.

  But there are other consequences to orienting a business model to the ESG agenda, particularly with the environment part of ESG. Seeking to force companies to continually reduce emissions even if they’re meeting current regulatory standards is a part of the ESG agenda and can also cut into profitability.

  The Woke Pushback Is Here

  But CEOs who remember what their job is are pushing back.

  No one knows this better than Exxon CEO Darren Woods. Under Mr. Woods, Exxon is suing investors who are trying to force the company to further reduce carbon emissions, presumably under the mythical belief that carbon dioxide, which comprises 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, is bad for the planet. Mr. Woods is also pushing back against the idea of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 as not possible.

  In fact, many companies, large and small, are now touting themselves as “woke-free” or having “traditional values” as a way of appealing to customers who don’t want to be told what to think by corporate America. Firms such as Exxon, Wendy’s, and Tesla are now well-known as non-woke companies.

  Elon Musk’s X Factor

  Without question, one of the biggest factors countering the woke trend was and remains Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly known as Twitter). This is simply due to the fact that the ESG and woke agendas, which also include the forced diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices, rely on the censorship of free speech as a means of enforcing societal compliance and adoption of those radical leftist agendas.

  The free and open discussions that X has enabled have had a huge impact on Americans’ ability to speak their minds without being canceled (another ESG/woke tactic and value), and has helped people learn more about who they’re doing business with and what companies really stand for and what they don’t.

  The ESG movement has nothing to do with business. Business is all about meeting the needs of society as expressed in the marketplace with the best products and services each business or organization can muster. That’s called competition. Competition breeds excellence, which results in sales. People will generally buy the best that they can afford, which compels most firms to streamline operating costs while providing the best they can to their target market.

  In short, people want to not just boycott brands that hate them, but also put their money where their heart is. Most don’t want to be dictated to and told that their traditional values are not important, or worse, immoral. To at least some extent, those companies that wish to do so will find their market share shrinking, if not their market value.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 18:40

• "The US Economy Is Inverted": How The Flood Of Illegal Immigration Is Delaying The Official US Recession
  “The US Economy Is Inverted”: How The Flood Of Illegal Immigration Is Delaying The Official US Recession

  By Dhaval Joshi, Chief Strategist at BCA Research

  Summary

  • The US economy is highly unusually ‘inverted’. The constraint on the economy is not labor demand, it is labor supply.

  • Hence, the US economy has highly unusually entered a labor demand recession without entering a GDP recession.

  • Nevertheless, for the stock market, a labour demand recession implies a profits headwind, because it is only when profits come under pressure that labour demand goes into recession.

  • Against this, wage disinflation would allow long-duration bond yields to fall, which would provide a countervailing valuation tailwind.

  The pandemic might seem like a distant memory, but for the US economy the pandemic’s legacy is still the big story. For the first time in at least fifty years, US labor supply is running well below labor demand. The big story is that the US economy is ‘inverted.’

  

  Therefore, we must analyze the post-pandemic inverted economy very differently to the pre-pandemic economy. Normally, labor demand – being less than labor supply – is the constraint on economic output and thereby drives the cycle. But in an inverted economy, labor supply – being less than labor demand – is the constraint on output and thereby drives the cycle.

  Before the pandemic, all downswings caused labor demand to fall well below labour supply. In the subsequent upswings, labor demand gradually caught up with supply…until the next downswing caused a fresh slump in labor demand. And the cycle repeated. Importantly though, all pre-pandemic cycles were driven by the demand side.

  Then came the pandemic, and the longstanding pattern inverted. Labor supply suffered the more protracted slump, from which it has gradually caught up with labor demand. Meaning that in the last couple of years, the cycle is being driven not by what is happening to labor demand,  but by what is happening to labor supply.

  

  Interest rate hikes work by choking demand, which is exactly what has happened recently. US labor demand is tipping into recession. Jobs plus job openings today are less than they were a year ago. Whenever this happened pre-pandemic, the economy tipped into recession too. But for the first time in at least fifty years, the economy is entering a labor demand recession without entering a GDP recession.

  

  This is because in an inverted economy the constraint on the economy is not labor demand, it is labor supply. Despite weaking
  labor demand, labor supply has played catch up to demand and thereby driven economic growth.

  As labor supply has caught up with labor demand, it has narrowed the gap between demand and supply. This has created the perfect macro backdrop of robust economic growth with wage disinflation, a Goldilocks setup for financial assets. The pressing question for the coming 6-12 months is, what happens next to labor supply, labor demand, and their interplay?

  Why The US Economy Inverted

  But first, let’s tackle the obvious question. Why is US labor supply running well below labor demand?

  There are two reasons: after the pandemic, prime aged (25-54) workers left the labor force; and older aged (55+) workers retired early, generating millions of so-called ‘excess retirements.’

  The economically inactive make no contribution to labor supply. Yet they still consume the goods and services that generate labor demand. This they do by using savings or, in the case of early retirees, by tapping into their retirement assets and income early. Thereby, the plunge in prime-aged labor participation combined with excess retirements caused labor supply to fall well below labor demand.

  Subsequently, the plunge in prime-aged labour participation has fully reversed, causing labor supply to recover strongly. But the excess retirements have not reversed and are unlikely to reverse

  

  This means that the strong recovery in labor supply is now exhausted, with labor supply still several million people below labor demand. The economy is still inverted.

  US Labour Demand Is Already In Recession, But GDP May Dodge The Bullet

  To repeat, US labor demand has already tipped into recession. But in the inverted economy – where labor supply is the constraint on output – labor supply is driving the GDP cycle.

  It follows that a GDP recession would require one of two things:

  • Labor supply must outright contract. However, with the recent surge in illegal migration – most of which does eventually get counted in the survey-calculated labor supply – a sustained contraction in labor supply seems unlikely. Of course, this could change under a new Trump administration, or…

  

  • Labor demand must contract so sharply – by about 3.5 million jobs – that the economy would ‘un-invert’. Once un-inverted, contracting labor demand would once again drive GDP into recession, as in all pre-pandemic cycles.

  But if labor demand contracts more gently – as now – then the US economy could experience a sustained labor demand recession without a GDP recession, making it difficult for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to designate it an official recession.

  This ‘halfway house’ in which GDP is not in recession, but labor demand is in recession and gently ‘catching down’ with labor supply is a distinct possibility – because it is the least painful way for the Federal Reserve to steer wage inflation back down to the 3 percent rate that is needed for price inflation to stabilise at 2 percent (Chart 5 and Chart 6).

  

  Yet though the economy could dodge the ‘NBER official recession’ bullet, a labor demand recession combined with stagnant per capita real incomes would very much feel like a recession.

  For the stock market, a labor demand recession implies lower profits because it is only when profits come under pressure that labor demand goes into recession. Against this, wage disinflation would allow long-duration bond yields to fall, which would provide some countervailing support to stock valuations. In combination this would imply the stock market was rangebound while high-quality bonds rallied.

  But there is another factor to consider. The euphoric pricing of anything AI-related is a separate and independent risk to the stock market. Absent this risk the macro backdrop would imply a neutral allocation to stocks versus cash. But this additional risk ratchets down my 6-12-month allocation to mildly underweight.

  

  For those who can time this, go underweight stocks when the ‘Joshi rule’ is triggered. Or, when the rally reaches a  collapsed complexity that presages an imminent reversal.

  More in the full note available to pro subscribers.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 18:05

• Rogan: NY Times Writers Are "Ultra Hard Left Activists Masquerading As Journalists"
  Rogan: NY Times Writers Are “Ultra Hard Left Activists Masquerading As Journalists”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  During an episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan slammed New York Times writers, calling them leftist activists pretending to be reporters.

  

  Rogan played a clip of two New York Times ‘journalists’ claiming that anything Donald Trump says now has to be considered in the context of the January 6th Capitol incident, and made fun of how they feel the need to make Instagram videos explaining their ‘reporting’.

  “They don’t understand what they’re doing,” Rogan stated, adding “This is exactly who we thought was writing these things. It’s like this very effeminate guy and this woman…these ultra-liberal out-of-touch people.”

  Rogan continued, “One of the guys was talking about Donald Trump’s words being taken out of context that it would be a ‘bloodbath’ because he was talking about the auto industry and the economy.”

  Rogan further noted that the New York Times used to be populated by “hard-nosed reporters with a cup of coffee that are like f***ing chasing down leads and they’re pulling their hair out and they’re meeting people in back alleyways.”

  Now “they’re, they’re essentially like ultra hard-Left activists that are masquerading as journalists and everything has their opinion on it,” Rogan urged.

  Watch:

  Rogan: NY Times writers are “ultra-liberal out-of-touch, ultra hard-Left activists that are masquerading as journalists and everything has their opinion on it.” Report here: https://t.co/lUZb3Kbkzv pic.twitter.com/ctzt24tI2l

  — m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) March 28, 2024

  As we highlighted earlier this week, The Washington Post published a report claiming that women choosing to get off hormonal birth control are doing so because of a “misinformation explosion,” and admitted to pressuring social media platforms to remove the opinions and accounts of women who have been on the pill.

  It also made a cringe TikTok video doubling down on the gaslighting.

  The Washington Post doubled down on their gaslighting “Birth Control Misinformation” piece with this cringe TikTok they just posted. pic.twitter.com/PDLx99IdMF

  — Brittany Martinez (@BritMartinez) March 25, 2024

  Rogan is right, these people are far left activists using major newspapers as their platforms.

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 17:30

• Musk Warns Ukraine May Lose Odessa & Black Sea Access If It Doesn't Negotiate
  Musk Warns Ukraine May Lose Odessa & Black Sea Access If It Doesn’t Negotiate

  Elon Musk has once again urged negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine war while warning Ukraine that seeking to keep up and expand the fight will inevitably lead to the loss of Odessa and thus Kiev’s access to the Black Sea.

  The Tesla and SpaceX CEO underscored that Ukraine’s position continues to weaken even as its leadership refuses negotiations while pressing the West for more weapons. “Whether Ukraine loses all access to the Black Sea or not is, in my view, the real remaining question,” he stressed in his commentary posted on X.

  

  Musk was responding in agreement with David Sacks who heavily criticized prominent pundit John Spencer of the Modern War Institute at West Point. Sacks blasted Spencer for his analysis based in “neocon fairy tales about Russian weakness, and puffed up Ukraine’s chances.” Sacks also noted Spencer was “a cheerleader for the disastrous summer counteroffensive.”

  Musk reflected of the failed counteroffensive in the thread, “It was a tragic waste of life for Ukraine to attack a larger army that had defense in depth, minefields and stronger artillery when Ukraine lacked armor or air superiority! Any fool could have predicted that.”

  Musk continued: “My recommendation a year ago was for Ukraine to entrench and apply all resources to defense. Even then, it is tough to hold land that doesn’t have strong natural barriers.”

  “There is no chance of Russia taking all of Ukraine, as the local resistance would be extreme in the west, but Russia will certainly gain more land than they have today.”

  “The longer the war goes on, the more territory Russia will gain until they hit the Dnepr, which is tough to overcome. However, if the war lasts long enough, Odessa will fall too,” Musk wrote.

  And that’s when he concluded, “Whether Ukraine loses all access to the Black Sea or not is, in my view, the real remaining question. I recommend a negotiated settlement before that happens.”

  Musk has been no stranger to controversy and catching flak from the mainstream media over his Ukraine-related commentary. Kiev officials themselves have at times accused the South African-born entrepreneur and billionaire of supposed ‘sympathies’ with the Kremlin; however, Musk is among those commentators who take a fiercely independent and realist approach to examining the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

  

  Musk has frequently defended his record – for example in February lashing out at critics during a Twitter Spaces discussion with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): “My companies have probably done more to undermine Russia than anyone. Space X has taken away two-thirds of the Russian launch business. Starlink has overwhelmingly helped Ukraine,” he said at the time.

  Johnson had during the debate underscored that “We all have to understand that Vladimir Putin will not lose this war… Losing to Vladimir Putin is existential to Vladimir Putin. Russia has four times the population and a much larger industrial base.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 16:55

• Pandemic Whiskey Boom Turns To Hangover
  Pandemic Whiskey Boom Turns To Hangover

  Authored by Douglas French via The Mises Institute,

  Yeah, the other night I laid sleeping

   And I woke from a terrible dream

   So I caught up my pal Jack Daniel’s

   And his partner Jimmy Beam

   And we drank alone, yeah

   With nobody else

   Yeah, you know when I drink alone

   I prefer to be by myself 

  ~George Thorogood

  I poured hundreds of “Jack and Cokes” when I tended bar from the late 70’s to mid 80’s. It was beyond me how anyone could tell the difference between Jack Daniels Old No. 7 and anything else when mixed with coke or whatever carbonated cola was coming out of the gun. 

  

  Turns out Dr. Fauci and the Center for Disease Control did Brown-Forman, the makers of Jack, a solid by shutting down America and cooping everyone up. More than some whiled away the hours with their old pal Jack Daniels. People may have had to work from home, but without the boss breathing down their necks plenty figured “why not have snoot-full and have fun.” It’ll make the day go by faster. Besides, no customers would be banging on the door. No one will know the difference.

  “The phenomenal sales growth we saw during the pandemic was unprecedented and unpredictable but also unsustainable, and now, the spirits market is recalibrating,” Chris Swonger, the president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said last month. Those stimulus checks could buy a lot of Jack Daniels, or cause the more frugal drinker to pay more for Jack, instead of cheaper brands. 

  Jennifer Maloney writes for the Wall Street Journal, “Some drinkers of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 – often used to make the cocktail Jack and Coke – are trading down to cheaper alternatives while others are trading up.”

  Price inflation affects consumers differently. For those drinking their whiskey with Coke, just about any will probably do, but for those imbibing theirs neat or on the rocks may spend a few more cheaper bucks for smoothness. 

  Even Jack and Coke drinker Brian Moran, a tile-setter who lives in the Chicago suburbs, told the WSJ that a client paid him to tile a kitchen backsplash with five pricier bottles of bourbon, including Stagg, Eagle Rare and E.H. Taylor. “From his first sips, Moran was enthralled,” writes Maloney.

  “I don’t know anyone who even drinks it anymore,” he said of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7, which has a national average price of about $22. “You spend an extra $10 and you get something that’s so much better.”

  Brown-Forman reported dismal sales over the winter holiday season and the hangover has lasted into 2024. “Christmas stunk,” Chief Executive Lawson Whiting said on a call with analysts in early March. 

  Brown-Forman is trying to entice younger legal-age drinkers to Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 with a TV commercial set to the AC/DC song “Back in Black.” However, that song was a hit more than 40 years ago. Also the company is selling Jack and Coke in a can, attempting to appeal to young drinkers and females. The canned cocktail contains about 5% alcohol depending on the market. Reportedly there is a no sugar version. Which hardly seems possible. 

  Chairman Campbell Brown, a great-great-grandson of founder George Garvin Brown, told investors that the company has weathered Prohibition and the Great Depression, steadily building the Jack Daniel’s brand since acquiring it nearly 70 years ago. 

  It was not reported whether he has thanked Dr. Fauci. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 16:20

• White House Approves Transfer To Israel Of More Bombs & Jets Worth Billions
  White House Approves Transfer To Israel Of More Bombs & Jets Worth Billions

  The Biden White House has approved of sending billions of dollars worth of new military equipment and ammo to Israel, The Washington Post has revealed, even amid public criticism from US officials over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intent to soon send ground troops into Rafah, which is expected to result in humanitarian disaster in the refugee-packed southern city.

  This package is to include 25 F-35 fighter jets, sources told the Post, and additionally the highly controversial 2,000-pound bombs which have been known to kill indiscriminately in Gaza when deployed by the Israeli air force.

  “The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter,” the report indicates.

  

  “The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza,” WaPo continues. “These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.”

  The 2,000 pound bombs have been flagged by human rights monitors as behind much of the soaring Palestinian casualties, given they can demolish entire city blocks and produce craters over 40 feet wide.

  The weaponry was approved as part of a prior authorization, but it highlights that for all the current US-Israel tensions due to the soaring civilian death toll in the Gaza campaign, Biden is certainly no closer to attaching ‘conditions’ on Israel when it comes to deployment of US-supplied weapons.

  A State Department official has explained that “fulfilling an authorization from one notification to Congress can result in dozens of individual Foreign Military Sales cases across the decades-long life-cycle of the congressional notification.”

  “As a matter of practicality, major procurements, like Israel’s F-35 program for example, are often broken out into several cases over many years,” the official added.

  A New York Times investigation in December concluded that Israel has been using 2,000 pound bombs supplied by the US on Gaza neighborhoods on a routine basis. The Pentagon has said it almost never uses these types of weapons in densely populated urban areas anymore because of the likelihood of large-scale civilian casualties.

  

  The Times report further said that 2,000 pound bombs had been dropped on Gaza and even inside declared ‘safe zones’ in the south, some hundreds of times.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 15:45

• How Much Do Food Stamps, Social Security, And Medicare Support The Economy?
  How Much Do Food Stamps, Social Security, And Medicare Support The Economy?

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

  Inquiring minds might be interested in a discussion of government transfer payments as a percentage of real income. I can help, but prepare to be disgusted.

  

  Data from BEA’s personal Income and outlays report. Real means inflation adjusted. Chart by Mish.

  What Are Transfer Receipts?

  Transfer receipts are government payments for which no services were performed.

  Transfer receipts include food stamps, subsidized housing, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, child tax credits, and other government assistance.

  Three rounds of massive fiscal stimulus during the Covid pandemic set off a huge wave of inflation that the Fed never saw coming.

  The numbers are worse than they look above as the following chart shows.

  Transfer Receipts as Percentage of Real Personal Income

  

  With every recession, transfer receipts as a percentage of real personal income declines.

  The three massive rounds of fiscal stimulus is unprecedented. A friend asked me today why the Fed could not see this coming.

  I explained: These guys are not wizards; they have never called a recession in real time. Bernanke denied there was a recession even after it started. He denied there was a housing bubble. They all believe in models that don’t work. And history suggests they always err on the side of being too loose. They will make the same mistakes over and over.

  The Fed never saw the uptick in inflation because their models said otherwise. Their models now say inflation will return to normal.

  I can see things models don’t: Global wage arbitrage is over. Just in time manufacturing is over. Both Trump and Biden will increase tariffs. The energy needed for AI will soar. The energy needed for EVs will grow even if transition slows. Demographic changes are huge.

  Four Reasons Transfer Receipts Poised to Surge

  1. Influx of illegal immigrants

  2. Republicans just agreed to expand Child Tax Credits

  3. Medicaid Expansion

  4. Boomer Retirements

  Influx of Immigrants

  Please note: Denver Health at “Critical Point” as 8,000 Migrants Make 20,000 Emergency Visits

  Much of that you will pay for directly with higher premiums. But the Federal government will pick up some of it via Medicaid Expansion.

  Child Tax Credits

  We have a new number on the deal the House Republicans agreed to. It’s $1.5 trillion over ten years.

  For discussion, please see How Much Will That GOP Deal on Child Tax Credits Really Cost?

  The reported numbers do not include an Affordable Housing giveaway, or aid to Ukraine and Israel, or expanded defense spending. More money and bigger deficits means more inflation.

  The tax credits add directly to transfer payments.

  Medicaid Expansion

  

  On March 9, I noted Medicaid Expansion Was Supposed to Pay for Itself, Instead Hospitals Are Closing

  10 states did not fall for the Medicaid expansion trap under Obamacare. The rest are suffering. Private payers (you, one way or another) make up the loss.

  Boomer Retirements

  Due to age demographics, I expect employment in age groups 60 and over to decline by about 12.5 million.

  

  Population stats are from the BLS. Expected Employment Loss is a Mish calculation based on the Employment Population Ratio (the percentage of people working in each age group).

  In terms of expanding transfer payments this is the biggest of the four by far.

  Boomers health care need and retirements will have a huge impact expanded Social Security payments and Medicare payments.

  And there is a shortage of 6 million workers to replace retiring boomers. This is another set of things the Fed has not properly modeled.

  As a result of demographics, transfer receipts as a percentage of real personal income will surge. And due to a replacement worker shortage, wages will likely rise and productivity decline.

  For discussion, please see In the Next 5 years, Employment in Age Groups 60+ Will Drop by ~12.5 Million

  I go over the demographic math, point-by-point. Click on the link for details.

  Conclusion: The decline in the rate of inflation is transitory. The Fed does not see this coming.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 15:10

• Fire, Then Ice: Our Deflationary Future
  Fire, Then Ice: Our Deflationary Future

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTWoMinds blog,

  Lest you weep for those whose phantom wealth will be drained away, recall that few win when a reserve currency dies. Labor can start earning the day after the reset, but the capital lost is gone for good.

  

  Outside the “everything’s always fine” echo-chamber, the consensus is that easily created fiat currencies will all evaporate as the temptation to continue printing/borrowing money into existence is irresistible: the only way to keep the system from imploding is to devalue the soaring debt and interest payments with inflation, and the dial controlling inflation is money-printing / central banks buying debt and all the related tricks.

  The problem is that once the dial is turned to 11, inflationary expectations start feeding back into real-world inflation and inflation then escapes the control of central bankers and government treasuries: creating more money to devalue the currency and service the debt ends up destroying the currency via hyper-inflation.

  History offers many examples of this temptation and dynamic. The pain of debts being written off, governments defaulting on bonds and assets crashing is too great, and so we have to print more money / borrow more money into existence to stave off the painful reckoning of debt dependence and central bank hubris.

  To stave off the pain of debt saturation / over-indebtedness, monetary authorities collapse the currency and the economy it supported, unleashing maximum pain on everyone who used the currency or owned assets denominated in the currency.

  A new dollar is then introduced at a ratio of 1 new unit to 100, or 1,000, or 100,000 of the old dollars. Everyone’s financial wealth is wiped out. Tools, skills, precious metals, buildings, mines, farms, etc., still retain their intrinsic / productive value, but the monetary reset means everyone whose phantom wealth was a form of debt is wiped out.

  This dynamic makes perfect sense, and it’s a well-worn pathway for nation-states. Empires, however, might choose differently. The difference between a nation-state and an empire is generally under-appreciated. A nation-state can destroy its currency and bankrupt everyone holding its bonds / debt and start over, but an empire cannot be quite so cavalier, for the “reserve currency” of the empire is its foundation of power.

  Yes, the hard power of military power projection is a core strength, along with trade, alliances, cultural and diplomatic soft power, but if the currency evaporates, so does the Imperial Project, and those tasked with maintaining the Imperial Project are forced to calibrate pain by a different standard than politicians and central bankers.

  Inflation and the evaporation of the currency is not a solution for the Imperial Project, it is the surrender of all that is great and good. The only viable solution for the Imperial Project is deflation, the forced liquidation of unpayable debts and thus the forced liquidation of all the phantom wealth generated by ever-expanding debt.

  Just as inflation has many sources, so too does deflation. Technology can be a source of deflation, as a new technology can dramatically increase supply and durability while dramatically lowering costs. Substitution can be deflationary, as enterprises and consumers swap a cheaper, more abundant substitute for whatever was becoming scarce and costly.

  If the sum of “money” circulating in the economy contracts as credit tightens, it becomes harder to borrow more money into existence. Every dollar of debt that’s written down to zero reduces the quantity of money floating around, i.e. the money supply.

  If the money that is being created is immediately hoarded by the wealthy, it doesn’t circulate in the economy and therefore it’s the equivalent of debt being extinguished: the supply of money doesn’t expand because the new money has been hoarded, in effect buried in the backyard.

  To preserve the Empire, it becomes necessary to wipe out the debt and the phantom wealth it created, 90% of which is held by the hyper-wealthy, super-wealthy and merely wealthy. This is the class that has concentrated wealth and power to the point of destabilizing the social, financial and political orders, and so those tasked with preserving the Empire (the State within the State) will have to strip this powerful class of its phantom wealth indirectly, as the class is too politically powerful to be taken down head-on.

  Recall that deflation–the decline in the price of assets, goods and services–is beneficial to wage-earners, as their earnings go farther as prices fall. Profits become harder to come by, and those lending and speculating on ever-higher asset valuations are wiped out.

  From the Imperial point of view, this is all good: given that the only goal is to preserve the currency from evaporation, then the takedown of the hyper-wealthy class that threatens to destabilize the Imperial order is equally essential.

  Just as inflation is a hidden tax on labor, deflation is a hidden tax on capital. If commercial real estate, stocks and corporate bonds all lose value for a decade, the bottom 90% will only be affected indirectly. If whatever money is being created is funneled into spending at the bottom of the economy–those buying essentials–then the deflation of private debt and assets won’t strip the real economy of money in circulation, it will only strip the wealthy of the capital they were hoarding and speculating with under the guise of “investing.”

  Fire, then ice: as inflation (fire) threatens the Imperial currency, the Empire must choose deflation (ice) to preserve its foundation. Currency in active circulation is lumped in with the phantom wealth of debt-based assets, but they are two different things, as Aristotle observed (oikonoma and chrematistics). Just as inflation works slowly to erode the value of labor, deflation works best if it too is gradual, slowly extinguishing phantom wealth over time.

  I have endeavored over the years to explain that the concentrated wealth and power of the hyper-wealthy pose an existential threat to the Imperial Project, and the showdown between debt-created phantom wealth and the bedrock of the Imperial Project, its currency, will play out in the next 6 to 8 years.

  The “everything’s always fine” echo-chamber holds that inflation to preserve all the debt-created phantom wealth is necessary, but they are focused on serving private wealth, not the Imperial Project. What’s truly essential is to preserve the Imperial currency, and to accomplish that, both the phantom wealth and the power of the hyper-wealthy who own the vast majority of it must be extinguished. Slowly, slowly, but extinguished nonetheless.

  Lest you weep for those whose phantom wealth will be drained away, recall that few win when a reserve currency dies. Labor can start earning the day after the reset, but the capital lost is gone for good.

  

  There is much more to discuss here, but let’s take it one step at a time.

  *  *  *

  Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  Subscribe to my Substack for free

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 14:00

• Criminal White House Press Corps Has Been Looting Air Force One
  Criminal White House Press Corps Has Been Looting Air Force One

  In case you needed one more reason to despise legacy-media journalists, Politico reports that White House correspondents have been routinely looting Air Force One — to the point that they were just collectively asked to keep their sticky fingers off the taxpayers’ property.   

  After the latest discovery of missing property, White House Correspondents’ Association president and NBC reporter Kelly O’Donnell emailed members to inform them that stealing is not allowed, and that doing so harms the press corps’ reputation, such as it is.   

  

  Looting Air Force One is entrenched in the press corps culture, to the extent that rookies are told to do it. As a current White House reporter told Politico: 

  “On my first flight, the person next to me was like, ‘You should take that glass.’ They were like: ‘Everyone does it.’” 

  That’s not the most disgraceful anecdote…

  “Several colleagues of one former White House correspondent for a major newspaper described them hosting a dinner party where all the food was served on gold-rimmed Air Force One plates, evidently taken bit by bit over the course of some time.”

  Others described how, when reporters disembark Air Force One, the sound of clinking glass and porcelain accompanies their descent down the rear stairway.  

  

  While it’s apparently been a long-simmering phenomenon, the reporters’ kleptomania on an extended West coast trip in February sufficiently irked the Air Force crew that they complained to the White House travel office. The director of press advance, in turn, told the press office that a USAF inventory found several items missing from the press cabin.

  The press office sent a gentle email to all the journalists who’d been on that particular trip, with someone familiar with the matter telling Politico, “It was like, ‘Hey, if you inadvertently wound up taking something off the plane by mistake, we can help facilitate a quiet return.’”

  The response was predictably pathetic: Exactly one of the thieving journalists demonstrated a semblance of morality. The guilty individual arranged a rendezvous next to the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square — across from the White House — and relinquished a stolen embroidered pillow. 

  The latest Gallup poll found that, when it comes to reporting the news accurately and fairly, a record 39% of Americans said they have no confidence in mass media whatsoever, and another 29% said they have “not very much.”

  Forget reporting...next time, Gallup should ask about the extent to which establishment journalists can be trusted not to steal your f***ing silverware.  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 13:25

• Rotations
  Rotations

  By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

  “Rotations”

  We will use the term “rotation” a bit more broadly today. Yes, it will incorporate what we typically think of as rotations, but will be broadened to encompass “pivots” and “evolution” if not “rethinking.”

  The areas of focus today will be:

  • U.S. Equity Markets
  • The Fed on Inflation
  • Crypto
  • Carry Trades
  • Private Credit

  Each of these is important for overall markets and represent, to some degree, “rotations.”

  U.S. Equity Markets

  I’ve been particularly bearish on the Nasdaq 100 which, despite all the hype, closed lower to end March than where it closed on March 1st. While I’ve liked energy, I have not committed to the “laggard” trade, like we did in late fall/early winter last year. Back then we were reduced to Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butt-Head to support what was a largely contrarian (and seemingly illogical) view.

  While I’ve been struggling to become constructive on the Nasdaq 100 (IGIW in A Day for Acronyms), it certainly makes sense to revisit the broad market and the potential for another big rotation like we saw late last year.

  

  I’m so sick of hearing about the Mag 7, Fab 4, or whatever (Time to Retire Mag 7 Moniker) and that it is at the 22nd all-time high on this run for the S&P 500, that I’m looking for anything to steer me away from that. The Russell 2000, suddenly outperforming, is interesting.

  This has been a market driven by AI, AI proxies, and anything that has been “deputized” into the AI space. That is where the performance has been concentrated.

  #AI at a reasonable price via Citi pic.twitter.com/shX7MokT20

  — JE$US (@WallStJesus) March 31, 2024

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

  That is where I question whether markets, investors, or even corporations have gotten ahead of themselves on what AI can deliver today, especially versus the costs of implementing it today.

  It is refreshing to see a bounce in some other areas. Energy and mining have done well of late. The regional bank index seems to be trying to break back to levels last seen before some smaller banks faced pressure and required some immediate investments.

  This is occurring while ARKK, one of my favorite proxies for “innovative” stocks, bounces around, roughly unchanged from the middle of February. That is even with a resumption of the IPO market, which I would have expected to provide a “knee jerk” bounce to that ETF. It didn’t, which is somewhat encouraging, as it could be taken (and I’m taking it this way) that there is a lot of thought going into picking stocks and sectors (yes, a LOT of the thought is to BUY AI) which seems healthy.

  Is this rotation real?

  Are we set for another period of significant outperformance by small caps? I could be convinced of that, quite easily, in fact. We’ve hit that point in the rally, where even some of the biggest bulls are seeing signs of excessive exuberance.

  But (and this is a big but), will it occur like late last year, when the outperformance occurred in a very positive market, or will it occur in a decline?

  I’m starting to eye outperformance for more sectors than just energy (which has been my focus), but while I can see energy going up, even amidst a decline in the Nasdaq 100, I’m not sure that I can see the same for the Russell 2000.
  Leaning towards a rotation, but the outperformance seems likely to be losing less, rather than making more.

  The Fed on Inflation

  Clearly the Fed seems to be getting more comfortable with some level of inflation above 2%. While they haven’t officially changed their target, they seem to be willing to ease monetary policy, even while inflation remains closer to 3% than 2%.

  The Fed’s “preferred” measure of inflation came in at 2.5% on Friday (core was slightly higher).

  

  There are three things I think are worth pointing out:

  • The “favorite” measure, whether by design or coincidence, has struggled to be above 2% for extended periods. It is almost like you pick a favorite measure that lets you bias policy towards easing, since it doesn’t often or naturally get above 2%. Above 2.5% is almost an anomaly for this metric.

  • Remember back when we were finally getting above 2% inflation, and the Fed “rotated” from a sort of “hard target” to an “average target?” The Fed shouldn’t react to inflation above 2% after extended periods below 2% because they have to think in terms of averages, not absolutes. If that thinking was prominent today, we would need deflation for a year or two, to get averages back to below 2% (depending on whether you are thinking in terms of 1-to-3-year averages, or 5-to-10-year averages).

  • Transitory. Enough said, other than that it highlights a propensity within the Fed towards easier money, rather than tighter fiscal policy.

  The Fed has “rotated” into methodologies and views that let them be more dovish than might otherwise be expected. That is happening right now, but their thought process hasn’t always worked.

  This “rotation” should largely be expected, but it is fully priced in. However, is the risk balanced appropriately if the data comes in “soft enough” (under their new “guidelines”) to allow for more cuts, or for it to be “inflationary enough” that the Fed winds up disappointing markets?

  On the bright side, markets seem to be moving far more on economic data (which has been strong) than overreacting to Fed jawboning. The equity market rallied strongly even as multiple rate cuts were priced out of the market.

  Really not sure what conclusion to draw from this latest “rotation” of Fed thinking, other than it seems to be their predilection to find ways to “pivot” to easier monetary policy. However, their track record for being able to follow through has been mixed.

  Crypto

  I remember back when Bitcoin was “better than money” and a mechanism for transacting (someone bought a pizza for 10 coins). I also remember when Bitcoin was an inflation hedge. I remember when Long Island Iced Tea became Long Blockchain Corp and rallied. I also vaguely remember things similar to this occurring regarding the metaverse, and of late, how everything suddenly has an “AI” component (either in its function or design).

  One thing that has been consistent about crypto is that it has always been about adoption.

  The reasons for adoption have changed, but the need for new adoption, and the ability to attract it, has been crucial to timing Bitcoin markets.

  Now, as far as I can tell, the Bitcoin argument has simplified to:

  • Scarcity. There is a limit to the number of ones and zeros that can be created. I rarely hear “use” cases any longer, so scarcity has bubbled to the surface.
  • On a more technical note, we have the “halving.” The reward for mining is cut in half, as Bitcoin makes new supply more “scarce.” The halving has accompanied rallies in the past, therefore, it will again, especially since it is tied to “scarcity” which is now the main selling point.

  So, the scarcity argument is now designed to drive RIAs into Bitcoin. Bitcoin was so “complex” that RIAs managing billions couldn’t figure out how to do it. But now, the ease of ETFs (which should be anathema to Bitcoin purists) is the ticket to adoption and success.

  Bitcoin ETF assets grew to around $55 billion late last week.

  • Bitcoin ETFs started with a massive head start as GBTC, formerly a Unit Trust, converted to an ETF.
  • Bitcoin was around $40k when the ETFs were launched and is now at $70k, helping the asset size grow.
  • So, there has been some adoption, but:
    • It has been a drop in the bucket (somewhere around $10 billion in new money) for an “asset” worth $1.4 trillion.
    • Even some big proponents have been commenting on how relatively small flows have outsized price moves associated with them.

  Maybe the scarcity, halving, and “RIA adoption” story is enough? Certainly, Bitcoiners have been awesome at creating and evolving their rationale as to why you need to own Bitcoin.

  This “pivot” or “rotation” on what is used to create FOMO is impressive, but I’m still not getting a strong sense of greater adoption. Yes, in our world, if it keeps going up, it will gather more adoption as FOMO kicks in. However, a decline seems unlikely to trigger a buying opportunity, at least in the minds of many RIAs who admit a 1% allocation is small, but also don’t see buying anything they don’t believe in.

  Finally, on the theme of rotations, Gensler rotated into approval. Part of me now wonders if, in the back end, many will rue the day that the ETFs were created. One thing that seemed prevalent in the “old days” of crypto was the inability to substantiate claims, or even sue. I wonder if that is changing?

  Wouldn’t short this here, but it seems incredibly overdone based on “scarcity,” the “halving,” and ETF adoption, which just doesn’t seem that great relative to the size of Bitcoin.

  Ethereum, and some others that are still sticking to “use” cases other than scarcity, could be more interesting over time.

  Carry Trades

  So far, with the most dovish hike ever, the Japanese Yen has retained its use for funding carry trades. There has been some concern expressed that a hawkish Bank of Japan could upset the carry trade “apple cart” but yields are still a fraction of what

  they are elsewhere in the world, they sound dovish, and the Yen is weakening, even with the potential for some intervention.
  There has been no rotation in the carry trade, but that is something to watch.

  Private Credit

  I’m extremely comfortable with private credit, but we are running out of time and space today, so that will get its own piece later this week.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 03/31/2024 – 12:50

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• The Era Of Informed Consent Is Over
  The Era Of Informed Consent Is Over

  Authored by Victor Dalziel via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In a significant blow to patient autonomy, informed consent has been quietly revoked just 77 years after it was codified in the Nuremberg Code.

  

  On the 21st of December 2023, as we were frantically preparing for the festive season, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final ruling to amend a provision of the 21st Century Cures Act. This allowed

  “… an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than a minimal risk to the human subject …” [emphasis added]

  This ruling went into effect on January 22nd, 2024, which means it’s already standard practice across America.

  So, what is the 21st Century Cures Act? It is a controversial Law enacted by the 114th United States Congress in January 2016 with strong support from the pharmaceutical industry. The Act was designed to

  “… accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of 21st-century cures, and for other purposes [?] …”

  Some of the provisions within this Act make for uncomfortable reading. For example, the Act supported:

  • High-risk, high-reward research [Sec. 2036].

  • Novel clinical trial designs [Sec. 3021]

  • Encouraging vaccine innovation [Sec. 3093].

  This Act granted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) legal protection to pursue high-risk, novel vaccine research. A strong case could be made that these provisions capture all the necessary architecture required for much of the evil that transpired over the past four years.

  Overturning patient-informed consent was another stated goal of the original Act. Buried under Section 3024 was the provision to develop an “Informed consent waiver or alteration for clinical investigation.”

  Scholars of medical history understand that the concept of informed consent, something we all take for granted today, is a relatively new phenomenon codified in its modern understanding as one of the critical principles of the Nuremberg Code in 1947. It is inconceivable that just 77 years after Nuremberg, the door has once again opened for state-sanctioned medical experimentation on potentially uninformed and unwilling citizens.

  According to this amendment, the state alone, acting through the NIH, the FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will decide what is considered a “minimal risk” and, most concerning, will determine:

  “… appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects.”

  Notice the term subjects, not patients, persons, individuals, or citizens… but subjects. In asymmetrical power relationships such as clinician/patient, it is understood that the passive subject will comply with the rulings and mandates of their medical masters. The use of the term subjects also serves to dehumanise. The dehumanisation of populations was a critical component of Nazi human experimentation and, as Hannah Arendt argued, is an essential step toward denying citizens “… the right to have rights.”

  This ruling also allows researchers and their misguided evangelical billionaire backers to potentially pursue dangerous experimental programs such as Bill Gates’ mosquito vaccines, mRNA vaccines in livestock, and vaccines in aerosols. This Act encourages these novel and high-risk programs, with medical studies approved as “minimal risk” by the regulators no longer requiring researchers and pharmaceutical companies to obtain patient consent. Yet, the histories of pharmacology and medicine are plagued with clinical investigations and interventions that were thought to pose no more than minimal risk to humans but went on to cause immeasurable pain, suffering, and death.

  This amendment represents merely a first tentative step as the U.S. government tests the waters to see what it can get away with. Given the lack of attention this ruling received in both the corporate press and independent media, the government is likely to feel emboldened to widen its scope. Thus, this decision represents the beginning of a chilling revisionism in Western medical history, as patient autonomy is again forsaken.

  This ruling, to be actioned by potentially corrupt scientists, health bureaucrats, and captured health and drug regulators, is another step toward a dystopian future unimaginable just five years ago. No doubt the infrastructure to implement this decree is already being constructed by the same groupthink cultists responsible for the nightmarish pandemic lockdowns, continuing to place the pursuit of profit and the greater good above individual choice, bodily autonomy, and informed consent.

  From the Brownstone Institute

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 23:20

• Rivian Drivers Are The Most 'Brand-Loyal' Vehicle-Owners In The World
  Rivian Drivers Are The Most ‘Brand-Loyal’ Vehicle-Owners In The World

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, visualizes the best and worst car brands in terms of brand loyalty. This is measured by the % of current owners who would buy from the same brand for their next vehicle.

  

  Data comes from Consumer Reports’ owner satisfaction survey, which includes responses from owners of more than 330,000 vehicles.

  Car Brands With the Most Loyal Customers

  Rivian takes the top spot in this ranking, with 86% of owners saying they would buy from the brand again. The EV startup has carved an interesting niche for itself with its outdoor adventure-focused models, and despite several recalls, appears to have won the hearts of its early customers.

  

  It’s interesting to note that Tesla held the #1 spot in last year’s ranking.

  Car Brands With the Least Loyal Customers

  At the other end of the spectrum we have brands with the least loyal customers, suggesting that owners are less satisfied with their purchase.

  

  At the bottom of this table is Nissan’s luxury marque, Infiniti, with only 43% of owners saying they would revisit the brand for their next car.

  Infiniti dealerships are aware of this alarming trend, and have attributed it to the brand’s aging lineup. In a recent interview, Steve Lapin, Chairman of the Infiniti National Dealer Advisory Board, said: “Product is king. Infiniti doesn’t have the right products right now to compete in the marketplace.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 22:45

• Behind Massive Mail-In Ballot Push Is A Little-Noticed Executive Order
  Behind Massive Mail-In Ballot Push Is A Little-Noticed Executive Order

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal effort to register voters using the government’s vast reach, including throughout the U.S. prison system, is raising concerns from critics who have said it won’t benefit Democrats and Republicans equally.

  

  Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on March 6 alleging that agencies under the attorney general’s charge are “attempting to register people to vote, including potentially ineligible felons, and to co-opt state and local officials into accomplishing this goal.”

  The allegation relates to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which states, “The head of each agency shall evaluate ways in which the agency can, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, promote voter registration and voter participation.”

  Among other things, this order has forced U.S. Marshals to modify more than 900 contracts with prisons and jails to provide voter registration documents and facilitate mail-in voting for inmates, Mr. Watson wrote.

  “We have worked extremely hard to restore the confidence of Mississippi voters in our election process,” Mr. Watson told The Epoch Times. “To have the Biden administration and the DOJ purposefully undermine these efforts and jeopardize the integrity of Mississippi’s elections is unacceptable.”

  The secretary of state is the chief election officer in Mississippi.

  The work by the Department of Justice to register voters in prisons, critics say, is just the tip of the iceberg.

  Other agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, are also carrying out campaigns to sign up new voters.

  On Feb. 26, Vice President Kamala Harris lauded a federal plan to use work-study grants to pay students to register voters.

  In addition, President Biden’s executive order directed federal agencies to select “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and state officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

  President Biden’s executive order was called “visionary“ by Ceridwen Cherry, a former staff attorney on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Voting Rights Project, who said, ”In a democracy, governments at all levels should be doing everything they can to help eligible people register to vote.”

  However, critics say elections are under the purview of states, not the federal government.

  “The reason it’s such a big problem is that, with the president, it’s only one political party that’s in power,” Stewart Whitson, legal director of the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a conservative think-tank, told The Epoch Times.

  “If you allow the president to be the one to decide where all these massive resources are channeled, that’s problematic,” he said, adding that this is why the Founders gave election authority to states and not to the federal executive.

  

  Implementation Questions

  The plan has been called “Bidenbucks” by some of its detractors, referencing the injection into state election programs of $400 million in 2020 from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, dubbed “Zuckerbucks.”

  “This is Zuckerbucks on steroids because instead of $400 million, it’s unlimited funding and resources and the reach of the federal government and all its offices located across the country,” Mr. Whitson said.

  Previous efforts to federalize elections through Congress have failed.

  In 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted to eradicate the legislative filibuster in order to pass H.R. 5746, the “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act,” which would have given the federal government authority over parts of state election systems, expanded voting by mail, and eliminated security protocols such as requiring voter identification.

  Democrats claimed the bill was necessary to fight “voter suppression” by state governments.

  President Biden’s executive order includes the directive for federal agencies to find ways to distribute “vote-by-mail ballot application forms” as well as assist applicants in completing the application “in a manner consistent with all relevant State laws.”

  In 2020, nearly 45 percent of voters used mail-in-ballots.

  Since the president signed EO 14019, a number of attempts have been made to obtain information about how federal agencies will implement it, particularly which private organizations it has selected to work out of federal offices alongside government officials.

  Federal departments refused to release this information, and requests were followed up with FOIA filings and subsequently by lawsuits; however, the Biden administration continues to defy the requests.

  In July 2021, the FGA filed a FOIA request regarding President Biden’s Voting Access plan. The group sought information about what federal agencies were doing to implement the plan, as well as records from planning and strategy meetings among President Biden’s staff, federal agencies, and the architects of EO 14019.

  “These documents, in any other context, would be handed over much more quickly,” Mr. Whitson said. “So this indicates to us that there’s something there the Biden administration really does not care to share, because they’ve withheld it for nearly three years now.”

  

  The America First Legal foundation, another plaintiff in a FOIA suit, characterized EO 14019 as “the president’s unprecedented effort to deploy federal agencies in support of partisan voting operations and fortify politically aligned private organizations working to circumvent state election integrity laws.”

  More than two years later, court battles over the information requests are ongoing. The administration has brought in White House counsel and the Department of Justice to fight the requests.

  How Federal Agencies Enact EO 14019

  Prominent among the many federal agencies carrying out the executive order is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which announced in 2022 that federal health centers across the nation now have the discretion to participate in activities—including voter registration—that are outside the scope of core department activities.

  “Such voter registration activities may include making available voter registration materials to patients, encouraging patients to register to vote, assisting patients with completing registration forms, sending completed forms to the election authorities, providing voter registration materials in waiting rooms, and allowing private, non-partisan organizations to conduct on-site voter registration,” the HHS website says.

  The Department of Housing and Urban Development instructed more than 3,000 public housing authorities managing some 1.2 million public housing units across the country to run voter registration drives in those units.

  The Department of Education sent a letter to universities, directing them to use Federal Work Study funds “to support voter registration activities.”

  The letter states, “If a student is employed directly by a post-secondary institution, the institution may compensate a student for [Federal Work Study] employment involving voter registration activities that take place on or off-campus.”

  The Department of Education has been particularly active in turning out likely Democrat voters, according to Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center.

  “Every college campus is massively dependent on Department of Education largesse, from Pell grants to every other kind of aid,” Mr. Walter told The Epoch Times.

  “The Department of Education in 2022 was threatening campuses that you better be registering students or you could lose your federal funds.”

  The Department of Agriculture issued letters to state agencies administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women’s Infants and Children’s low-income food program, instructing them to carry out voter registration activities with federal funds.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 22:10

• Black Mayors Hold National Meeting On Crime – Discussion Closed To The Public
  Black Mayors Hold National Meeting On Crime – Discussion Closed To The Public

  The “Black Mayors’ Coalition on Crime” gathered this week in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss the dangers of crime across the US, as well as apparent solutions to the growing threat.  The question is, was the meeting really about stopping crime, or, was it all about maintaining optics and making the public believe crime is going down when it’s not?

  It’s difficult to say because public and media access to the event was strictly limited.  In many states private meetings between public officials related to policy are illegal.  However, in Tennessee the regulations are a bit more lax in terms of what constitutes a “meeting subject to law.”  

  The Tennessee Open Meetings Act defines a “meeting” as “the convening of a governing body of a public body for which a quorum is required to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision.” A “governing body” is “any public body [consisting] of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.” 

  In other words, a quorum is required, which means Tennessee was very carefully chosen by the Black Mayor’s Coalition (the vast majority of them Democrats) because it allowed them more legal room to hold closed door meetings.  But why not include the press and the public in this discourse?  

  

  Perhaps because the event is in itself an admission that crime is rising; a reality which Democrat representatives have tried to deny for the past few years.  Another reason may be because the solutions being discussed are not something the voting population would agree with. 

  In the interview below the Mayor of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones, mentions that gas stations and convenience stores attract a high rate of crime and asks how the business owners can be ‘held accountable’ for this, rather than how they can be protected from it? 

  “We have a lot of violence around convenience stores and gas stations…So how can we hold those business owners accountable and also bring down crime? Some of the things are already doing, we’re finding other mayors are doing as well.”

  In other words, how can these mayors blame businesses for the crime rate instead of taking responsibility as elected representatives?   

  There are the obvious ironies to mention here, including the fact that many of these mayors supported far-left measures to defund police departments, only to quietly remove those measures a few years later.  Then there’s the plethora of statistical tricks used by city politicians to hide real crime data. 

  This includes greatly reduced prosecution and conviction rates; in many Democrat controlled cities the conviction rate is less than 5 out of every 100 arrests.  From 2018 to 2023, conviction rates dropped over 58%, and convictions sharply declined specifically from 2020 onward.  From 2011 to 2021 prison populations dropped over 22%, despite the fact that criminal activity increased over the same period.     

  The less prosecutions, the less convictions, the lower the crime stats.  It’s that simple.  Democrats have also taken advantage of a change in the FBI criminal reporting policies which was conveniently initiated in 2020.  Because of this change, numerous US cities will not be reporting full numbers to the FBI until 2025.  This is why the FBI recently reported a “drop” in violent crime nationally – Because they don’t have complete statistics. 

  Then of course there’s the disproportionate number of crimes committed by minorities in these same cities.  Black on black crime rates in places like St. Louis are stunning.  Studies from 2022 show that 92% of homicide suspects and 86% of victims in St. Louis and St. Louis County were black.  Around 84% of them were repeat offenders.  Blacks make up 43% of the population in that region.     

  Leftist mayors have long suggested that public perception of crime deviates from the reality of crime; yet, here they are holding closed-door meetings to discuss the growing crime problem in their own towns.  Perhaps the issue is not public perception mismatching reality,  maybe the issue is political spin mismatching reality.  The populace deals with these crimes on a daily basis; it’s going to be hard to gaslight people into thinking criminal activity isn’t a problem. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 21:35

• In 2024, Digital Is Everything In Politics
  In 2024, Digital Is Everything In Politics

  Authored by Scott Farmer via RealClear Politics,

  As the 2024 election heats up, now is the time for campaigns to invest wisely. Questions abound: Do you invest in cable news advertising? Door-to-door canvassing? Social media? Something else?

  

  For answers, I look back to the past. In 2000, I oversaw the South Carolina Republican Party’s history-making effort to post real-time presidential primary results online. The election night vote-counting for the epic Bush vs. McCain battle played out on screens across the world – not just in the South Carolina GOP’s vote tabulation center. On that night, the ground shifted beneath our feet.

  Over more than two decades of working on Senator Lindsey Graham’s campaigns, first as his finance director and then as his campaign manager for multiple elections, I watched digital operations transform from a backwater oddity to the beating heart of modern campaigns. To outsiders, this revolution seemed obvious, given the meteoric rise of social media, data collection, and mobile devices. However, for an industry steeped in “retail politics” that values handshakes, parades, and stump speeches, embracing the Internet’s intangible nature was a massive culture shock.

  Many candidates didn’t understand the social media platforms that can decide elections, and many still don’t. But the digitization of politics is now undeniable, with digital ad spending alone expected to increase by about 30% in 2024. Billions of political dollars are now spent on digital ads without even taking into account the organic reach of a given candidate.

  The tide turned when digital proved it could raise money. In the early 2000s, campaigns dabbled with websites and a few email donations. Digital was seen as a minor complement to traditional fundraising, not a replacement. Today, large grassroots-fueled campaigns often generate a majority of their funding from small-dollar donors. In fact, we raised a whopping 84% of Senator Graham’s record-breaking $110 million in 2020 from generous digital and direct mail donors. Again, we felt the ground shift beneath our feet.

  But fundraising is only the tip of the iceberg. The Obama campaign’s pioneering use of technology in 2008 opened the floodgates, reaching more voters, organizing more efficiently, and raising more money thanks to an unmatched digital operation. Fast forward to 2024, and digital is intertwined with every aspect of a political campaign.

  Want to recruit volunteers or distribute yard signs? Utilize your website and social media. Need to map out the most effective door-knocking routes? There’s an app for that. Want to encourage donations during a debate? Send out a text. Looking to target voters on social media and streaming TV? Digital advertising has it covered. “Retail politics” still happens in person, but campaigns are now powered by data and analytics. Digital rules behind the scenes.

  The central role of digital highlights one of its most critical values: Real-time metrics. Digital is the canary in the coal mine, detecting a message’s effectiveness long before polls or pundits reflect it. If a strategy shows early success, data quantifies and scales it. If you’re falling behind the metrics, your campaign is doomed. We saw this real-time impact in 2020 when Senator Graham raised over $5 million in only 24 hours due, in part, to standing up for then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. On that day, the ground again shifted beneath our feet.

  In 2024 and beyond, the digital team can no longer be siloed off. It must be fully integrated into every aspect of a winning campaign, so digital should be part of every strategic decision through constant collaboration. Future campaigns will be won or lost based on which candidates have digital in their DNA – and invest in it. Leaders who fail to embrace this truth do so at their own peril.

  Scott Farmer serves as chief operating officer at Push Digital Group.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 21:00

• Deadly Lung Disease Cases Surge To 10-Year High, Children Most Affected: CDC
  Deadly Lung Disease Cases Surge To 10-Year High, Children Most Affected: CDC

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

  U.S. cases of tuberculosis, a deadly infectious disease that typically strikes the lungs, have soared to their highest level in a decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the largest relative increase among children.

  

  After 27 years of declining tuberculosis rates in the United States, cases of the disease started to climb again in 2020—and they’ve continued to rise every year since, the CDC said in a March 28 report.

  In 2023, tuberculosis case counts jumped by 1,295 from the prior year to 9,615, the agency said. This represents an increase of 16 percent and is the highest level since 2013.

  While the CDC expected cases to rise, the extent of the increase came as somewhat of a surprise to the agency.

  Dr. Philip LoBue, director of the CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, told The Associated Press that the 2023 case count was “a little more” than expected.

  Tuberculosis incidences increased in every age group in 2023 compared to the year prior, but for reasons unknown children aged 5–14 experienced the largest relative increase—42 percent.

  Infections Most Common Among Non-US-Born Individuals

  The vast majority—76 percent—of tuberculosis cases in the United States in 2023 were in non-U.S.-born persons.

  Among 9,573 tuberculosis cases in persons for whom birth origin was known, 7,259 occurred among those who were born outside the United States, the CDC said. This represents an 18 percent increase compared to 2022.

  Tuberculosis, which is caused by a bacteria that typically attacks the lungs, is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world.

  Nearly 4,400 people globally die each day from tuberculosis, which is spread through the air when someone is infected with the disease sneezes or coughs.

  The United States has one of the lowest rates of tuberculosis in the world, but the CDC said in its report that the uptick in cases means that capacity should be strengthened in public health programs to carry out “critical disease control and prevention strategies.”

  California With Highest Number of Cases

  As was the case in 2022, California reported the highest number of tuberculosis cases in 2023, with 2,113 infections.

  Alaska reported the highest infection rate, at 10.6 per 100,000 people.

  An estimated 85 percent of the people counted in 2023 were infected at least a year or two earlier and had what’s known as latent tuberculosis. This is when the bacteria enters the body and hibernates in the lungs or other parts of the body, and then becomes reactivated.

  Health experts estimate as many as 13 million Americans have latent tuberculosis. People with latent tuberculosis don’t feel sick or have any symptoms, nor can they spread the bacteria to others.

  The CDC says that, in order to prevent transmission and reduce fatalities, the disease must be detected quickly and treatment must be initated promptly.

  Last November, California health officials said that at least 10 cases of tuberculosis were linked to a casino in Contra Costa County.

  “TB can live inside someone for years without showing signs of its presence,” Dr. Meera Sreenivasan said of the disease, according to an earlier report from The Epoch Times.

  “That is why it’s important to take a test, even if you do not feel sick. TB can cause serious illness, but it is treatable and curable with medicine, especially when caught early,” he added.

  In another widely reported incident, an outbreak of tuberculosis cases at a migrant shelter on Cape Cod was the subject of an alleged coverup.

  Types of Tuberculosis And Symptoms

  Tuberculosis can be categorized into different types based on its stage (active versus latent) and the part of the body it affects (lungs or outside the lungs), with the two main categories being pulmonary and extrapulmonary.

  Pulmonary tuberculosis is an infection involving the lungs, though this form of the disease can also spread to other organs.

  Extrapulmonary tuberculosis originates in organs outside the lungs and never enters the lungs. This type often arises from the spread of infection through the bloodstream or directly from other organs. Unlike the type that involves the lungs, extrapulmonary tuberculosis is generally not contagious.

  While latent tuberculosis is asymptomatic, people with the active form of the disease typically have symptoms that include chills, fever, profuse night sweats, weight loss, general malaise, loss of appetite, weakness, and fatigue.

  Pulmonary tuberculosis also often involves difficulty breathing, chest pain, persistent cough lasting over three weeks, swollen glands, and sore throat.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 19:50

• Gen-Z American YouTuber Kidnapped In Haiti 
  Gen-Z American YouTuber Kidnapped In Haiti 

  A YouTube and Twitch star known as “YourFellowArab” was reportedly kidnapped by a ruthless Haitian gang. The Gen-Zer attempted to interview gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier earlier this month amid the Caribbean nation’s descent into civil war. 

  

  Local media outlet Haiti24 reports Addison Pierre Maalouf traveled from his home in Atlanta to interview Barbecue, the leader of the G9 Family and Allies, abbreviated as “G9” or “FRG9”, a coalition of over a dozen Haitian gangs based in Port-au-Prince. 

  But on March 14, the YouTuber was kidnapped by a group of armed men from the “400 Mawozo” gang. 

  Haiti24 reports: 

  The incident took place when he was returning from Cap-Haïtien, accompanied by his Haitian colleague, Sacra Sean. Adisson Pierre Maalouf went to Delmas 6 to do an interview with Jimmy Cerisier, aka “Barbecue,” a spokesperson for Viv Ansanm.

  The outlet continued: 

  According to information, the kidnappers, acting under the orders of the fearsome gang leader “Lanmò 100 jou”, member of the “Viv Ansanm” coalition, demanded an exorbitant ransom of $600,000 for the journalist’s release. Despite the payment of an initial tranche of $40,000, the kidnappers demanded a much larger sum for his complete release.

  Addison makes videos about his experiences with gangsters all over the world. In one recent video, he lived with the Mexican cartel for days. He’s hunted pirates in the Red Sea and toured the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. 

  Earlier this month, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince urged all American citizens still in the country to “leave as soon as possible” while other embassies restricted services. The US State Department placed the nation on the “Do not travel” list for Americans. 

  Another Twitch streamer, Lalem, said on X, “Tried keeping it [kidnapping] private for 2 weeks, but it’s getting out everywhere now. Yes Arab has been kidnapped in Haiti, and we’re working on getting him out. Love ya’ll, he’ll be out soon.”

  Here are some of the YouTuber’s last posts on X:

  Going on another one of those trips 🤫

  If I die, thanks for watching what I’ve put out. If I live, all glory to God.

  — Arab (@YourFellowArab) March 11, 2024

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

  My taxi just got in an accident in the middle of the Dominican while I was asleep.

  Everything good, just another sign that God is watching over 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/NeQAQNryqY

  — Arab (@YourFellowArab) March 12, 2024

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

  Dominican Republicans are by far the worst drivers in the entire world.

  Worse than Indians, worse than Asians, worst in the world 🇩🇴

  — Arab (@YourFellowArab) March 12, 2024

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

  Imagine all the shit I’ve done that should’ve killed me & I die to a car accident 😂

  I’d be the biggest pussy of all time. Light scratches keep moving.

  — Arab (@YourFellowArab) March 12, 2024

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

  Youngsters will do anything for those clicks… 

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 19:15

• Payment Processor Stripe Backs Off Dr. Malone After Legal Threat
  Payment Processor Stripe Backs Off Dr. Malone After Legal Threat

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

  Stripe, the only payment processor Substack writers can use, has backed off a demand that Dr. Robert Malone link his bank account, according to the law firm Dr. Malone retained.

  

  Stripe earlier in March asked Dr. Malone, who has an EpochTV show, to “link the primary bank account for your business to your Stripe account,” which would enable Stripe to review the account’s “current account balance and transactions, as well as historical transactions,” according to emails reviewed by The Epoch Times.

  The request was part of “a routine credit review” of Dr. Malone’s Substack, one email stated.

  Stripe said that if the bank account was not linked, then it might block Dr. Malone from being paid.

  The request “which deviated from Stripe’s standard operating procedures, would have compelled Dr. Malone to provide extensive financial information from his business banking activities, including transactions and account balances spanning the entire history of his business bank account,” Dhillon Law Group, which Dr. Malone hired to represent him in the matter, said in a statement.

  After the legal firm reached out to Stripe, the company rescinded the demand, the law firm said.

  “Financial service providers must tread carefully when requesting client data. It is critical to uphold the delicate balance between regulatory requirements and an individual’s right to financial privacy,” Mark Meuser, an attorney with the group, said in a statement. “We are satisfied with Stripe’s decision to withdraw its request, allowing Dr. Malone to continue his valuable work without unnecessary intrusion into his business affairs.”

  Stripe has not responded to requests for comment. A Stripe spokesperson told The Federalist, “Stripe may, in certain instances, request users to link their bank account to assess businesses’ liquidity as part of the underwriting process, but also allows businesses to submit a form with relevant information in lieu of linking their bank account.”

  That alternative was not presented to Dr. Malone, according to his lawyers.

  Dr. Malone said retaining lawyers was expensive but a move he felt he had to make after neither Stripe nor Substack provided any options other than linking his account.

  “It was a hard and costly decision to justify this level of cost and risk, but the risk of losing a business that had been developed over years of careful, daily customer service was too high to not take this seriously,” he wrote on his Substack.

  The result was the disclosure that, instead of linking his account, Dr. Malone could provide certain information on a form. The form requested information on which services Dr. Malone is selling through Stripe, and whether Dr. Malone accepts payments from customers before the customers receive the services, according to a screenshot of the document.

  “In my opinion, it is very unfortunate that Stripe and Substack are pursuing these policies, which are absolutely contrary to the principles of support of free speech upon which Substack was founded. Stripe has apparently modified those web-based resources in which they has [sic] previously indicated that this policy was being implemented in response to Federal US Government pressure to delete any reference to Federal US Government actions prompting these policies,” Dr. Malone wrote.

  Dr. Malone was referring to a recent U.S. House of Representatives report that detailed how the U.S. government is conducting surveillance of financial providers, although neither Stripe nor Substack were mentioned in the report.

  Substack responded in an automatic message to an inquiry, stating, “If you’re a journalist reaching out with a press request, a member of our communications team will be in touch.” No Substack employees ever responded to the inquiry.

  “In this case, we were able to obtain prompt revision of the Stripe/Substack action by spending considerable funds to obtain highly qualified legal representation,” Dr. Malone said. “But what of the average author who is either caught unaware by such policies or who cannot justify such legal costs? This appears to be a new normal, weaponization of finance and financial transactions to restrict and control free speech.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 18:40

• Judge Rebukes DOJ Arguments Against Release Of Jan. 6 Defendant
  Judge Rebukes DOJ Arguments Against Release Of Jan. 6 Defendant

  Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Jan. 6 defendant seeking to be released from prison was granted in part by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia this week.

  

  The order, signed by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden on March 26, will grant (pdf) the release of Kevin Seefried, a defendant convicted for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, pending the appeal of his conviction.

  This decision comes despite stark warnings from the Justice Department regarding the implications of such a move.

  Mr. Seefried received a three-year prison sentence for obstructing an official proceeding among other charges, facing a potential maximum sentence of 23 years.

  After his conviction, he appealed and requested release pending appeal, a request that gained new relevance when the Supreme Court decided to review a related case, Fischer v. United States, which could impact many Jan. 6 defendants.

  The high Court’s decision on this case may influence the outcome of Mr. Seefried’s conviction, suggesting it could be vacated depending on the justices’ ruling.

  Judge Notes Deja Vu

  The decision to release Mr. Seefried is grounded in the ongoing legal debate over the application of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), the obstruction of an official proceeding statute, beyond the context of “evidence impairment.”

  “Seefried’s current motion is déjà vu all over again,” Judge McFadden wrote.

  This legal question is currently under review by the Supreme Court in a related case, Fischer v. United States, which directly challenges the scope of § 1512(c) and its application to the Jan. 6 defendants.

  Judge McFadden, in his memorandum order, outlined that the release is premised on two conditions mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b): a defendant is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the community if released, and that the appeal raises a substantial question likely to result in a significantly lesser sentence or reversal.

  Judge McFadden found that Mr. Seefried met both conditions, noting a lack of evidence to suggest Mr. Seefried would flee or pose a danger, and that the Supreme Court’s review of Fischer represents a substantial question of law that could materially affect Mr. Seefried’s conviction.

  Judge McFadden noted the argument of the Justice Department that, in their belief, he now knew the “day-to-day reality of confinement in prison” and was therefore “more likely” to flee than return to prison.

  Judge McFadden also noted U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves’s argument of 2024 being an election year involving “what will likely be another fiercely contested presidential election” and if released, the Court “would be releasing defendant into the same political maelstrom that led him to commit his crimes in the first place.”

  Judge McFadden said those arguments were “unavailing.”

  “The riot on January 6th was the culmination of a unique—indeed, never-before-seen—confluence of events,” Judge McFadden wrote. “The Government provides the Court no evidence suggesting that any of the events that led to that riot are reasonably likely to recur. Nor does it point to any evidence that Seefried would participate in another riot if they did.”

  Furthermore, the decision reflects on the procedural aspects and standards for release pending appeal, challenging the Justice Department’s arguments against Mr. Seefried’s release.

  Judge McFadden wrote he should be released on the one-year anniversary that he first surrendered himself to serve time, which is “on or before” May 31.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 18:10

• Outrage Ensues As Biden Celebrates "Transgender Day of Visibility" On Easter
  Outrage Ensues As Biden Celebrates “Transgender Day of Visibility” On Easter

  

  The White House has released a statement celebrating “Transgender Day of Visibility,” which President Joe Biden ‘proclaimed‘ in 2021 as March 31 – and which has been celebrated by activists on this day since 2014 after this individual ‘founded and organized’ it.

  

  According to the White House:

  “NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity,” the statement read. 

  And where Easter is typically held the first Sunday after the full moon occurs on or after the spring equinox, while “Transgender Day of Visibility” is on the same date each year, many have taken offense to the day’s proximity to the Christian holiday.

  They hate us and our Christianity.

  — UnipartyBomber (@magajcs) March 30, 2024

  Declaring EASTER to be
  ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’

  Translation:
  They Hate You
  They Hate Our Children
  They Hate Christians …..
  They Hate America !!!

  We the People see you 🤛🏼

  — Cyndexia America Truther 💯🥂 (@TrutherAmerica) March 30, 2024

  They are mocking us

  — Steve Ferguson (@lsferguson) March 30, 2024

  Trending on X:

  

  As for the White House’s Easter egg design submission…  

  “The Submission must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes,” a flyer with instructions from the White House stated.

  But, of course, the White House is fine with this… 

  The demonic Biden White House is banning religious symbols from this year’s Easter egg hunt because they don’t want to offend anyone.
  The same demonic Biden White House during a Pride Month celebration last summer 👇 pic.twitter.com/zyudS3sxGU

  — Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) March 30, 2024

  You know what should have been covered up is this …
  Now this was pure trash at the White House … Easter twerking, topless trans thingy and whateve the fvck that was at Christmas … pic.twitter.com/eHwnssP50D

  — The Ms Francesca (@TheMsFrancesca) March 25, 2024

  145 calendar days celebrating LGBTQ+ pic.twitter.com/kxtGx9Scg1

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 30, 2024

  The Bidens have stated that Decency is on the ballot .. last year we saw the Easter Rabbit “twerking” at the White House and a trans topless and fondling itself on the White House lawn. Ther was no decency, no dignity, no respect and no class … just a vile and disgusting… pic.twitter.com/AV8QllMd20

  — The Ms Francesca (@TheMsFrancesca) March 29, 2024

  But it’s ok to display the trans flying the prestigious white house‼️
  We are the laughing stock of the world‼️ pic.twitter.com/CorAa7fH2a

  — MnM13 (@mnmbes13) March 30, 2024

  And Google… 

  Easter/Good Friday: Pride Month: pic.twitter.com/m2N3TVa4Xm

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 29, 2024

  Former President Trump wasn’t thrilled with the woke activism coming from the White House:

  

  Good question. 

  Putting aside whatever views one may have on transgenderism, why would you overshadow one of the holiest Christian days of the year to promote another ideology/movement of any kind?

  Aren’t there already other days on the calendar acknowledging/celebrating transgenderism?

  Why… https://t.co/HZmgQawYtL

  — Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) March 30, 2024

  The radicals in the White House might have overplayed their hand in their crusade against Christianity, as even the most left-leaning centralists are appalled by Biden’s new declaration.

  

  

  This seems to be a miscalculated move as blowback nears.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 18:05

• America's Ongoing Death-By-A-Thousand-Cuts
  America’s Ongoing Death-By-A-Thousand-Cuts

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

  Oh Say Can You See?

  “A modern nuc can fit in the trunk of a compact car. When millions of people can walk across our border with impunity what do you think the chances are we would catch something that size?”

  – Sam Faddis, Retired CIA

  Who was not impressed seeing the sudden and total collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after getting its pylon bonked by the container ship Dali a few hours before the dawn’s early light in Baltimore harbor? In America’s ongoing death-of-a-thousand-cuts, that one literally severed a major artery, but it may take a while to know how badly the wounded colossus known as the USA is bleeding out.

  

  “Joe Biden” emerged from his crypt pronto to state that the federal government would pony-up the cost of building the bridge back better, meant to reassure the public, you’d suppose. But perhaps the real reason was to obviate an otherwise requisite investigation of the crash by ship-owner Grace Ocean’s insurance company — since legal wrangling over responsibility would add more years to the already years-long estimated bridge replacement time-frame. And Gawd knows what else they might discover about how the darn thing came to pass. . . rumors of a Ukrainian captain at the Dali’s helm. . . stuff that the ruling intel blob might not want to get out there, especially given the still-murky role of the joint USA-UK black-op blobs in the Moscow Crocus Theater Massacre just a week earlier.

  The Crocus op, you understand, was probably the worst clusterfuck qua Three Stooges blob operational procedure in memory, since four of the six surviving Tajiki shooters were nabbed in a car enroute to the Ukraine border (where they would’ve been whacked into silence, since they failed to martyr themselves at the scene-of-the-crime), and by now had surely sung their hearts out to persuasive interrogators of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) — the take-away being that President VV Putin has got to be mighty pissed-off and itching for revenge. Was the FSK Bridge take-down the first repayment for that, lots of people inside and outside Blob Central were probably wondering?

  You’d also have to wonder, qua the bridge disaster itself, about the implied reverberations through the insurance industry. Consider that the insurance industry is a major cog in the machinery of finance and banking, since insurance company reserves are traditionally allocated in supposedly safe sovereign treasury bonds. Liquidations anyone? Maritime insurance was already groaning under the burden of all that monkey-business in the Red Sea, thanks to Houthi rocket and drone attacks on the shipping of Western Civ. Are the banks quaking harder now? Many across Western Civ were already trembling before the FSK Bridge job.

  While the awesome spectacle of the bridge collapse traumatized the country, it also brought to mind the fantastic flow of ten-thousand illegal border crossings a day, stage-managed by the “Joe Biden” Homeland Security team. Did you kind of wonder how many in that 10K-a-day flow might be the same species of Central Asian mutts who volunteered to slaughter over 150 (so far) Russian concert-goers? Nobody is checking who they are, you realize. They just step on US soil, get issued smartphones, loaded debit cards, walking-around cash money, airplane and bus tickets and, voila, there they are in your home town tomorrow, looking for something to occupy themselves. Thanks a bunch, Alejandro Mayorkas!

  Are you wondering what sort of mayhem they might be capable of unleashing any place from Bangor to Burbank in the weeks and months ahead? (And, while you’re at it, think about all the food processing plant fires, train wrecks, and other mysterious tribulations around the country the past couple of years.) Consider that this very week alone, following the FSK Bridge disaster, absolutely nothing has been done by our government to stem that flow of countless potential saboteurs into the country. The news media isn’t even talking about it (of course).

  The prospects might look a bit unnerving, wouldn’t you agree? Things catching fire, blowing up, and falling down here, there, and everywhere. . . more of those thousand cuts adding up. Just maybe, the dazed-and-confused (possibly hypnotized) American public, a.k.a., the “voters,” might put together that “Joe Biden” and the Party of Chaos that owns him, are actually responsible for the on-going take-down of our country. After a certain point — now apparently passed — sheer incompetence is no longer a plausible explanation for what you are seeing.

  Oh, one other thing, look out for on-the-ground economic reverberations from the FSK Bridge disaster. For instance, Baltimore is the USA’s top port for importing and exporting automobiles. Also, earth-moving and large farm equipment, fertilizer, lumber, coal, and steel. Other arrangements must be made, for years ahead, considering the trucking links. It’s especially an interruption for trucking between the mid-Atlantic / New England states and much of Dixieland. It will affect the transport of fruits and vegetables to the Washington-Boston corridor. Things are going to cost more and we are already in an inflationary trouble-zone. How will this thunder elsewhere through an economy which, despite the japes of “Joe Biden’s” statisticians, is actively disintegrating? The fluttering wings of this black swan already throw a chill on spring’s incoming zephyrs.

  *  *  *

  Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 17:30

• "Long Troubled" CarePoint New Jersey Hospitals To Undergo Financial Restructuring
  “Long Troubled” CarePoint New Jersey Hospitals To Undergo Financial Restructuring

  It looks like high interest rate market shocks and the commercial real estate dumpster fire have only just begun. The latest example of volatility comes from New Jersey hospital operator CarePoint Health.

  The operator owns three hospitals, including the 261-bed Bayonne Medical Center, as well as Hoboken University Medical Center and Christ Hospital in Jersey City, according to Bloomberg/Yahoo Finance. 

  Michigan-based Insight has stepped in to try and help financially stabilize the network and then rebrand under the Insight name. 

  Dr. Achintya Moulick, CarePoint’s chief executive officer said last week: “Throughout these past challenging months, CarePoint Health has remained resolute and focused on its mission of providing excellent patient-centered care to the people of Hudson County, and our collaboration with the Insight team has been extraordinarily helpful.”

  Moulick continued: “Ensuring that our system’s safety net hospitals receive the investment they need to operate sustainably both now and well into the future remains our top priority, and we are exploring various options to meet that goal.”

  The report notes that hospitals continue to face high costs for staffing and supplies, impacting even renowned institutions. The financial strain is particularly acute for facilities like CarePoint, which serve a larger proportion of lower-income patients and consequently receive lower reimbursements from government programs compared to private insurers.

  

  The challenges at CarePoint serve as a prime example, Yahoo writes. The New Jersey Department of Health has provided almost $8.4 million in support since mid-February to assist the hospital system with payroll needs and to appoint a chief restructuring officer to aid in its financial recovery.

  Insight’s Chief Strategy Officer Atif Bawahab added: “We’ve been in this situation before and we do have a strong sense of optimism for these hospitals to continue to stay open. But at the same time, we do have to make changes, and those changes will take some time.”

  Insight acquired Chicago’s oldest hospital, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, from bankruptcy in 2021, preventing its closure. This move by Insight, known for its focus on neurosurgery, orthopedics, and sports medicine, was followed by the purchase of a closed rural hospital in Iowa.

  Concerned by CarePoint’s financial situation, the New Jersey Department of Health appointed a monitor in January and recently required CarePoint’s hospitals to develop emergency plans for potential closures or service halts. CarePoint reported a $68 million loss last year, and several vendors have sued for unpaid bills.

  CarePoint has faced financial difficulties for some time. Attempts to sell its Jersey City and Hoboken hospitals to RWJ Barnabas Health fell through in 2019.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 16:55

• $935 Diabetes Jab Can Be Made For Less Than $5, Study Suggests
  $935 Diabetes Jab Can Be Made For Less Than $5, Study Suggests

  Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  It costs Novo Nordisk less than $5 per month to produce its top-selling diabetes injection, Ozempic, even as it charges nearly $1,000 for a month’s supply before insurance, according to a new study.

  

  The study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, raises questions about the prohibitive cost of the popular diabetes treatment and other weight loss drugs that belong to a pricy class of medications based on GLP-1 technology.

  Those medicines work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which stimulates the pancreas to release insulin when blood sugar rises too high, slows down the emptying of the stomach, and targets brain receptors involved in reducing appetite. Over the past year, demand for GLP-1 agonists has exploded despite soaring costs and limited insurance coverage.

  For their study, researchers at Yale University, King’s College Hospital in London, and the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders looked at the cost of manufacturing insulin and compared it with that of GLP-1 agonists. They estimated those prices by combining manufacturing costs for the weekly injection with costs of formulation and other operating expenses, plus a profit margin with an allowance for tax.

  The foundational price for a weekly dose of injectable semaglutide—the generic name for Ozempic—ranges from $0.89 to $4.73 per month, the study found. By contrast, a vial of human insulin can be manufactured at a cost between $2.37 and $5.94 per month.

  A month’s supply of Ozempic is $935.77 for those in the United States without health insurance, according to Novo’s website. The Danish company’s GLP-1 weight loss drug, Wegovy, is listed as $1,349 per month.

  Wednesday’s study concluded that GLP-1s “can likely be manufactured for prices far below current prices, enabling wider access.”

  “High prices limit access to newer diabetes medicines in many countries,” the researchers wrote. “The findings of this study suggest that robust generic and bio-similar competition could reduce prices to more affordable levels and enable expansion of diabetes treatment globally.”

  Citing the findings, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called on Novo to slash prices for both Ozempic and Wegovy, highlighting the price gap for the identical drugs sold in America and other developed countries.

  “A new Yale study found that Ozempic costs less than $5 a month to manufacture. And yet, Novo Nordisk charges Americans nearly $1,000 a month for this drug, while the same exact product can be purchased for just $155 a month in Canada and just $59 in Germany,” the senator said in a statement.

  “As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, I am calling on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic—and the related drug Wegovy—in America to no more than what they charge for this drug in Canada,” he continued. “The American people are sick and tired of paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while the pharmaceutical industry enjoys huge profits.”

  In a statement on Wednesday, Novo declined to provide production costs for Ozempic and Wegovy. However, it emphasized that it invested almost $5 billion in research and development last year, and will be spending more than $6 billion to boost manufacturing to meet the soaring demand for GLP-1s.

  The company also noted that the out-of-pocket costs for Ozempic depend on a patient’s insurance coverage, noting that there are different options on its website to help patients address their affordability concerns.

  “Congress has been focused on the complexities of the U.S. healthcare system and the interplay of rebates, discounts, administrative fees, co-pays and deductibles–which all play a role in creating a situation where a majority of U.S. patients covered by commercial health plans pay as little as $25 a month for their prescriptions,” it said in a statement.

  “Still, affordability challenges are real,” the company said, adding that it supports policy changes to “improve patient affordability and access for those living with chronic diseases.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 16:20

• Victoria White Files $2 Million Suit For Police Using 'Excessive' Force In Jan. 6 Beating
  Victoria White Files $2 Million Suit For Police Using ‘Excessive’ Force In Jan. 6 Beating

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Minnesota woman beaten by police in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the U.S. Capitol has filed a $2 million civil suit for being repeatedly struck in the head and slammed into a concrete wall on Jan. 6, 2021.

  

  Victoria Charity White, 42, of Rochester, Minnesota, alleges at least two Metropolitan Police Department officers unlawfully used “deadly force” by repeatedly striking her head and face with steel riot batons and fists at about 4 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.

  The complaint—filed on March 27 by Washington attorney Paul Kamenar—names MPD Commander Jason Bagshaw and MPD Officer Neil McAllister, and alleges other unnamed officers took part in the beatings.

  It alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 1983. It is an amended version of a suit Ms. White filed representing herself in January.

  “The defendants willfully and unlawfully seized plaintiff by means of objectively unreasonable, excessive, and indeed, deadly force that shocks the conscience, thereby unreasonably restraining and depriving plaintiff of her freedom and inflicting physical and mental harm and anguish,” read the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

  “Because of the senseless and unlawful beating she received at the hands of the defendants and the other MPD officers, Ms. White suffered great physical, traumatic, and emotional harm that day and continues to suffer to this day, particularly the traumatic and emotional harm,” Mr. Kamenar wrote in the lawsuit.

  Mr. Bagshaw, the suit alleges: “Repeatedly struck an unarmed and defenseless White about her head, face, shoulders, and upper body with a metal baton and his fists.”

  He is being sued in his professional and personal capacity, the lawsuit stated.

  Mr. McAllister “along with defendant Bagshaw and other police officers, physically assaulted the plaintiff,” the suit said.

  Mr. McAllister is also being sued in his professional and personal capacity.

  According to the suit, video evidence shows Mr. McAllister “slamming Ms. White up against the concrete tunnel wall, whereupon, inexplicably, his bodycam is shut off for some 30 seconds.”

  The department declined to comment on the suit.

  

  Acceptable force with this type of subject would involve “low-level physical tactics to gain control and cooperation,” with techniques that could involve pain but would generally not inflect injury, the MPD policy cited in the suit states.

  The suit outlines the beating first documented in The Epoch Times on Dec. 23, 2021, after Ms. White’s then-attorney Joseph McBride secured the release of previously sealed security video from the tunnel.

  The newspaper’s analysis of the CCTV video showed Ms. White was struck by police 39 times in a little over four minutes.

  A series of videos show Ms. White suffering rapid fire hits, punches to the head, a baton poked at her head, and being doused with pepper spray.

  Bodycam video released in 2023 revealed more information on the beating, including a bystander in the tunnel who begged police to stop striking Ms. White.

  At 4:09 p.m., the man said: “No, no, no, please! Please don’t beat her,” according to the video. Two minutes later, as police shouted at him to “move it, keep walking!” the man replied, “No! You’re going to kill her!”

  At the time of the first lawsuit, Mr. McBride said a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the beating.

  None of the officers allegedly involved in Ms. White’s case has been disciplined or faced criminal charges.

  “That is somebody who’s not only acting with authority but is acting with license,” Mr. McBride said, referring to Mr. Bagshaw, then an MPD lieutenant.

  “That is somebody who is acting because he has no fear that he’s going to be reprimanded for his actions. Do I think that’s criminal? There is no doubt in my mind that what that man did was criminal.”

  

  Mr. McBride filed suit on Ms. White’s behalf on Jan. 5, 2022, but she withdrew the suit in November 2022 to concentrate on defending herself against criminal charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice for her time at the U.S. Capitol.

  That initial lawsuit identified seven police officers who allegedly took part in the beating.

  Ms. White was indicted on Jan. 26, 2022, on four counts, including felony civil disorder.

  She accepted a plea deal in August 2023 and was found guilty of the civil disorder charge.

  Prosecutors sought a four-month jail term, but U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Nov. 22, 2023, sentenced Ms. White to eight days of intermittent jail time.

  Ms. White was featured in the July 2022 Epoch Times documentary, “The Real Story of Jan. 6.”

  She said the beatings on Jan. 6 gave her flashbacks to a decade of domestic abuse.

  “I’ve had those with my ex, where I’d be awake doing something as simple as laundry, and all of a sudden, I’m there, being choked to death and beat or punched,” she said.

  “This was the feeling of all that. It was like those blows, but now in the tunnel.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 15:10

• Israel Believes Only 60-70 Out Of 134 Hostages Are Still Alive
  Israel Believes Only 60-70 Out Of 134 Hostages Are Still Alive

  Israel’s official count for the number of people still being held hostage in the Gaza Strip remains at 134 mostly Israeli citizens as well as some foreigners, which includes possibly deceased victims. Amid stalled truce negotiations in Qatar, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has revealed that Israeli officials believe only 60 to 70 Israeli hostages in Gaza are still alive.

  “According to the IDF, a total of 134 hostages and bodies are being held in Gaza,” Haaretz wrote Thursday. “Thirty-six of the people were confirmed by the army as killed – some on October 7, when their bodies were taken into the Strip. Of the 98 living hostages, 10 are foreigners (eight Thais, one Nepalese national, and one man with Mexican and French citizenship).”

  

  What’s more is that a month ago some of the families of the hostages were informed that 20 captives were in life-threatening condition. An unnamed source close to the crisis told Haaretz, “I hope I’m mistaken, but the number may even be lower”—suggesting there may be even fewer that are alive.

  Given the intense battles unfolding across most of the Gaza Strip, it is widely speculated that the hostages are being held somewhere within the miles of underground tunnels below, where Hamas also has command and control centers.

  There’s a possibility that some of the hostages could have been killed by Israeli’s relentless bombing campaign which has decimated entire neighborhoods. A horrifically tragic incident last December saw three Israeli hostages shot dead by Israeli forces who mistook them for Palestinian militants.

  Israeli leadership under Netanyahu has been accused by the hostages’ families of prioritizing the military operation to defeat Hamas far and above hostage recovery.

  Some recent testimony of hostages freed in last year’s truce and exchange with Hamas said the following: 

  Echoing this sense of an indiscriminate and haphazard policy, testimonies from newly freed Israeli hostages, who were released as part of exchange deals for Palestinian prisoners during a temporary ceasefire in late November, as well as from some of the hostages’ families, indicate that one of the main fears of those held captive in Gaza was the threat of being hit by Israeli airstrikes and shelling. Many of the hostages, according to these testimonies, were held above ground rather than in tunnels, and were therefore particularly vulnerable to such attacks.

  Large-scale anti-Netanyahu protests led by victims’ families have persisted in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Pressure has also mounted on Washington to strike a ceasefire. 

  Prime Minister Netanyahu is currently facing accusations from within his own government of ‘sabotaging’ the truce process with an aim to prolong the war, and also thus his political future in the top office.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 14:35

• Republicans Score Win in Court Battle Over Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Requirements
  Republicans Score Win in Court Battle Over Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Requirements

  By Zach Stieber of The Epoch Times

  Pennsylvania rules that require mail-in ballots to be dated are legal, a federal appeals court has ruled.

  

  A state law that says voters must fill out, date, and sign envelopes containing the ballots is not prevented by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a majority said in the March 27 ruling.

  The act bans denying “the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration or other act requisite to voting.”

  But that provision “only applies when the state is determining who may vote,” U.S. Circuit Court Judge Thomas Ambro, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote for the majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit panel. “In other words, its role stops at the door of the voting place. The provision does not apply to rules, like the date requirement, that govern how a qualified voter must cast his ballot for it to be counted.”

  The same court ahead of the 2022 election ruled that state officials must count undated ballots but the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that order. After the state’s acting secretary of state said counties should still count undated ballots, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that counties could not count mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates. About 7,900 ballots were not counted in the 2020 election because they were missing a signature or date, or had an inaccurate date, according to state officials.

  U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter later ruled that the Pennsylvania law violated the Civil Rights Act provision, meaning Pennsylvania officials had to count mail-in ballots even if they lacked dates, or contained inaccurate dates.

  “Federal law prohibits a state from erecting immaterial roadblocks, such as this, to voting,” Judge Baxter, appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote at the time, referring to the Pennsylvania law.

  According to the law, a voter casting a ballot by mail must mark the ballot, then place it inside a provided envelope. That envelope must then be placed into a second envelope, which contains the areas for the date and signature.

  “The elector shall then fill out, date and sign the declaration printed on such envelope,” the law states.

  The Republican National Committee (RNC) and other groups appealed Judge Baxter’s ruling, arguing that her conclusion was wrong.

  “This is a crucial victory for election integrity and voter confidence in the Keystone State and nationwide. Pennsylvanians deserve to feel confident in the security of their mail ballots, and this 3rd Circuit ruling roundly rejects unlawful left-wing attempts to count undated or incorrectly dated mail ballot,” Michael Whatley, the RNC’s chairman, said in a statement after the new ruling was handed down.

  Groups that sued over the law expressed disappointment.

  “If this ruling stands, thousands of Pennsylvania voters could lose their vote over a meaningless paperwork error. The ballots in question in this case come from voters who are eligible and who met the submission deadline,“ Mike Lee, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. ”In passing the Civil Rights Act, Congress put a guardrail in place to be sure that states don’t erect unnecessary barriers that disenfranchise voters. It’s unfortunate that the court failed to recognize that principle. Voters lose as a result of this ruling.”

  The ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the groups have not yet indicated whether they’ll appeal.

  Justice Samuel Alito has said that the Pennsylvania law did not appear to violate the Civil Rights Act provision because it did not deny people the right to vote.

  “When a mail-in ballot is not counted because it was not filled out correctly, the voter is not denied ’the right to vote,’” he said previously. “Rather, that individual’s vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules for casting a ballot.”

  Several other justices supported his view, offered in a dissent when the rest of the court initially said Pennsylvania counties could keep counting undated ballots.

  Continue reading on the Epoch Times

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 14:00

• "Your Life Is In Danger": Suge Knight Warns Diddy Over 'That Secret Little Room'
  “Your Life Is In Danger”: Suge Knight Warns Diddy Over ‘That Secret Little Room’

  Imprisoned rap mogul Suge Knight opined on recent happenings involving hip-hop rival Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, whose houses in Miami and Los Angeles were raided last Monday by Homeland Security in connection with a federal investigation into sex trafficking, sexual assault, and the solicitation and distribution of illegal narcotics and firearms.

  

  “We believe that there is a disturbing history of sex trafficking,” a DHS officer told The NY Post on Thursday, following the raid which resulted in the seizure of hard drives, phones and other evidence.

  “We are responding to concrete, detailed, explicit allegations. This is not random. We didn’t choose his name out of a hat. We had allegations that we’re following up on,” the officer continued.

  Knight Speaks

  In response to the raid, Death Row Records co-founder Marion Hugh Knight Jr., aka “Suge Knight,” said during a Friday episode of his “Collect Call” prison podcast (!) that Combs needs to watch his back since he has “secrets” involving a “secret room.”

  “It’s a bad day for hip-hop…for the culture…Black people, because if one looks bad, we all look bad. That’s definitely not nothing to cheer about,” said Knight.

  “But I’ll tell you what, Puffy: your life is in danger.  Your life is in danger ’cause you know the secrets, who’s involved in that little secret room you guys are participating in. They gonna get you if they can.”

  While Diddy hasn’t been charged with a crime and has vehemently denied breaking the law, Knight – who’s serving a 28-year prison sentence for a 2015 hit-and-run incident, recommended that the rap impresario ‘surrender’ to authorities.

  Listen:

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 13:25

• US Withheld From Russia Intel On Terror Plot Due To 'Adversarial Relationship'
  US Withheld From Russia Intel On Terror Plot Due To ‘Adversarial Relationship’

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The US did not share all the information it had about a terrorist plot in Russia ahead of the shooting at a concert hall outside of Moscow that killed over 140 people, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

  The paper said that the “adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented US officials from sharing any information about the plot beyond what was necessary, out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.”

  

  In response to the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was unaware of information about the US withholding intelligence and cast doubt on the report. “The information of The New York Times, citing sources, is information that should be treated with great caution,” he said.

  The US Embassy in Moscow issued a public warning on March 7 that specifically warned Americans in Russia that “extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts” and to avoid large gatherings for 48 hours.

  The US also passed along the warning to Russia privately, which Russian FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov said was “of a general nature.”

  Sources told the Times that Russia tightened security after the warning but may have relaxed it after an attack didn’t happen in the 48-hour window. The report said it was unclear if US intelligence was wrong about the timing of the attack or if the perpetrators noticed the heightened security and decided to wait.

  ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate based in Afghanistan, took credit for the massacre, and the US has backed their assertion. Russia has pinned the blame on “Islamist extremists” but has also said there is a link to Ukraine and, by extension, the US and the UK.

  Another video capturing the initial moments of the terrorist attack at “Crocus” has been released by Baza. pic.twitter.com/lDvlTyGvQK

  — Russian Market (@runews) March 22, 2024

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

  Both the US and Ukraine denied any involvement in the attack, but the Russian Investigative Committee said Thursday that the attackers had links to “Ukrainian nationalists.” Four Tajiks have been charged in Russia for carrying out the shooting.

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 12:50

• Watch: New York Governor Kathy Hochul Confronted At Slain NYPD Officer's Wake
  Watch: New York Governor Kathy Hochul Confronted At Slain NYPD Officer’s Wake

  New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) was confronted by a mourner during the wake for slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller Friday afternoon, after which a round of applause could be heard as she left the scene.

  

  Hochul, who has come under fire over New York’s controversial bail reform – which law enforcement blames for the rise in crime, could be seen in the confrontation with an unidentified man dressed in black, who clearly gave her what for as onlookers gathered outside the venue.

  Watch:

  TIME TO GO: Crowd claps as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul leaves slain NYPD officer’s wake just minutes after arriving. The incident comes a day after a police union president called on anti-police politicians to stay away from the wake and funeral. https://t.co/ZVThe4Jy97 pic.twitter.com/aSEy7vPGKh

  — Fox News (@FoxNews) March 30, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAccording to the NY Post, Hochul arrived at the Massapequa Funeral Home on Long Island for the second day of viewing around 1:45 p.m., after asking the NYPD, the NYPD Police Benevolent Association, and the Nassau County Police Benevolent Association about attending.

  Diller’s widow also appeared to be “telling [Hochul] off,” one witness told the Post. “It didn’t look like the widow had a kind word to say.“

  Another source suggested that Hochul made a “brief respectful visit,” and “was not asked to leave.”

  Hochul’s visit came one day after former President Donald Trump paid his respects during the first day of viewings – staying around 40 minutes, during which he spent time talking to Stephanie and the couple’s young son, Ryan.

  President Trump: “We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order…because this is not working. This is happening too often.” pic.twitter.com/k5MQutyEsw

  — MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) March 28, 2024

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

  Diller’s brother-in-law shared a picture of Trump embracing a woman in the family line-up.

  

  Diller was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop in Far Rockaway, Queens on March 25. The suspect, Guy Rivera – who has 21 prior arrests and was found to have a shiv in his rectum during the shooting – shot Diller once in the stomach below his bulletproof vest. He was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

  

  The person driving the car with Rivera during the shooting, Liddy Jones, is an ex-con who was arrested after a second gun was found in his car.

  On Tuesday, New York Mayor Eric Adams – a former NYPD captain, slammed Albany over its approach to bail reform.

  “What’s interesting is that our practices, laws and policies are not going after these issues,” said Adams. “We’ve always had a problem with recidivism, it’s always been a problem but we’ve really never zeroed in on it with case after case.”

  Prior to the wake, Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent J. Vallelong warned City Council members not to attend.

  “Adrienne Adams, Jumaane Williams and their cohorts should stay home,” he told the Post, calling out the lawmakers who pushed the council to reject Mayor Adams’ veto on the “How Many Stops” act in January.

  “They detest cops and have no appreciation for what they do. They should stay home and not pretend they are grieving. They have caused enough heartbreak and destruction,” said Vallelong, adding that their presence at the services “is a stain on the legacy of a true hero who made the ultimate sacrifice.“

  Tyler Durden
  Sat, 03/30/2024 – 12:15

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• The Optimism-Fatalism Historical Cycle
  The Optimism-Fatalism Historical Cycle

  Authored by Gregory Copley via The Epoch Times,

  No fundamental form of human behavior, for better or worse, disappears forever.

  Cycles of wealth, fear, or frustration force changes, and they bear an uncanny similarity to Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” We are, above all else, predictable.

  

  The present decline, distortion, or much-heralded “end of democracy” is overstated. Still, it is difficult to disagree that the present cycle of democracy—beginning in the 18th century—has run its course. It is a human concept of behavior and, as with all things human, has its lifespan before it becomes feeble and sclerotic, corrupt and cynical, and ultimately a parody of what was intended in the flush of innocent youth.

  Throughout the world, “democracies” now see themselves beset by the internal competition for office by career politicians whose goal, before all else, is to attain and retain power. The compromises of dignity, nobility of purpose, and service to the electorate are the hallmarks of the age. These compromises have led to the thing aspiring politicians once saw as the bane of human existence: autocracies or, worse, rampant and totalitarian tyrannies. But autocracies cloak themselves with the language of democracy.

  Just as Africa, freed now from the coercion of major external powers, has resorted to removing governments by force, we see politicians in power using their office to suppress, deter, or remove their challengers for office.

  The Communist Party of China (CCP) introduced the concept of “lawfare” to outmaneuver its domestic and international opponents: using legal mechanisms to constrain an adversary. This concept has been adopted vigorously by “democratically elected politicians” worldwide, so there are now few societies where “lawfare” is not used to eliminate legitimate opponents and constrain and channel society at large.

  The spirit of democracy is nowhere to be seen.

  Waste no time on mourning. Democracy has had its day and will return when the time is right.

  But, equally, waste no time nurturing the self-delusion that moral or intellectual superiority lies in the pretense of democracy, the pretense that societies still embody what they once set out to represent. But we, most of us, insist on our certainty of the moral superiority of our own society because we have nowhere else to go. We cannot embrace our historical or geopolitical opponents’ rights to their own certainties.

  But we do not know how best to reorganize our own society without the unthinkable collapse of that same democracy to force our actions.

  The birth and death of states have been a preoccupation of scholars since humanity began to structure into durable communities. In 2006, I created—with the help of Greek Cypriot scholar Marios Evriviades—the words “cratocide” (the murder of nations) and “cratogenesis” (the birth of nations) for the book, “The Art of Victory.” Shortly afterward, we added the word “cratometamorphosis” to describe the total reorganization of societies.

  Collapse is always the prerequisite to “cratometamorphosis.” Theoretically, this reorganization and revitalization of society should be feasible before total collapse creates a situation when no other option is available. But the very safeguards we have put in place over decades and centuries to protect our present structures also safeguard the corrupted wreckage they have become.

  So if, as it appears, many societies—and by no means only those that thought of themselves as democratic—are waiting painfully for that total collapse so that they may be free to recreate themselves “closer to the heart’s desire,” then why is little thought given to that future society, that utopia?

  During the years of difficulty that beset so many during the Industrial Revolutions, new concepts were conjured, speculatively, out of whole ideals. There were also years of uncertainty in societies in flux, during which new belief systems were devised.

  These religions and ideologies all rippled down the ages and continue to inspire followers, often in the face of historical evidence that they failed here and there but were never revised to truly meet new requirements. Indeed, modern democracy itself—mirroring several iterations in the Hellenic states and earlier in the Indus Valley civilizations over the past 10,000 years—was just such a “revivalist creed,” and its new advocates failed to understand (or even question) why, in its earlier iterations, it had ultimately collapsed.

  Is it possible that at our present impasse, there is some belief that technology—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and so on—will define or create a new social framework? Have we, in so embracing “technology,” outsourced responsibility for devising ways in which humans can best work together? Certainly, technology has enabled the implementation of mass guidance of vast numbers of the human population, like the “murmuration of starlings,” the uncanny, but now understood, mass coordination of flocks of starlings in flight.

  This “mass guidance” of humans is the mass psychosis tendency, a fundamental self-protection mechanism in human behavior designed to create herd protection.

  That mass psychosis, of course, is what we saw during the COVID-19 crisis. However, it presupposes that human societies can be made to walk willingly and fatalistically toward the scenario outlined in the book, “1984,” by George Orwell. It may be man’s good fortune that economic dislocations—now being evidenced in the tremblors that shake the values of currencies and the viability of major economies—will gradually erode the pace of technological progress, enabling human society to regroup on more elemental or human lines.

  To “start again” with new concepts for societal organization—governance—will inevitably involve considering concepts that, whether we realize it or not, have probably been played out before. However, it would be ideal to recognize that the framework begins with the sovereignty of each individual and the requirement for each individual to respect each other individually to achieve progress and human reproduction.

  At least that optimistic framework can reemerge for a while until we see politics once more fatalistically reach the point where all respect is once again lost, and the desire for power outweighs the desire for societal wellbeing.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 23:15

• Visualizing The Major Product Exported By Each US State
  Visualizing The Major Product Exported By Each US State

  The U.S. is the second biggest exporter in the world, accounting for over 8% of global exports.

  In this graphic by NeoMam Studios, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti analyzes the primary product exported by each state, as well as its main destination, utilizing data from the U.S. International Trade Administration.

  

  

  

  Canada: The Primary Destination

  Canada serves as the largest export market for most of the Midwest, while Mexico holds the top spot as the export destination for much of the Southwest and Southeast. Additionally, Canada stands out as the primary importer of products from 21 states, with China and Germany trailing behind as notable destinations.

  State	Destination	Top Product Exported	Value (USD)
  Alabama	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$3,649M
  Alaska	🇨🇦 Canada	Minerals	$576M
  Arizona	🇲🇽 Mexico	Minerals	$1,760M
  Arkansas	🇨🇦 Canada	Processed Foods	$246M
  California	🇨🇦 Canada	Computer & Electronics	$5,093M
  Colorado	🇰🇷 South Korea	Processed Foods	$545M
  Connecticut	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$1,581M
  Delaware	🇰🇷 South Korea	Appliances	$419M
  Florida	🇬🇧 UK	Chemicals	$2,447M
  Georgia	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,629M
  Hawaii	🇭🇰 Hong Kong	Transportation equip.	$68M
  Idaho	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Computer & Electronics	$394M
  Illinois	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$4,517M
  Indiana	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$6,561M
  Iowa	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,598M
  Kansas	🇲🇽 Mexico	Agricultural	$1,543M
  Kentucky	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$3,630M
  Louisiana	🇨🇳 China	Agricultural	$11,300M
  Maine	🇨🇦 Canada	Oil & Gas	$504M
  Maryland	🇫🇷 France	Transportation equip.	$949M
  Massachusetts	🇨🇳 China	Machinery	$1,298M
  Michigan	🇨🇳 China	Transportation equip.	$15,361M
  Minnesota	🇨🇦 Canada	Petroleum & Coal	$2,787M
  Mississippi	🇵🇦 Panama	Petroleum & Coal	$2,106M
  Missouri	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$2,390M
  Montana	🇨🇦 Canada	Minerals	$153M
  Nebraska	🇲🇽 Mexico	Agricultural	$933M
  Nevada	🇨🇭 Switzerland	Metal	$1,399M
  New Hampshire	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$695M
  New Jersey	🇨🇦 Canada	Chemicals	$2,734M
  New Mexico	🇲🇽 Mexico	Computer & Electronics	$2,014M
  New York	🇨🇭 Switzerland	Metal	$18,262M
  North Carolina	🇨🇳 China	Chemicals	$4,312M
  North Dakota	🇨🇦 Canada	Petroleum & Coal	$1,441M
  Ohio	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$5,990M
  Oklahoma	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$418M
  Oregon	🇨🇳 China	Computer & Electronics	$6,261M
  Pennsylvania	🇨🇦 Canada	Chemicals	$2,280M
  Rhode Island	🇮🇹 Italy	Waste & Scrap	$321M
  South Carolina	🇩🇪 Germany	Transportation equip.	$3,774M
  South Dakota	🇨🇦 Canada	Processed Foods	$297M
  Tennessee	🇨🇦 Canada	Transportation equip.	$2,017M
  Texas	🇲🇽 Mexico	Petroleum & Coal	$33,627M
  Utah	🇬🇧 UK	Metal	$6,805M
  Vermont	🇹🇼 Taiwan	Computer & Electronics	$447M
  Virginia	🇮🇳 India	Minerals	$1,799M
  Washington	🇨🇳 China	Agricultural	$10,553M
  West Virginia	🇮🇳 India	Minerals	$657M
  Wisconsin	🇨🇦 Canada	Machinery	$1,802M
  Wyoming	🇮🇩 Indonesia	Chemicals	$200M

  When it comes to the types of exports, transportation equipment emerges as the primary source for the majority of states, with minerals and ores, chemicals, and computer and electronics following closely behind.

  For instance, North Carolina ships $4.3 billion worth of chemicals to China, marking one of the longest-distance trade flows among states. Meanwhile, Florida boasts one of the most diverse export portfolios, engaging in trade with Europe, South America, and the Caribbean.

  Louisiana heavily relies on the export of agricultural products to China, which contributes significantly to its total GDP. Similarly, Michigan’s transportation equipment exports to Canada constitute a noteworthy portion of the state’s GDP.

  In Oregon, exports of semiconductors and other computer parts to China, driven by companies like Intel and Micron, play a crucial role in the state’s economy. Meanwhile, Utah predominantly exports primary metal manufacturing goods to the United Kingdom.

  The biggest exporter in the country, Texas, sees a significant portion of its GDP attributed to exports to Mexico, further underlining the state’s economic ties with its southern neighbor.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 22:30

• New Yorkers Silently Worrying Over Ramifications Of Trump Ruling
  New Yorkers Silently Worrying Over Ramifications Of Trump Ruling

  Authored by Janice Hisle and Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Monday’s dramatic bond reduction for former President Donald Trump did nothing to dissipate the dark cloud that his civil-fraud case has cast over New York business deals.

  Although investors won’t publicly admit it, the case is having a chilling effect, said Charles Trzcinka, professor of finance at Indiana University-Bloomington.

  “If you talk to people in this market, they are very, very upset … and these are people who are neutral or even opposed to Trump,” Mr. Trzcinka told The Epoch Times. “They’re just angry about it.”

  In his role at the university, Mr. Trzcinka said he places students in the corporate lending market in New York, making him aware of trends in that sphere.

  An appeals court’s decision to slash the bond by about 60 percent, reducing it to $175 million, still left a massive penalty intact while President Trump continues a legal challenge of Justice Arthur Engoron’s ruling.

  Judge Engoron ruled that President Trump and his associates fraudulently overvalued their assets. But Mr. Trzcinka said anyone who thinks President Trump’s activities in that case were irregular or fraudulent may lack an understanding of typical New York business transactions.

  A source familiar with the case explained to The Epoch Times that, normally, business-related cases are handled in the New York courts’ commercial division.

  There, cases are decided by judges who have specific, “sophisticated” knowledge of commercial law and business practices.

  But the case didn’t go that route because New York Attorney General Letitia James found a novel way to use New York’s anti-fraud law.

  Researchers examined other alleged fraud cases in New York over a 70-year period and found the Trump case stands alone. The Trump Organization was the only company that confronted the possibility of being forced out of business despite no victim suffering major financial harm.

  Because of Ms. James’ unusual application of the law, the case was channeled to a court that would rarely, if ever, handle business-related matters.

  Thus, the source said, “This case proceeded in just a highly irregular fashion from the start.”

  

  ‘A Degree of Horror’

  Legal scholar Jonathan Turley agreed the case is atypical and its repercussions far-reaching.

  “This has really done great damage to the New York legal system … Businesses are looking at this with a degree of horror—that a judge could come up with a figure so large you have to sell parts of your business just to get an appeal,” Mr. Turley told Fox News.

  However, people who dislike President Trump are cheering on Ms. James. She ran for election on a promise to prosecute the former president if she won the post of attorney general.

  Before the court-ordered bond reduction, the original $464 million bond amount included a $363 million judgment that Judge Engoron levied against President Trump and his associates, plus 9 percent interest.

  Speaking to reporters after the March 25 appellate court’s decision, President Trump called Judge Engoron’s original decision a “disservice” to New York.

  “Businesses are fleeing,” he said.

  The case promises to continue discouraging investors from doing business in the Empire State, Mr. Trzcinka and two other knowledgeable sources told The Epoch Times.

  That’s not only because of the crippling dollar amounts involved, the sources said, but also because President Trump and his associates were behaving within the bounds of normal business practice and victimized no one.

  “All the parties under this civil case were satisfied,” Mr. Trzcinka said. Yet Ms. James “brought a case without a victim” and secured a judgment approaching $500 million.

  “I have never heard of a victimless civil case that even won $500,” he said.

  

  Silently Worrying

  Businesspeople are afraid to express concerns about the ramifications aloud. Doing so would paint targets on their backs—an underlying reason why President Trump was unable to persuade bonding companies or banks to cover the original $464 million bond, Mr. Trzcinka and the sources said.

  “I don’t think a bonding company [or a bank] is willing to be associated with Donald Trump … because the attorney general could turn around and sue them, go after them,” Mr. Trzcinka said.

  Judge Engoron ruled that President Trump and his associates committed fraud by overvaluing his properties.

  Parties involved in real estate transactions tend to exaggerate values in one way or the other, and they “hit each other over the head” with dueling appraisals, Mr. Trzcinka said.

  And, in a case such as this one, “everyone had the same information and just came to different conclusions” as to the valuations, he said. Then the parties negotiated figures and agreed to them.

  Unaffordable for a Multi-Billionaire?

  Even before interest was added, Judge Engoron slapped President Trump with “the largest penalty in history” for a case of its kind, said Mr. Trzcinka.

  He had never heard of such a high penalty imposed for a “syndicated loan,” which involves civil contracts between a corporate borrower and corporate lenders.

  About $355 million of the total order specifically applied to President Trump. In addition, the judge ordered $4 million to be recovered from each of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and $1 million from former Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg.

  Even the ultra-wealthy would rarely, if ever, have rapid access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in liquid assets, Mr. Trzcinka and other financial experts say.

  Marshaling that much cash to post the bond in just 30 days proved to be a daunting task for President Trump; the appellate court’s ruling granted him 10 more days to post a reduced $175 million bond.

  That decision moved the amount from “the realm of the impossible” into a different category; “it’s expensive but it’s feasible,” a source said.

  A number of bonding companies said that the most they could shoulder would be $100 million, President Trump’s lawyers said in court filings, adding that many people worked countless hours to find possible solutions to the former president’s predicament.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 21:45

• As Easter Looms, Church Attendance In The US Declines
  As Easter Looms, Church Attendance In The US Declines

  Christianity is on the decline in the United States.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, new data from Gallup shows that church attendance has dropped across all polled Christian groups. As the following chart shows, the biggest drop in attendance in the past 20 years has been amongst Catholics, which has fallen from 45 percent of U.S. adults self-identifying as Catholic saying that they go to religious services weekly or at least every week in 2000-2003, down to 33 percent saying the same in 2021-2023. This is a decrease of 12 percentage points. Catholics’ attendance is lower than their Protestant counterparts, which saw a drop of 4 percentage points in that time frame from 48 percent of worshippers to 44 percent.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  According to Gallup’s data, this decline in church attendance among Christians speaks to a wider pattern across religion in the U.S. generally.

  Where an average of 42 percent of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week 20 years ago, now this figure is just 30 percent.

  This is largely due to an increase in the share of U.S. adults who self-identify as having no religious affiliation.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 21:00

• Stress Creates A 4-Fold Increase In Spread Of Cancer: Study
  Stress Creates A 4-Fold Increase In Spread Of Cancer: Study

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

  

  A breakthrough discovery links stress hormones with a fourfold surge in the spread of cancer, shedding light on why patients under severe stress often have lower survival rates.

  “There’s probably very few situations that are as stressful as being diagnosed with cancer and undergoing cancer treatment,” Mikala Egeblad, cancer researcher and senior author of the study, told The Epoch Times.

  Understanding the stress–cancer link may open up new ways to protect patients from the adverse effects of stress as part of cancer care.

  An Accidental Discovery Prompts More Research

  The team of scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) found that glucocorticoids—a type of stress hormone—play a role in creating a metastasis-friendly environment.

  The Egeblad lab, which relocated to Johns Hopkins University, studies how the communication between tumors and the immune system affects tumor growth and metastasis in mice. Researchers discovered the connection accidentally, noticing faster tumor growth in mice they had unintentionally stressed by a change in housing.

  The phenomenon prompted further research on chronic stress exposure and how it can encourage the spread of cancer, according to first author Xue-Yan He, who was a postdoctoral fellow at CSHL and is now an assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine.

  Ms. He investigated this connection with a mice study that mimicked chronic stress, leading to startling observations: an increase in tumor lesions and up to a fourfold surge in the spread of cancer.

  ‘Spiderweb’ Structures Encourage Cancer Cells

  According to the study published in Cancer Cell, the size of mammary tumors approximately doubled, and the rate of metastasis to the lungs increased between two- and fourfold compared with control mice not exposed to stress.

  The researchers found that chronic stress impacts neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, causing an increase in neutrophil activation in the tissues where the cancer cells go.

  When looking at lung tissue, the researchers found that chronic stress had altered the body’s internal environment in a way that could promote cancer growth by increasing neutrophils and then reducing T-cells, immune cells that kill cancer cells.

  “We also found more extracellular matrix; this is a protein [network] that can support cancer cell growth,” Ms. He told The Epoch Times. Extracellular matrix helps cells attach to nearby cells and plays a vital role in cell growth and movement.

  Ms. Egeblad explained that the neutrophils in the tissues formed spiderweb-like structures called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Essentially, these traps are sticky webs of DNA meant to trap pathogens. However, in the case of cancer, NETs do not serve their usual protective role.

  Instead, according to Ms. Egeblad and Ms. He, it appears that the NETs, induced by stress, encourage the growth of breast cancer cells that reach the lungs. “Our work shows how chronic stress activates neutrophils, helping cancer cells grow,” added Ms. He.

  To confirm that glucocorticoids drive NET formation, leading to increased metastasis, the researchers performed three tests, each interfering with this pathway. First, they removed neutrophils from the mice using antibodies. Next, they injected a NET-dissolving enzyme. Lastly, they used mice whose neutrophils couldn’t respond to glucocorticoids.

  According to Ms. He, each test achieved similar results: Depleting the neutrophils stopped stress-induced metastasis.

  Chronic Stress Primes the Body for Developing Cancer

  “Together, our data show that glucocorticoids released during chronic stress cause NET formation and establish a metastasis-promoting microenvironment,” the study authors wrote.

  Unexpectedly, the study also showed that chronic stress can cause NETs to form and change lung tissues in mice without cancer, essentially preparing the body for cancer.

  While this study highlights why managing severe stress is critical to cancer treatment, it also points to potential therapeutics that could target the formation of NETs or block the receptors for glucocorticoids.

  “The next major directions that I see is understanding how much of this applies to humans and what can we do to to inhibit the stress in first, our animal models, and then eventually in patients,” said Ms. Egeblad.

  She also hopes that understanding the stress response in patients will pave the way for better treatment and increased survival rates.

  Unraveling the Deadly Stress-Cancer Alliance

  Stress is unavoidable for someone navigating a cancer diagnosis. Many patients cite treatment decisions—and the surrounding uncertainty, anxiety, and even regret—as a source of distress, according to a 2023 study published in Scientific Reports.

  In a review paper from 2023 published in the Annual Review of Psychology, researchers shared decades of data showing how stress reduction techniques improve outcomes for cancer patients. Techniques for stress management included:

  • Breathwork: This involves deep, slow breathing while concentrating on filling the lungs and relaxing muscles.
  • Progressive muscle relaxation: This technique involves tightening and then relaxing muscles. Most people start at either the toes or the head and progressively relax all the muscles across the body.
  • Meditation: With this technique, you can learn to relax your mind and concentrate on an inner sense of calm.
  • Yoga: Yoga focuses the mind on breathing and posture to promote relaxation and reduce fatigue.

  Many of the findings in the review paper involved cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with a counselor, which focuses on actively changing thoughts and behavior. Patients were also taught to distinguish between stressors that are within their control and those that are not.

  For stressors that feel like they are out of someone’s control, such as the uncertainties that come with facing a cancer care plan, relaxation techniques with social support seem to help patients manage anxiety.

  Engaging with support groups and connecting with peers facing similar struggles provides a support network. Sharing experiences creates a sense of belonging, diminishing the isolation that can accompany cancer.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 20:15

• Buffett Is Still The Richest Person In Finance
  Buffett Is Still The Richest Person In Finance

  The combined net worth of the 10 richest people in finance reached $446.9 billion in 2024.

  Here, Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte ranks them based on Forbes data as of Feb. 1, 2024.

  

  The Oracle of Omaha

  93-year-old Warren Buffett heads the list. The chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has a net worth of $128.7 billion.

  Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway portfolio is 62% invested in only three stocks: Apple (42.9%), Bank of America (10.2%) and American Express (9.1%).

  Based in Omaha, Nebraska, where he has spent much of his life and where Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered, Buffett is also the 6th richest person in the world.

  

  In second place is Michael Bloomberg, with $96.3 billion. Besides founding the financial data and media company Bloomberg LP in 1981, Bloomberg served as mayor of New York City for 12 years, from 2002 to 2013. A prominent philanthropist, he is committed to donating his stake in Bloomberg LP to Bloomberg Philanthropies when he dies.

  In third place, Ken Griffin possesses almost a third of Bloomberg’s net worth. He founded and runs Citadel, a Miami-based hedge fund firm that manages $60 billion in assets. Stephen Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group, comes in fourth with $36.8 billion.

  The only non-American is Robert Budi Hartono, one of the wealthiest people in Indonesia. His wealth comes from Djarum, one of the world’s largest producers of clove cigarettes, and Bank Central Asia, one of the country’s largest banks.

  The lone female on the list is Abigail Johnson. She is the president and CEO of Fidelity Investments. Johnson took over the CEO position from her father in 2014.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 19:30

• Ahead Of 2024 Election, Abortion Battles Heat Up Across Nation
  Ahead Of 2024 Election, Abortion Battles Heat Up Across Nation

  Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  Parents could be charged with child abuse if they prevent their minor daughter from getting an abortion, according to an Illinois law proposed by Democrat state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray.

  In South Carolina, a new bill would require taxpayers to pay all childhood expenses—up to age 18—for babies born to mothers who were unable to get an abortion.

  And the New Hampshire Legislature is wrestling with a proposal to ban abortion at 15 days of gestation, effectively banning abortion in the state, where it is currently allowed up to 24 weeks.

  These recently introduced measures are just a few among a flood of proposals and changes triggered by the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, which sent abortion regulation back to the states.

  In November, voters in at least seven states will see abortion proposals on their ballots. Even in states where access to abortion isn’t on the ballot, voters may still cast votes for candidates who align with their beliefs on the issue.

  Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, trigger laws in 13 states went into effect, completely banning or limiting abortions to very early pregnancy, with few exceptions. Last year, states without trigger laws, including Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina, enacted similar pro-life laws.

  Many states also enacted or proposed “safety net” legislation to help new and expectant mothers meet the demands of motherhood.

  Ohio state Sen. Sandra O’Brien, a Republican, introduced SB 159, a tax credit for donations to pregnancy centers.

  In Indiana, SB 98 identifies an unborn child as a dependent for tax purposes. The bill was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Andy Zay. Another Indiana safety-net bill would increase the Medicaid reimbursement rates for prenatal and postnatal care services.

  Then there’s Kentucky’s bipartisan “Momnibus” legislation, an omnibus bill offering tax credits for adoption, and tax credits and grants for pregnancy help centers. It includes provisions for mental health service, parenting classes, and online and home visits for new mothers without transportation.

  The pro-abortion movement is working hard to counter these actions and is striving for legislation and ballot measures that allow for abortion up to birth in many cases.

  “You’re seeing a direct reaction from the other side that is panicking, based on the Dobbs decision,” Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told The Epoch Times.

  “They are running as fast as they can to unlimited abortion funded by the taxpayer. And they’ve gotten so extreme on the issue.”

  

  Womb for Rent

  Seemingly every state has some movement in its legislature regarding abortion policy.

  In South Carolina, where abortion is banned at six weeks of pregnancy, state Sen. Mia McLeod, who left the Democratic Party and became an independent, has proposed the “South Carolina Pro Birth Accountability Act” which will require taxpayers to pay women who would have aborted their baby “reasonable living, legal, medical, psychological, and psychiatric expenses.”

  The bill compares a woman’s womb to rental property and reasons that in the surrogacy market, “a woman’s uterus is not unlike rental property, as a commissioning couple agrees to pay a gestational surrogate certain compensation for carrying a fetus to term and giving birth to a child.” It continues to say that since South Carolina may not constitutionally use a citizen’s rental property without just compensation, “it may not constitutionally require a woman to incubate a child without appropriate compensation.”

  The bill stipulates that after a baby’s heartbeat is detected, the mother would be automatically enrolled in public assistance programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and that those benefits could not be withdrawn until the child is 18.

  The bill would pay a nurse to provide home visits from early pregnancy through the child’s second birthday; costs associated with health, dental, and vision insurance for the child until the age of 18; and a fully funded South Carolina 529 College Savings Plan for the benefit of the child. If the woman has a miscarriage, she may sue the state for compensation and damages.

  In the case of an unmarried woman, the bill stipulates that if the biological father accrues more than $5,000 in child-support arrearage, he would be charged with a misdemeanor and, if convicted, could serve up to three years in prison.

  

  “The court may suspend any portion of the prison sentence if the man consents to a voluntary vasectomy and to payment of restitution to the woman in the amount of the child-support arrearages owed,” the bill reads.

  “I just want to make sure that those of us who call ourselves pro-life, that we are doing something to help the living, and my bill does that,” Ms. McLeod said in a February video posted on social media.

  “It also gives my colleagues who refer to themselves as pro-life an opportunity to prove it by investing in South Carolina’s women and girls, and making sure that they have the resources and support that they need.”

  Pro-life group South Carolina Citizens for Life opposes the legislation.

  “Comparing a woman’s uterus to rental property and incentivizing men to have a vasectomy is really disturbing and vile language, and it’s intended to devalue members of our human family—born and waiting to be born,” Holly Gatling, the group’s executive director, told The Epoch Times.

  “The intent of this bill is to obfuscate the fact that we have a vast network of pregnancy-care centers in South Carolina. … where women are given free health care … and diapers, formulas, job training, parenting classes, and assistance with getting back into a regular workforce and lifestyle by the time this baby is 2 years old,” she said. “So the bill is based on a false premise that we don’t do anything for mothers and babies after the child is born.”

  In Pennsylvania, Democrat lawmakers say they want to “facilitate safe abortion access,” by reversing a 2011 state law requiring abortion businesses to meet all the same regulations as ambulatory surgical facilities, including submitting to unannounced inspections. It means abortion clinics, which sometimes fail health inspections, would no longer have to be inspected.

  “Here in Pennsylvania, the pro-abortion extremism starts at the top with Gov. Josh Shapiro unilaterally eliminating the state contract for alternatives to abortion funding—a program that had bipartisan support and operated for 30 years under Republican and Democrat governors alike,” Michael Geer, president of Pennsylvania Family Institute, told The Epoch Times in an email.

  Mr. Shapiro often expresses support for abortions in social media posts.

  “Mifepristone will be available on the shelves in Pennsylvania,” he posted on March 1. “I’ll continue working to protect women’s access to abortion across this Commonwealth.”

  

  Mifepristone is a progesterone-blocking drug that causes a woman’s body to abort her baby outside a doctor’s office.

  “As long as I’m Governor, abortion will be safe, legal, and accessible here in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Shapiro posted on March 4.

  The Shapiro administration made available online a form solely for complaints against pregnancy resource centers.

  “It’s an agenda that prioritizes the profits of the abortion industry over the well-being of women and children in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Geer said.

  Other Bills

  In West Virginia, the state Senate has approved a measure requiring students in eighth and 10th grades to watch “Baby Olivia,” a video on fetal development. The video already is shown in North Dakota classrooms, and it could be legislatively required in Iowa, Kentucky, and Missouri. Pro-abortion activists oppose the short film, calling it medically inaccurate.

  House Bill 2749 in Kansas would require abortionists to ask women why they are terminating their pregnancies and to rank their top reasons for seeking an abortion, including financial or health concerns, or that the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

  In Oklahoma, where abortion is almost completely banned, House Bill 3013 would make trafficking abortion pills a felony, punishable by a $100,000 fine, 10 years in prison, or both.

  A judge in Montana recently declared unconstitutional three laws passed by the state Legislature. The laws banned abortion after 20 weeks, required that pregnant women be given the opportunity to see an ultrasound of their baby before having an abortion, and required that abortion pills be administered in person rather than through telehealth. The laws were challenged by Planned Parenthood of Montana.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 18:45

• ESG Frustration And Backlash In The Banking Sector Continues
  ESG Frustration And Backlash In The Banking Sector Continues

  “Facts that don’t align with ill-informed prejudice are often infuriating. That doesn’t make them wrong. Someone needs to tell the truth about what it’s going to take to get to a net-zero future,” Emily Mir, a spokeswoman for Exxon, said earlier this month.

  And that’s exactly what Judson Berkey at UBS has done, the focus of a new Bloomberg report. Berkey let loose on a recent conference call with regulators about how unrealistic climate goals were for banks trying to integrate them into their respective economies.

  The report covering Berkey’s outburst simply concluded that the “world’s biggest banks can’t live up to the green regulatory ideal unless they start dumping huge numbers of clients worldwide at a reckless pace and also roil economies in large swathes of the globe that primarily rely on dirty fuels.”

  Berkey was on a “check-in” call where regulators query market participants about regulations, the report says, when he expressed his frustration, interjecting: “Banks are living and lending on planet earth, not planet NGFS [Network for Greening the Financial System]”.

  The outburst is a microcosm of “cracks” emerging in the banking sector after being draped with regulations about sustainability, the report says. Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio famously said last year about ESG: “You have to make it profitable.”

  Its indicative of new-world climate regulation going head to head with old world capitalism, the report says. 

  Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission in Britain said: Climate change is “an economic externality, and you can’t expect a free market to deal with it voluntarily.”

  Banks reevaluating their net zero commitments are facing challenges as they confront the practical implications of these pledges, which include limitations on operating in coal-reliant regions like South Africa, Poland, and Indonesia. These commitments also complicate relationships with clients across various sectors, from commodities firms to companies with less obvious carbon impacts. 

  

  Jonathan Hackett, head of sustainable finance at Bank of Montreal, added: “Our net zero commitments are about being our clients’ lead partner and are consciously taken around the idea that we need to be there with our clients and our clients need to succeed, not that we need to hyper select clients in order to get to net zero somehow faster or better.”

  A recent sustainability report from UBS highlighted a “notable shift in emphasis” in climate change discussions, moving from net zero pledges to recognizing the need for a transition phase. The Swiss bank noted that high inflation and input costs will be crucial factors for clients as they develop decarbonization strategies.

  James Vaccaro, Chief Catalyst at Climate Safe Lending Network, added: “For banks with substantial capital markets businesses, like those competing with the JPMorgans of the world, it’s fee income that’s on the line here. Ditching clients off track from 1.5C means losing major lines of revenue.”

  In sum, the financial industry’s initial rush to commit to net zero carbon footprints at the 2021 COP26 summit in Glasgow has hit a reality check. Banks that pledged to reduce financed emissions and invest billions in green and sustainable deals are reevaluating these commitments after facing the complex realities of implementing such drastic changes.

  It should be no surprise to our readers: we have been pointed out the collapse of ESG for more than a year now. Earlier in March we wrote how Exxon’s CEO had all but declared victory over the “woke” ESG lobby. 

  In February, we noted that CEOs were ditching ESG lingo on conference calls. For some context, peak ESG and related synonyms, such as “climate change” and “clean energy” and green energy” and net zero,” among other terms, peaked at 28,000 mentions in the first quarter of 2022. Ever since, the number of mentions has rapidly plunged. Halfway through the first quarter earnings season, mentions are around 4,800. 

  

  Andy Wiechmann, the Chief Financial Officer of MSCI, mentioned during his earnings call that “Clients are taking a more measured approach to how they integrate ESG.”

  On a Jan. 12 earnings call, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink explained how his firm plans to purchase private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners without mentioning ESG. This makes sense since BlackRock dropped the ESG term after blowback last summer. 

  Recall, we also wrote last year about the dying off of ESG and “green” investment products. At the end of 2023, Goldman Sachs shuttered its ActiveBeta Paris-Aligned Climate U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF. 

  Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out in late 2023 that “there was just way too much supply for the demand” with the ETF and that “it’s going to get worse too”. Balchunas says the ETF only took in $7 million over the course of 2 years. 

  We also wrote about Jeff Ubben late last year, who shuttered his sustainability fund – calling traditional climate summitry an “echo chamber” of diplomats. Less than a week before that we noted that $30 billion had been shaved off the value of clean energy stocks over the preceding 6 months. 

  Finally, we pointed out last year how the ESG grift was reaching endgame after Markus Müller, chief investment officer ESG at Deutsche Bank’s Private Bank stated that sustainability funds should include traditional energy stocks, arguing that not doing so deprives investors of a prime opportunity to invest in the transition to renewable energy.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 18:00

• Hazardous Material Containers 'Breached' During Baltimore Bridge Collapse: NTSB
  Hazardous Material Containers ‘Breached’ During Baltimore Bridge Collapse: NTSB

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

  

  The cargo ship that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26 was carrying more than 50 hazardous material containers, some of which were breached during the collapse, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

  NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said during a press conference on March 27 that the agency, which is currently probing the crash, had obtained a cargo manifest of the 984-foot-long Singapore-flagged cargo vessel named Dali.

  The vessel—which reportedly lost power while transiting out of Baltimore Harbor and struck the bridge—had 56 containers of hazardous materials on board at the time of the incident, Ms. Homendy said.

  The NTSB chair said a senior hazmat investigator had identified the containers.

  “That’s 764 tons of hazardous materials—mostly corrosives, flammable, and some miscellaneous hazardous materials—class nine hazardous materials which would include lithium-ion batteries,” Ms. Homendy said.

  “Some of the hazmat containers were breached,” she added.

  Asked how many of the containers were in the water, the NTSB chair could not provide an exact number.

  “I did see some containers in the water and some breached significantly on the vessel itself,” she said. “I don’t have an exact number but it’s something that we can provide in an update and certainly in our preliminary report which should be out in two to four weeks.”

  ‘Sheen’ Observed On Water Around Collapse

  Officials have also observed a sheen—sometimes caused by gasoline or oil—on the waterway surrounding the collapsed bridge that spans the Patapsco River. According to Ms. Homendy, federal, state, and local authorities are aware of this and are currently working to address those issues.

  “The NTSB as part of our safety investigation documents that type of release, it documents the damage and and documents the type of materials involved as part of our investigation,” Ms. Homendy said.

  Asked by one reporter to characterize the level of concern regarding the hazardous material leak and the sheen on the water, Ms. Homendy declined to respond and directed him to state and local authorities.

  The NTSB will also not provide any of its findings while the investigation remains ongoing, Ms. Homendy noted.

  Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge at about 1:27 a.m. on March 26 while leaving the harbor, according to officials.

  The incident resulted in the bridge collapsing moments later while eight construction workers—who officials say were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—were filling in potholes.

  Police Recover Bodies

  Two of the workers were rescued on March 26 soon after the collapse, officials said. One of them was uninjured and the other was hospitalized in a “very serious condition” but later released.

  On March 27, police announced that two bodies had also been recovered during search-and-recovery efforts.

  The families of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, and Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, 26, have been notified, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, said.

  Police discovered their bodies inside a pickup truck that was submerged approximately 25 feet below water in the Patapsco River, around the middle section of the bridge, according to the superintendent.

  The two men were with the company, Brawner Companies, doing maintenance on the bridge deck, he said.

  The U.S. Coast Guard is continuing recovery efforts in the search for the remaining four missing individuals.

  According to Ms. Homendy, the 95,000 gross-ton container ship also sustained damage during the incident, although none of the 21 crew members and two pilots who were onboard at the time sustained significant injuries.

  Officials have praised those on board for saving countless lives by raising a mayday alarm just moments before the incident, allowing authorities to limit traffic on the bridge before it collapsed.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 17:15

• The Tower Of Sauron Can't Pay Its Debt: Brooklyn's Tallest Building Is In Foreclosure
  The Tower Of Sauron Can’t Pay Its Debt: Brooklyn’s Tallest Building Is In Foreclosure

  While everyone says that the looming commercial real estate crash is nothing to worry about since, well, everyone’s been worrying about it for so long and nothing bad has happened yet (except for the whole regional bank crisis last March when virtually anyone who is not JPM almost imploded), every day we get a new and more shocking foreclosure or default.

  Today, it is the infamous Brooklyn Tower, the 1066-foot building, sometimes called the Eye of Sauron, which is the tallest in all of Brooklyn. According to marketing materials from JLL, Silverstein Capital Partners has scheduled a foreclosure auction for 9 DeKalb Ave., JDS Development’s Brooklyn Tower.

  

  JDS took out a $240M mezzanine loan from Larry Silverstein’s firm in 2019 as part of a $664M debt package to build the 93-story, 1,066-foot tower in Downtown Brooklyn. Yet despite what the media said was a flood of interest in the property, less than five years later, JDS has defaulted on the loan, according to the foreclosure notice, first reported by ten31 on X, triggering the foreclosure auction, scheduled for June 10.

  It’s all happening at the Tower of Sauron pic.twitter.com/OZIjlQJ3mP

  — Hiten Samtani (@hitsamty) March 27, 2024

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

  To lock in the entire capital structure, Silverstein also bought the property’s senior debt, a $424M mortgage originally provided by Otéra Capital, earlier this year. A spokesperson for Silverstein told Bisnow in an email that the junior, senior and mezzanine loans for 9 DeKalb are all in default and that Silverstein is enforcing its rights as a lender, i.e., the Eye of Sauron is about to have a new master.

  The mezz loan was the first debt handed out by Silverstein Capital Partners, which was launched in 2018. It has raised over $4B since then and provided debt to projects like Hudson Cos.’ One Clinton condo and retail development in Brooklyn Heights.

  JDS, led by Michael Stern, tried to sell the 398-unit rental portion of 9 DeKalb, which also features 143 condos, a little over a year ago, The Real Deal reported. At the time, JDS was reportedly seeking between $600M and $700M for the rental units. Judging by today’s news, they weren’t successful.

  Construction on the tower, which sits atop the historic Dime Savings Bank and Junior’s restaurant, began in 2015. The property, which is Brooklyn’s first supertall at just over 1,000 feet, also contains a 130K SF retail portion largely occupied by Life Time Fitness. Unit 72A this week set the record for Brooklyn’s priciest studio apartment when it sold for $905K, 6sqft reported.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 16:40

• $1 Billion In Tax Refunds Remain Unclaimed As May 17 Filing Deadline Approaches
  $1 Billion In Tax Refunds Remain Unclaimed As May 17 Filing Deadline Approaches

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

  

  The IRS is reminding taxpayers who have not filed their 2020 returns to do so quickly or risk losing out on unclaimed refunds.

  Nearly 940,000 Americans have unclaimed refunds from the 2020 tax year worth an estimated $1 billion, the IRS said on March 25. The individuals face a May 17 deadline to submit their returns.

  The median refund is $932. American citizens typically have up to three years to file and claim refunds, after which the money goes to the U.S. Treasury.

  Since taxpayers may find it difficult to gather information necessary to file returns for 2020, the IRS outlined three ways to access such information:

  • Taxpayers who are missing their W-2, 1098, 1099, or 5498 forms can request copies from their employer, bank, or other payers.
  • Those who are unable to get these forms from employers, banks, or other payers can order a free wage and income transcript at IRS.gov using the agency’s online tool. The agency noted that this will be the quickest and easiest option for many individuals.
  • A third way is for the individual to file a 4506-T form with the IRS, requesting a “wage and income transcript.” Taxpayers can then use information to file their returns. The agency warned that written requests for such transcripts can take several weeks. As such, taxpayers are encouraged to try out other options first.

  Usually, the deadline to claim old refunds is around the regular tax deadline, which is April 15 this year. The three-year window for the 2020 returns had been extended to May 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  “We want taxpayers to claim these refunds, but time is running out for people who may have overlooked or forgotten about these refunds. There’s a May 17 deadline to file these returns so taxpayers should start soon to make sure they don’t miss out,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

  Since taxpayers faced “extremely unusual situations” during the pandemic, some of them may have forgotten about a potential refund on their 2020 returns, he stated.

  “People may have just overlooked these, including students, part-time workers, and others. Some people may not realize they may be owed a refund. We encourage people to review their files and start gathering records now.”

  In addition to missing out on refunds, failure to file the 2020 return could also result in some taxpayers losing out on the earned income tax credit, which was worth as much as $6,600 in 2020.

  “The IRS reminds taxpayers seeking a 2020 tax refund that their funds may be held if they have not filed tax returns for 2021 and 2022,” the agency said.

  “In addition, any refund amount for 2020 will be applied to amounts still owed to the IRS or a state tax agency and may be used to offset unpaid child support or other past due federal debts, such as student loans.”

  The state with the highest number of individuals estimated to have 2020 refunds due was Texas, with 93,400 taxpayers. This was followed by California with 88,200; Florida with 53,200; and New York with 51,400.

  Processing Refunds

  The IRS usually takes up to 21 days to process refunds for returns filed electronically. It can take four weeks or more if traditional mail was used. The processing time can be extended in case the returns require extra review or corrections. The fastest way to get refunds is through direct deposit.

  In certain cases, taxpayers may not receive the refund amount they were expecting. This could be due to the agency identifying errors on tax returns, or if the refund was used to pay off certain state or federal debts owed, or if the refund from a joint return was used to pay off a spouse’s debts.

  In case of errors corrected by the IRS, the agency will send a notice to the taxpayer clarifying the changes.

  Tax refunds are critical for many American households as they represent the largest annual cash injection into their budgets. Many families use the refunds to boost their savings or cut down debts.

  According to a January survey conducted by Credit Karma, 37 percent of taxpayers who expect to receive a refund plan on using some or all of the money to pay for necessities. Over half of the respondents said they were looking to file their taxes early to get faster refunds.

  Thirty-one percent of taxpayers surveyed said they would need their refund to make ends meet.

  “That number jumps to 40 percent for millennials and 38 percent for Gen Z taxpayers,” the survey report stated.

  In addition to encouraging 2020 tax year nonfilers to file their returns, the IRS has launched an effort to identify high-income taxpayers who have not filed their income taxes since 2017. Over 125,000 such instances have been identified, with taxes being owed in many of these cases.

  The initiative was launched late last month, with the agency sending compliance letters to these 125,000 taxpayers.

  “The mailings include more than 25,000 to those with more than $1 million in income, and over 100,000 to people with incomes between $400,000 and $1 million between tax years 2017 and 2021,” the agency stated.

  Mr. Werfel said that if someone hasn’t filed a tax return in recent years, “this is the time to review their situation and make it right. … For those who owe, the risk will just grow over time as will the potential for penalties and interest. These non-filers should review information on IRS.gov that can help and consider talking to a trusted tax professional as soon as possible.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 16:05

• France Takes Down Fake Ukraine War Recruitment Website Targeting Immigrants
  France Takes Down Fake Ukraine War Recruitment Website Targeting Immigrants

  In a bizarre and unprecedented situation, France has flagged what officials are calling a fake recruitment website which seeks volunteers to fight on behalf of Ukraine in the with Russia. It reportedly was made to look official, to the point of misleadingly presenting itself as a French government-promoted campaign.

  France’s defense ministry has shut down the website, saying it was created by malicious actors as part of a “disinformation campaign”. Ukraine’s armed forces have of late been desperate for new recruits while facing devastating losses and thus face a severe manpower shortage.

  

  “A URL for a page called ‘Join Ukraine,’ which used [French] government website templates, is currently being circulated online; this website is fake,” a message on the site reads, according to AFP.

  The fake Ukraine volunteer website “invited” 200,000 French citizens to enlist in Ukraine’s national forces, and even emphasized that immigrants to France could serve. Volunteers were told to contact “unit commander Pavel” in order to gain instructions on the process of enlistment.

  French authorities did not identify a culprit behind the deceptive campaign; however, a source told AFP that evidence possibly points to the Russian mercenary group Wagner being behind it.

  Another government official told AFP that it bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine.”

  Starting last month French President Emmanuel Macron stunned even Western allies by pushing for European countries to consider sending troops to fight in Ukraine.

  He had told a Paris-hosted security conference in late February that while there was yet “no consensus” on sending ground troops to Ukraine in an “official manner,” it remains that “nothing was excluded.” He later defended the remarks and said the West cannot allow Russia to win in Ukraine no matter what.

  This new fake recruitment website episode could be part of an attempt to troll or mock Macron and call attention to his very dangerous proposal, which would be a sure path to WW3 with Russia. Germany among other powerful allies has opposed Macron’s words.

  🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🪖 ❌ #France‘s #defence ministry warned against a fake government website propagating #misinformation, inviting people to defend the country’s interests in #Ukraine.

  FRANCE 24’s @tomcanetti has the story ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/lljnMBLJR1

  — FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) March 29, 2024

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

  Early in the war more than two years ago some Western leaders, particularly then UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, were vocally encouraging foreign volunteers to go to Ukraine. But as more and more Westerners died in battle, officials have backed off such public statements.

  President Zelensky in February signed a decree opening up Ukraine’s military forces to “foreigners and stateless persons” for the first time ever. The country already had a “foreign legion” but volunteers can now serve in Ukraine’s National Guard, per the recent order, and may sign a contract at the private, sergeant, or officer levels depending on their qualifications.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 15:30

• Wealth Gap And The Road To Serfdom
  Wealth Gap And The Road To Serfdom

  Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

  One of the most interesting conundrums is the surging wealth gap in America. Despite two of the largest bull markets in history since 1980, most Americans struggle with making ends meet and are unprepared for retirement. Such a reality starkly differs from the belief that rising asset prices benefit the masses.

  For example, in a recent St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank analysis, total household wealth was $139.1 trillion, covering 131 million families. Of that total wealth, 74% was owned by just 13.2 million families, or roughly 10% of the population.

  

  Notably, this measure of wealth includes the equity of the family’s home. While home equity is essential, it is not readily spendable without taking on debt to extract the value. Therefore, Americans’ “liquid wealth” is far more unequally distributed. However, such is hard to fathom given the endless parade of media and social media influencers extolling the virtues of “building wealth through investing.”

  Interestingly, that survey came after the Government injected nearly $5 trillion into the economy, a massive surge in deficit spending, and the Fed’s $120 billion monthly injections doubled asset prices from the March 2020 lows. Unsurprisingly, in February, Fidelity published its latest analysis showing the number of retirement accounts with balances of more than $1 million surged toward a record. To wit:

  “The number of seven-figure 401(k) accounts at Fidelity Investments jumped 20% in 2023’s final quarter to 422,000, marking a sharp recovery from the previous quarter’s 7.7% drop.

  Gains in the stock market helped swell retirement balances last year as the S&P 500 advanced 24% following 2022’s 19% decline. The impressive run was powered in large part by the so-called “Magnificent 7” stocks that now make up roughly 30% of the market-cap weighted S&P 500 Index. The only time when the ranks of 401(k) millionaires at Fidelity was higher was in 2021’s fourth quarter, when there were 442,000 such accounts. Elsewhere, the number of seven-figure IRAs is at a record 391,600 accounts.” – Bloomberg

  

  However, that data obfuscates the stark wealth gap below the surface. While the “number of retirement millionaires” made headlines, an essential piece of the analysis was overlooked. Those 422,000 accounts comprised only a tiny fraction of Fidelity’s 27.2 million retirement accounts. How small of a fraction? About 1.6%. That number aligns with America’s Top 1% of equity ownership.

  

  But indeed, after two booming bull markets since 1980, most Americans would be well saved for retirement. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

  

  So, what went wrong?

  The 50% Problem

  The advice to build wealth is quite simplistic. Investment money into the financial market consistently over long periods. That’s it.

  Again, considering that most Americans alive today participated in either one or both of the most significant secular bull markets in history, the lack of wealth is quite appalling. If individuals had invested $1000 in 1980 into the S&P 500 index and added just $100 per month, they would have roughly $1.4 million in retirement savings today.

  

  However, if it is so simple, why do most Americans have little or no savings?

  “One in 4 Americans have no retirement savings and those who are saving aren’t saving enough. Those that are [saving], on average, what they have saved will afford them like $1,000 a month of actual cash while they’re in retirement.” – Price-Waterhouse Retirement In America.

  The report found that the median retirement account balance for 55-to-64-year-olds is $120,000. Dividing over 15 years would generate a modest monthly distribution of less than $1,000. The bigger problem is the large percentage of individuals with no retirement savings.

  

  There are two primary reasons individuals do not save and invest for retirement. While psychological reasons account for 50% of the problem, such as buying high and selling low, the other 50% comes down to a lack of capital to invest.

  

  We have previously written about the various psychological pitfalls investors make in destroying their investment capital. However, for many, it is a problem of being unable or unwilling to save money.

  1. Lack of knowledge about budgeting and saving. (15%)

  2. The cost of living exceeds income. (70%)

  3. Bad previous investing experience (bear market). (15%)

  If you ask anyone who doesn’t save money, you will likely get one of those three answers. It is hard to “save and invest” when there simply isn’t enough income.

  However, this is where the disconnect between the economic data and the “average American” is exposed.

  Not Enough Income

  Most mainstream analysis utilizes “averages” to discuss the economy’s health. For example, disposable incomes (DPI), personal savings rates, and debt-to-income ratios suggest that the average American family is flush with cash with little debt. However, most of these calculations, like DPI (income minus taxes), are generalizations due to the variability of household income and individual tax rates.

  More importantly, the measure becomes skewed by the top 20% of income earners, notably the top 5%. The chart below shows those in the top 20% saw substantially larger median wage growth versus the bottom 80%. (Note: all data used below is from the Census Bureau and the IRS.). The cost of raising a family of four continues to increase with inflation, so the bottom 80% are forced to live paycheck-to-paycheck, primarily leaving no money for retirement savings.

  

  Furthermore, disposable and discretionary incomes are two very different animals.

  Discretionary income is the remainder of disposable income after paying for all mandatory spending like rent, food, utilities, health care premiums, insurance, etc. For the bottom 80% of income earners, the cost of living outstrips most of those individuals’ incomes. Debt must make up the difference.

  

  In other words, given the bulk of the wage gains are in the upper 20%, any data that reports an “average” of the information skews the results higher. This is why there is a vast difference between the debt service levels (per household) between the bottom 80% and the top 20%.

  

  Yes, saving money and investing it into the financial markets is tough when you must go further into debt every month to make ends meet.

  The Wealth Gap And The Road To Serfdom

  The rise and fall of stock prices has little to do with the average American’s participation in the domestic economy. Interest rates and inflation are entirely different matters. Since interest rates affect “payments,” and inflation increases the “costs of living,” changes negatively impact consumption, housing, and investment.

  Therefore, while the stock market surges to all-time highs, the wealth gap leaves increasing numbers of Americans behind. For the average American, it isn’t a choice of not wanting to participate; they simply can’t.

  

  The reality is that middle-class America continues to shrink as the wealth gap increases. The rich can invest, save, and use little debt to sustain living standards. People experiencing poverty rely on debt, making long-term prosperity an impossible goal.

  Furthermore, as the peasants demand “more free stuff” from the Government, such requires more debt and higher taxes. Those demands divert more capital away from productive investment, leading to slower economic growth. As growth slows, businesses shift to the lowest labor costs, or automation, to lower income growth for domestic workers. Such leads to more demands from “free stuff” from the Government, and the cycle intensifies, pushing more of the middle class downward.

  The share of annual incomes between the bottom 80% and the top 5% is evidence of that wealth transfer from the middle class.

  

  The “road to serfdom” is paved with good intentions. After decades of piling on increasing debt levels to generate economic growth, the damage to economic growth is becoming more visible. Economic growth trends are already falling short of previous long-term growth trends.

  

  Of course, this analysis also underscores why bitter economic sentiment persists even as the bull market registers all-time highs. It is hard to be excited about a booming stock market when you don’t participate much, if at all.

  For 80% of Americans, the end game of too much debt, an aging demographic, and the push for “socialistic policies” is the continued extraction of wealth from the “middle class” to the “rich.”

  Of course, we don’t have to look much further than Japan to see how this eventually works out. They don’t have a middle class, either.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 14:55

• United Airlines Boeing 777 Diverted To Denver After 'Engine Issues' 
  United Airlines Boeing 777 Diverted To Denver After ‘Engine Issues’ 

  The Federal Aviation Administration should expedite its plan to curb United Airlines’ growth, including preventing the carrier from adding new routes, following a series of safety incidents in recent weeks and another incident on Thursday evening. 

  Last night, United Flight 990, a Boeing 777-200 traveling from San Francisco to Paris, was diverted to Denver International Airport when the pilots reported engine issues. 

  

  Flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows Flight 990 was heading north towards the Canadian border before it turned south towards Denver. United wrote in a statment that the plane landed safely with 273 passengers and 12 crew on board. 

  This comes after a series of recent flight mishaps involving United jets, including a tire falling off a Boeing 777 taking off at San Francisco airport, landing gear issues with a Boeing 737 at Houston, and a panel flying off an aging United Boeing 737. 

  A Bloomberg report said FAA authorities are considering “drastic measures” to curb the airline’s growth following a series of safety incidents. 

  Last week, United CEO Scott Kirby promised customers that the carrier would review the incidents and its employee training. Perhaps what Kirby should be promising customers is to stop pushing “insane,” disastrous, and potentially deadly DEI mandates. 

  The entire aviation industry is in disarray, from United to Boeing to the FAA. Why is this Pete Buttigieg? 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 14:20

• The Meltdown Of Commercial Real Estate
  The Meltdown Of Commercial Real Estate

  Authored by Peter St. Onge via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of U.S. banks.

  

  Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.

  The note, by senior editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.

  

  To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in four years. Major cities such as San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.

  So what happened?

  The Fed’s yo-yo interest rates first flooded real estate with low rates and cheap money. Which were overbuilt.

  Then came the lockdowns, which forced millions to figure out new workday patterns. People liked foregoing the long commute (not to mention the free money). Despite every effort, downtown businesses have not been able to get all workers back.

  These days, everyone talks about hybrid models of working, some in-person and some remote. But judging from observation, remote is winning. In any case, even a 30 percent reduction in the footprint of office space once the leases are renewed could topple the entire sector.

  The restaurant and retail sectors of downtown feel the pinch, with more closures all the time. Adding to the pressure are absurd levels of inflation and ever-riskier streets on matters of personal security. Put it all together and there is ever less reason to slog to the office.

  When the Fed panic-hiked interest rates in the 2021 inflation, that put trillions of commercial real estate underwater even without other factors. Add to that crime, inflation, plus remote work, and you have a dangerous mix that could topple cities as we know them.

  This could mimic and elaborate upon last year’s bank crisis, where falling bond prices panicked depositors. That crisis only stopped when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell effectively bailed out every bank in America with sweetheart loans written on fictitious asset values along with unlimited taxpayer guarantees through the comically underfunded FDIC.

  By the way, the FDIC is essentially guaranteeing more than $20 trillion in deposits on just more than $100 billion. So they’ve got a half-penny on the dollar.

  Without those government pre-bailouts, one paper last year by researchers at Stanford and Columbia estimated that 1,619 U.S. banks—about a third of them—could be at risk of failure.

  The problem is that nothing was actually fixed. In fact, it’s getting worse. For the simple reason that as the months roll by there’s more and more debt coming due.

  And that brings us to Mr. Crombie, who noted that there’s $929 billion of commercial real estate debt coming due in the next 9 1/2 months.

  That’s up 28 percent from last year, and it’s getting bigger every day as banks pretend that loans are still healthy by effectively adding missed payments.

  We’re starting to see glitches in the matrix; New York Community Bank just went through a near-death experience over its garbage portfolio of commercial real estate loans, dropping almost 80 percent before it was bailed out by vulture investors while the megabanks hover like megavultures.

  More will come. Potentially a lot more: A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that up to 385 American banks could fail over commercial real estate loans alone.

  These would overwhelmingly be small regional banks, who typically hold a third of their assets in commercial real estate loans.

  

  They hold so much because they know their local markets best, but the Fed poisoned that chalice by flooding easy money to developers.

  For now, we’re only seeing the sickest banks dropping out of the herd. That could dramatically accelerate as that $1 trillion-plus in loans comes due.

  Commercial real estate delinquency rates have already jumped to 6 1/2 percent—up 30 percent in a matter of months. Rates of distress in office loans just hit 11 percent.

  When the smoke clears, we could lose dozens, even hundreds, of regional banks. Going by the last time with savings and loans, taxpayers ate 80 percent of the losses.

  Meaning that you could be on the hook for trillions, while the megabanks gorge on the carcass.

  Slashing interest rates could staunch the bleeding. But with inflation marching up every month—currently at 5 1/2 percent annualized—that’s not going to happen.

  Originally published on the author’s Substack, reposted from the Brownstone Institute

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 13:45

• Israel Mounts Largest Attack On Syria In Years, Over 40 Dead
  Israel Mounts Largest Attack On Syria In Years, Over 40 Dead

  On Friday Israel conducted its deadliest strikes on Syria in months, or perhaps even years, given the immense death toll is mounting into several dozens killed amid a large emergency response to the scene.

  The airstrikes were conducted deep into Syria, in northern Syria’s Aleppo province, and left over 40 people dead. This reportedly included Syrian soldiers, Hezbollah militants, and civilians. Most international reports are saying 42 were killed, but the Syrian government did not initially give a precise casualty count.

  

  The anti-Assad opposition and UK-based organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that the Aleppo attack left the highest number of dead among Syrian soldiers in a single such Israeli attack. While Israel doesn’t typically directly own up to or confirm such attacks on Syrian soil, its military has been conducting sporadic attacks on Syria going back years.

  The attack happened in the pre-dawn, overnight hours – with state-run SANA emphasizing that many civilians were killed and wounded, but without giving a figure.

  Syria’s defense ministry pointed to the airstrikes having some level of coordination from “terrorist organizations” on the ground which “in conjunction” to the air raid carried out drone attacks, presumably from Al-Qaeda (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) occupied Idlib. Some reports are saying that Israeli warplanes hit a “Hezbollah warehouse” – though there’s no ground confirmation of this.

  This new major attack comes the day after Israeli airstrikes on a suburb of Damascus, which reportedly wounded two civilians. Israeli officials and media have long claimed to be waging a campaign against Iranian and IRGC operatives and assets in Syria.

  Sky News has verified social media video showing massive explosions from the site of the overnight Aleppo attacks:

  ⚡️Sky News publishes scenes showing the bloody Israeli strikes on Aleppo pic.twitter.com/xgLxjrNJmP

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) March 29, 2024

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

  After the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack, this ‘counter Iran’ campaign has also focused on Lebanon, where Tehran-backed Hezbollah has entered a hot conflict with Israeli forces along the border.

  The Syrian government under President Bashar Al-Assad has frequently lodged formal complaints at the United Nations that the country’s sovereignty is constantly being violated by Israeli aggression, however, this is by and large fallen on deaf ears.

  In the initial days and weeks after Oct.7, Syria had lobbed several rockets toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which left no casualties. Much of the Syrian populace has meanwhile become frustrated and expressed growing anger that the Russian military, has has long had a significant presence inside Syria (especially since 2015), has not done more to try and intercept inbound Israeli jets.

  

  As far as Israeli attacks, Moscow has long been content to stay on the sidelines, so long as the ostensible targets are said to be ‘Iranian-linked’.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 13:10

• Beware Of Squatters
  Beware Of Squatters

  Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  If you own a home and don’t want to lose it, keep reading.

  

  Homeowners who go on vacation or a business trip, even for just a week, are returning to find their houses overtaken by trespassers who fraudulently claim a right to be there. It’s happening to tens of thousands of homeowners from New York City to Atlanta and Los Angeles.

  When owners call the police, they’re told police can’t help. It’s a civil matter, and they have to file an eviction lawsuit, which can drag on for months or years because housing courts are backlogged.

  Meanwhile, owners are out on the street while squatters are living free, destroying houses, and even selling off owners’ belongings.

  If you found a stranger sitting in your car and called the police, they would immediately ask to see the registration and decide who owns it, according to Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley. They wouldn’t let the thief drive off. But the law is stacked against homeowners.

  You can thank leftist lawmakers who have degraded property rights and tilted the law to favor criminals. The result is an epidemic of brazen squatting.

  In New York state, a homeowner faced with a trespasser can expect eviction to take two years. Meanwhile, the owner is barred from turning off utilities, removing belongings, or doing anything else to get the invaders out. It’s crazy.

  New York state Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz of Long Island introduced legislation saying a squatter is not a tenant and is not entitled to the same protections. Will it pass in Albany? Don’t hold your breath.

  But some states are acting quickly against this crime wave.

  The Florida Legislature passed a bill to empower police to immediately remove anyone who can’t produce a notarized lease. Georgia’s statehouse passed the Squatter Reform Act, making squatting a crime—criminal trespass—to be handled by the police, not housing court. It’s likely to pass the Senate shortly.

  In blue states such as California and New York, is there hope for homeowners to get protection against squatters? Not from Congress. Democrats in Congress are actually pushing a federal housing law that would bar landlords from learning whether potential tenants have criminal records, including past squatting offenses.

  But there is a remedy: bringing a lawsuit in federal court against states such as New York and California that fail to protect property rights. The U.S. Constitution enshrines property rights as a fundamental guarantee. And recently, the justices have struck down state laws that allow trespassers to interfere with property rights. In 2021, the Pacific Legal Foundation brought a suit on behalf of a property owner, and the court ruled in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid that “government-authorized invasions of property” amount to a taking just as if the government had taken the property directly.

  Favoring intruders over owners constitutes a “taking” that violates the Fifth Amendment, which says government cannot impinge on your right to your property.

  There’s no time to waste in acting to protect homeowners.

  Venezuelan TikTok influencer Leonel Moreno claims that invading vacant homes is the only option for illegal migrants flooding into the United States. His now-deleted TikTok video explaining how to identify a home that is empty and ready for the taking reached 4 million views.

  Surprised? Don’t be. Criminals from south of the border are coming in droves to plunder the far wealthier United States. Some cross illegally and are recruited by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s MS-13. Others are coming in on tourist visas. Law enforcement is reporting a surge in South American burglary gangs operating in at least half the states in the United States.

  Of course, many migrants are honest and hardworking. But there’s no denying that a movement northward to “take what you can get” poses new danger to homeowners, including the risk of squatters.

  As Mr. Moreno says, “If a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.”

  Tell lawmakers to act now to protect homeowners. This is the United States. Here, property rights are not up for debate. They’re guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

  You worked for it, you paid for it, it’s yours. Period.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 12:35

• "Huge Problem": Pentagon's Rapid Wartime Response Cargo Ships Trapped In Baltimore After Bridge Collapse
  “Huge Problem”: Pentagon’s Rapid Wartime Response Cargo Ships Trapped In Baltimore After Bridge Collapse

  Two high-speed military cargo ships are stuck in the Port of Baltimore following Tuesday morning’s collapse of the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge. The major US East Coast port has been paralyzed for several days as the bridge collapse prevents inbound and outbound vessel traffic along the harbor’s channel. 

  Using the automatic identification system, or AIS, data that tracks commercial vessels, three bulk carriers, two general cargo ships, one vehicle carrier, one tanker, and four Ready Reserve Force vessels (RRF), along with the container ship Dali that struck the bridge, are trapped in the harbor, according to the shipping blog gCaptain. 

  The three bulk carriers include:

  • The Liberian-flagged JY River, owned by JIADE INTERNATIONAL SHIP and managed by WAH KWONG SHIP MANAGEMENT HK of Hong Kong.

  • The Thailand-flagged Phatra Naree, owned by PRECIOUS STONES SHIPPING LTD and managed by PRECIOUS SHIPPING PCL of Thailand.

  • The Portuguese-flagged Klara Oldendorff, owned and managed OLDENDORFF CARRIERS GMBH & CO of Germany.

  The vehicle carrier is:

  • The Swedish-flagged Carmen, owned by WALL RO/RO AB and managed by WALLENIUS MARINE AB of Sweden.

  The general cargo ships include:

  • The French-flagged Saimaagracht, owned by REDERIJ SAIMAAGRACHT and managed by SPLIETHOFF’S BEVRACHTINGS BV of the Netherlands.

  • The Panama-flagged Balsa 94, owned by EASTERN CAPITAL MARINE INC and managed by HIONG GUAN NAVEGACION CO LTD of Hong Kong.

  The tanker is:

  • The Marshall Islands-flagged Palanca Rio, owned by MINSHENG RUIYANG TIANJIN SHPG and managed by PUMA ENERGY SUPPLY & TRADING of Singapore.

  The US Maritime Administration (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force vessels include:

  • The Cape Washington, a Cape W Class roll-on/roll-off vessel.
  • The Gary I. Gordon, a Gordon-class roll-on/roll-off vessel.
  • The SS Antares (T-AKR-294), a Algol-class fast sealift vehicle cargo ship.
  • The SS Denebola (T-AKR-294), another Algol-class fast sealift vehicle cargo ship.

  According to the military blog The War Zone (TWZ), Algol class vessels are “some of the fastest cargo vessels of their general size anywhere in the world.” These ships are part of the RRF, a subset of vessels within MARAD’s National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) that provide surge sealift capability to the Pentagon for overseas conflicts.

  

  TWZ said the activation process of RRF vessels takes about five to ten days. The vessels are operated with a skeleton crew until called upon. 

  RRF are stationed at major marine ports around the US. 

  

  TWZ noted the Algol class vessels have been called into action several times over the last three decades: 

  Algol class have been called upon multiple times since they entered US service. Just five of these ships were responsible for transporting 20 percent of US cargo sent from the United States to Saudi Arabia during the first phase of Operation Desert Shield in the immediate run-up to the First Gulf War. The ships would go on to deliver 13 percent of all cargo that arrived in Saudi Arabia from the United States in the full course of that conflict. 

  The US military subsequently used Algols to support operations in Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s, as well as the opening phases of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.

  Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong reported on Thursday that “The Department of Transportation will not say how many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships are Stuck” in the Baltimore harbor. 

  Baltimore Bridge Mess: DOT Will Not Say How Many National Defense Reserve Fleet Ships Stuck https://t.co/Nz7FPPQ2QT via @BreitbartNews

  — Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) March 28, 2024

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

  Wong quoted John Konrad, CEO of gCaptain, who warned the stuck RRF vessels are a “huge problem if a war starts [but] not much of a problem if the next few months are peaceful.”  

  According to CEO of GCaptain and maritime journalist@johnkonrad, four Ready Reserve Force ships are stuck in the port — the SS Antares, MV Cape Washington, MV Gary I. Gordon, and the SS Denebola.

  He said the four ships being stuck is a “huge problem if a war starts [but] not… https://t.co/4GOZHtuWPE

  — Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) March 28, 2024

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

  The current readiness of the RRF fleet is unknown. And just like that, part of America’s RRF fleet was taken out not by a missile or suicide drone, but a container ship that allegedly suffered a catastrophic ‘electric issue’. America’s enemies are taking note. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 12:00

• Sick Of It All
  Sick Of It All

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Every week, usually once or twice, I sit down to put onto paper my thoughts about the market. And every week, my disgust not only for the rigged system that encompasses our equity markets, but also for the sound of my own whining, grows exponentially.

  When I sit down to perfunctorily prattle on about how nothing makes sense and how I constantly see things the polar opposite of 99% of everybody else in the world of finance every week, I usually wonder two things.

  First, I wonder whether or not today will finally be the day that I capitulate, get bullish on the stock market, and start bowing religiously to a statue of Stephanie Kelton.

  

  “I should know, I’ve followed a few!” – Arthur

  After all, the incessant price moves higher in Bitcoin are part of what triggered me to eventually reassess my thought process on the cryptocurrency. And even though I got bullish for reasons other than price, why couldn’t the same happen with equities?

  Second, I try to conceptualize exactly how fast the universe can, and will, make a total ass out of me by crashing markets 50% in 15 minutes in the days, hours, minutes, or probably even seconds after I’d have such a shift in sentiment.

  Which is why, like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I will continue to forge forward, exasperated, regardless of the inconvenient fact that I have no arms or legs left. But don’t let anybody ever tell you that my spirit was easy to break.

  

  “The Black Knight always triumphs!”

  I had my most recent bout of vomiting in my own mouth just thinking about how wrong I’ve been on macro analysis late on Wednesday, when, as if part of some ant-burning-under-a-magnifying-glass-type-cosmic-conspiracy to torture my psyche, the Fed’s Chris Waller came out and assured the public that he was in no rush to cut interest rates. Here’s a look at some of the headlines that came out of Waller’s speech in New York:

  • “There is no rush to cut the policy rate,” Waller said in a speech in New York.

  • The recent data “tells me that it is prudent to hold this rate at its current restrictive stance perhaps for longer than previously thought to help keep inflation on a sustainable trajectory toward 2%.”

  • Waller still expects to cut rates this year but isn’t ready to take that step without further evidence that inflation continues to drop.

  • Waller said analyzing three- and six-month measures of the Consumer Price Index, excluding volatile food and energy prices, tells him that progress on inflation has slowed and may have stalled.

  • “The risk of waiting a little longer to cut rates is significantly lower than acting too soon,” said Waller. “Cutting the policy rate too soon and risking a sustained rebound in inflation is something I want to avoid.”

  • Waller said that he is considering reducing the overall number of rate cuts this year or pushing them further into the future in response to the recent data if things don’t improve. But he also said he isn’t rushing to take that step yet.

  While I’m not sure how the market will receive this blindingly, exhaustively obvious negative news, my guess is by the time you read this at 4:45am EST on Thursday morning, futures will be raging higher and every index will be up in the pre-market session. After all, nothing says “bull case” like the Fed not being able to meet objectives in bringing down inflation and then a Fed governor telling the market not to expect the very same rate cut bonanza it has rallied more than 10% expecting this year alone, despite already being pornographically overvalued.

  Not unlike how when Donald Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” I’m not sure there’s anything the Fed could do right now to stop the market’s pre-ordained ascent. As I said in last week’s totally non-award-winning analysis, I have no f*cking idea where the liquidity is coming from, no clue what the market is thinking, and pretty much don’t understand anything at all.

  

  “Eat sh*t, Waller” — S&P 500 (probably) | Chart via Zero Hedge

  I know what you’re thinking: “Why then, Chris, do you run a financial newsletter?”

  That’s a great question. I wish I had a great answer for you other than it’s better than therapy for me and I get paid instead of having to pay someone else. But hey, 99% of “newsletter writers” don’t have any clue what they’re talking about — at least I admit it.

  Look, it’s either me or lessons from Whitney Tilson’s fishing trip and ruminations about his colonoscopy. Choose wisely.

  

  I’m breaking Whitney’s balls, of course. He’s a good dude and was one of the first people to be nice to me on Wall St. a decade ago.

  Anyway, continuing the sick satire playing out on Wednesday, S&P came out after the bell on Wednesday and affirmed the United States’ credit rating and said things look stable, casually noting that debt to GDP and interest to revenue are out of f*cking control (my words, not S&P’s) before summing things up with a “stable” outlook despite the fact. Among other brain farts, including praising monetary policy execution, S&P concluded:

  • A diversified and resilient economy with solid growth, extensive monetary policy flexibility, and benefits associated with the unique status as the issuer of the world’s leading reserve currency underpin the U.S. sovereign rating.

  • A high debt burden, with net general government debt approaching 100% of GDP and interest to revenue over 10%, and difficulties garnering bipartisan cooperation to strengthen U.S. fiscal dynamics are credit weaknesses.

  • We affirmed our ‘AA+/A-1+’ sovereign credit ratings on the U.S.

  • The outlook remains stable, indicating our expectation of continued economic resiliency; proactive, effective monetary policy execution; and our view that government officials will continue to resolve near-term fiscal deadlines, such as addressing the debt ceiling, in a timely manner.

  S&P said: “We could lower the rating over the next two to three years if unexpected negative political developments weigh on the strength of American institutions and the effectiveness of long-term policymaking, or jeopardize the dollar’s status as the world’s leading reserve currency.”

  They continued: “The ratings could also come under pressure if already-high deficits were to rise, owing to political inability to contain rising spending or to manage revenue implications of future changes in the tax code.”

  Is it me, or are both of these situations literally occurring already right now?

  As if people in the world of economics pride themselves on analytical non sequiturs, S&P’s rating and reasoning for their rating stand at stark odds with reality.

  But then again, who really knows what reality is anymore? Me? You? This certifiably insane old bird?

   

  “I regret saying it was transitory.”

  As many people know, Fitch downgraded the United States last year (my exceptional analysis here). They had it right. Whether we have the reserve currency or not, there are extraordinary, unprecedented risks facing the United States economy and the US dollar. Both S&P and Chris Waller came out and said today that the reserve currency status of the dollar gives the United States enormous flexibility.

  But just because we have enormous flexibility doesn’t mean that we can bend and not eventually break. Does policy flexibility mean that we can literally do whatever we want and nothing matters at all? Have we replaced the natural laws of economics and rewritten the basics of mathematics and macroeconomics? We think we have, but we haven’t.

  If you think of the basic immutable laws of macroeconomics and mathematics as a bathroom shower, every layer of bullsh*t, monetary policy, money printing, foreign war mongering slush fund, overspending, misuse, hubris, rewriting of the rules, and Stephanie Kelton book is like adding one of those Bath Fitter (TM) renovations to your shower. You’re not replacing the disgusting, mold-ridden, toxic equipment, you’re just covering it up with another layer of shiny-looking fiberglass.

  

  Left: The “old school” laws of economics. Right: The trillion dollar coin idea.

  The question then becomes: how many of these layers can we pile on top of one another before the room becomes so f*cking small that we can’t fit in the shower anymore?

  And, then what? We just walk around stinking to high heaven?

  I mean, for f*ck’s sake, we’ve got lifelong spend-ocrat Steve Liesman of all people breaking down on CNBC yesterday, openly worrying about how the United States is going to service its debt obligations and calling bullsh*t on the Inflation Reduction Act. Putting aside the insane irony that Steve Liesman has sat at Fed press conferences for the last decade and massaged the feet of whoever the Fed chair was at the time instead of asking them serious questions about accountability, when Liesman starts to worry, isn’t it time to take notice?

  For the last decade, I have watched dozens of Fed press conferences (feels like trillions) where Liesman has done nothing but make excuses for central bankers and throw them softball questions, in between the time he takes to congratulate them on the great job they’re doing. Very few people on his network, with the exception of possibly Guy Adami and Rick Santelli (combined total airtime each day: 32 seconds), have raised any questions about the Fed’s trajectory. Most days on CNBC look like this:

   

  

  Guests who are critical of the Federal Reserve, like Peter Schiff, have been blackballed from the network entirely. And now, all of a sudden, it’s time to panic? What’s next? Will Paul Krugman or Jeremy Siegel be taking to CNBC to all of a sudden “remember” the lessons of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell?

  Waller’s remarks Wednesday wrap up what will be the remainder of any Fed commentary on this short week. The entire market has placed an “all-in” wager on rate cuts this year, and Waller has reiterated his position as “we need to wait and see what happens.” And while he said circumstances would need to be extenuating for it to occur, he even brought up the idea of hikes. Considering the market is a forward-looking indicator and it has already pulled in probably six months to a year of expectations of rates being lower (and Trump tax cuts again, and AI growth, and more money printing, and colonizing Mars, and Tesla robotaxis that double as laundry folding humanoid droids), rates staying the same for longer – or a hike – would be devastating.

  And so, we sit and wait for the next bullsh*t CPI print to try and determine whether or not the government has figured out a new way to disguise the fact that prices have consistently been up at least 10% almost every year at any point in the past, especially these last three years.

  Both Waller and S&P Global are leaning, one way or another, on the US dollar’s reserve currency status as the foundation and basis for their “everything isn’t totally screwed and backwards” outlook.

  These conclusions by Waller and S&P are the latest in a long line of trillions of analyses and judgments that have relied on the US dollar remaining reserve currency for the time period of “forever times infinity” to be correct.

  I think of each one of these analyses, which arrived daily by the hundreds across Wall Street, as sheets of paper being placed on the back of a donkey that is trying to scale Mount Everest. A couple of sheets of paper, the donkey doesn’t notice. When you have enough for a ream of paper, the donkey starts to notice a little weight. Approaching a century into the US dollar’s dominance, the donkey is carrying on its back a stack of papers that would puncture the ozone layer at this point.

  It may not be Wednesday’s two additional sheets that cripple the donkey on its continued journey up the hill, but at some point, the weight is going to become unbearable. And watching it all play out, for me, already has.

  —

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 03/29/2024 – 11:30

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• What's Wrong With America's 'Elites'?
  What’s Wrong With America’s ‘Elites’?

  Authored by Laura Hollis via The Epoch Times,

  It is becoming increasingly clear that some of America’s most serious problems can be traced back to our colleges and universities – or at least the ones educating the country’s most powerful people.

  The Vietnam War era aside, it has traditionally been uncommon for events at universities to make national headlines. Absent something extraordinary, like a president giving a commencement address, a dramatic scientific breakthrough or the award of a prominent international prize to faculty, headlines with university names in them have tended to relate more to national championships in sports.

  

  Not anymore.

  Over the past few years, news items about events on college campuses have come to dominate headlines. The subjects are some of the country’s most fabled institutions. And the stories are often negative, if not outright shocking.

  Last December, the congressional testimony of three university presidents—Claudine Gay from Harvard University, Elizabeth Magill from the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—set off a firestorm. Under questioning by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) about anti-Semitic speech and conduct on their campuses, the three women dodged and deflected, unwilling to state definitively that calls for the genocide of Jews violated university policies and codes of conduct.

  The response was swift. Within days, Magill resigned. Gay survived the initial maelstrom, but the bad publicity prompted critics to start digging through her professional past, and she resigned less than a month later, following accusations of plagiarism in her research publications. Some of the nation’s largest donors to these universities—many of them Jewish—began announcing that they would cease or pull back donations totaling in the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars.

  The chaos on campuses has only increased since, with pro-Palestine protests and marches at dozens of colleges and universities, and horrific rhetoric bumping up against speech codes and demands for free speech. Across the country, Jewish students describe themselves as “living in a climate of hatred and fear” amid dramatic increases in anti-Semitic conduct, threats, slurs, and actual violence.

  This week, Stanford University sophomore Theo Baker published “The War at Stanford” in The Atlantic, in which he describes how the Israel-Hamas war has affected his campus. One Arab American graduate student told Baker that he thinks President Joe Biden “should be killed” and that Hamas should rule America. Pro-Palestine protesters set up sit-in “camps” for months and shouted for the destruction of Israel, chanting, “We don’t want no two-state; we want all of ’48!” Guest speakers brought in to facilitate campus discussion of the complex issues have been shouted down. Stanford employees have been threatened (“We know where you live!”), the interim president’s home has been vandalized, and his effigy was carried around campus covered in fake blood. The administration, Baker says, seems paralyzed, indecisive and defeated.

  This isn’t an isolated incident at Stanford, and the Israel-Hamas war hasn’t caused it. Last March—months before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel—Stanford Law School students shut down a talk being given by federal judge Kyle Duncan, shouting at him every time he attempted to speak or engage the audience, screaming epithets and holding up signs with vulgar accusations and calls for violence against Duncan’s daughters.

  Similar behavior has been displayed at other schools, having nothing to do with claims of colonialism in the Middle East.

  Swimmer and activist Riley Gaines was cornered and forced to hide in a classroom at San Francisco State University last year, prevented from giving her talk about limiting participation in women’s sports to biological women.

  In 2017, author Charles Murray’s scheduled talk at Middlebury College was interrupted by a mob that later physically attacked him and his faculty host Allison Stanger. Stanger’s hair was pulled so hard by a protester that she suffered a concussion.

  The poisonous rhetoric, intolerance, and violence is just the tip of the iceberg.

  In an interview with The Daily Signal podcast host Rob Bluey last week, national pollster Scott Rasmussen described what he called “the most terrifying poll result I’ve ever seen.” A recent Rasmussen poll asked Americans “to suppose there was an election and it was close but your candidate lost. And if their campaign team knew they could win by cheating and not get caught, would you want them to do so?”

  According to Rasmussen, only 7 percent of American voters overall said they’d rather cheat to win. But among the group that he calls “the elite,” that number jumped to 35 percent. Among the “politically obsessed elite” (those who “talk politics daily”), it was a staggering 69 percent!

  So who are these “elite”?

  Rasmussen explains that they are the top 1 percent of the population. They make more than $150,000 a year. They live in densely populated urban areas. They have not only college but postgraduate degrees. And large numbers of them “went to one of 12 elite schools.”

  He doesn’t name them, but we can hazard a pretty good guess which schools they are.

  “The reason I bring that up,” he continues, “is about half the policy positions in government, half the corporate board positions in America, are held by people who went to one of these dozen schools.” And, he says, they also shape “the mainstream media narrative.”

  Not only does this group think it’s acceptable to cheat to win an election, but 70 percent believe there is too much individual freedom in the United States, and an equal number trusts the government—which, of course, they control. “They really believe,” Rasmussen says, “that if they could just make the decisions and get us out of the way, we would be a lot better off.”

  What’s going on at our most prestigious and exclusive universities? How have they produced generations of amoral, condescending authoritarians? And how do we put a stop to it?

  Those are questions Americans need answers to.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 23:45

• In Historic Reversal, US To Restart A Shut Down Nuclear Power Plant For The First Time Ever
  In Historic Reversal, US To Restart A Shut Down Nuclear Power Plant For The First Time Ever

  Is the long awaited – and overdue – restart of the American nuclear age finally here?

  In a move which may force the lunatic greens to storm the White House, on Wednesday the federal government announced that it would provide a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan. NJ-based Holtec International acquired the 800-megawatt Palisades plant in 2022 with plans to dismantle it, but with support from the state of Michigan and the Biden administration, the emphasis has shifted to restarting the nuclear power plant by late 2025 instead. 

  What is remarkable is not that the US is throwing some money at a nuclear power plant – since the US sells $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, it may as well go full “Brewster’s Millions” (or rather “Trillions”) and spend it all asap; it is that this would be the first nuclear power plant to be reopened in the US, setting a precedent as atomic energy makes a triumphal comeback. Sure, it still faces hurdles, including inspections, testing and the blessing of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but those are just formalities: watch as new NPPs start springing up across the country next.

  “Nuclear power is our single largest source of carbon-free electricity, directly supporting 100,000 jobs across the country and hundreds of thousands more indirectly,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor, who in turn is repeating what nuclear advocates have been saying for decades. Restarting this particular plant will protect 600 union jobs and 1,100 throughout the community.

  The Palisades plant is along Lake Michigan, a two-hour drive from Chicago. A Michigan utility, CMS Energy, owned it from 1971 until the plant was sold to Louisiana-based utility Entergy in 2007. It was shut down in 2022.

  

  Holtec said it has long-term commitments so far from two electric cooperatives to buy power from the plant.

  “The repowering of Palisades will restore safe, around-the-clock generation to hundreds of thousands of households, businesses and manufacturers,” said Kris Singh, Holtec president and chief executive.

  Critics, of course, have emerged. A coalition of “greens” opposed to restarting what it derisively calls a “zombie reactor” has requested a hearing at the NRC.

  Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said it will take four to five months to finalize the financial deal with the government.

  “It is a loan we have to pay back,” he said, explaining that unlike US taxpayer funds embezzled by Ukraine’s corrupt leaders and the US Military-Industrial Complex, this particular loan will be tracked and eventually repaid.

  Nuclear energy is in the spotlight. Thirty-four countries, including the U.S., last week pledged to use it to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. In California, regulators in December said the Diablo Canyon plant could operate through 2030 instead of 2025 to guard against blackouts as the state shifts toward renewable power sources. Owner Pacific Gas & Electric said federal aid helped it repay a state loan.

  “There is more enthusiasm toward nuclear power — in Congress, in the industry and also internationally,” said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who has inspected nuclear plants around the world.

  There is another reason why nuclear energy is suddenly back in vogue: with projections for electricity demand over the next five years doubling from just a year ago –  due to a building frenzy of AI data centers, federally subsidized manufacturing plants, and the government-driven electric-vehicle transition –  the US has no choice but to go full-on nuclear, despite the howls of outrage from green activists and progressive voters.

  Still, restarting a plant is not easy.

  “It puts the onus and burden on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec to double down on efforts to make sure this plant is safe enough and all the safety measures are intact,” Meshkati said of Palisades.

  Meanwhile, keep an eye on uranium stocks and more importantly, on the price of uranium itself: as the nuclear renaissance begins in earnest, the world will need lots of uranium, and the supply chains will need years to catch up to demand, which means that what has already been one of the best performing commodities in recent years is set to rise that much higher.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 23:20

• Israel May Cut Off Palestinian Banks From Global Banking System Next Week
  Israel May Cut Off Palestinian Banks From Global Banking System Next Week

  Via Middle East Eye

  Palestinian banks could be cut off from the Israeli banking system starting next week following a decision by Israel’s finance minister to cease dealings between the two financial institutions, according to a report on Thursday by Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has two days to convene a cabinet meeting to discuss reversing plans by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to isolate Palestinian banks from both the Israeli and international banking systems.

  

  The Palestinian economy is based on the Israeli currency, the shekel, making it reliant on ties to Israel and its financial dealings with the rest of the world must go through the Bank of Israel and Israeli banks.

  Earlier this month, the hardline minister Smotrich threatened to paralyze the Palestinian Authority’s economy in response to the United States imposing sanctions on four West Bank extremist settlers accused of violence against Palestinians. 

  Israeli banks have heeded the sanctions despite calls by Smotrich not to comply. Two Israeli banks, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Hapoalim, currently maintain the connections of Palestinian banks with the banking system in Israel and globally. 

  To protect them from lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority for “transferring funds to terror groups”, the Israeli government has been issuing a waiver of protection for the two banks on an annual basis, signed by the finance minister. 

  Smotrich is now refusing to renew the arrangement, which has been in place for years.  Without this protection, the PA will be stripped of immunity and the Israeli banks will be exposed to lawsuits and are expected to cut ties with Palestinian banks.

  The consequences of isolating the PA from the financial world and Israel’s economy would significantly paralyze the Palestinian economy. 

  Any Israeli company that has business relations with the PA will no longer be able to deposit Palestinian cheques or receive payments from Palestinian banks, according to Haaretz.  Even Palestinian workers, who must only receive their wages in a bank deposit according to a 2022 agreement between Palestinian and Israeli authorities, will not be able to continue receiving wages in Israel, unless they are made in cash.

  Other areas that would be affected by Smotrich’s move include Palestinian export and import operations, which go through Israeli ports, and Palestinian tax funds, which are collected by Israel.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 22:55

• US Breaks Oil Price Ceiling Of $79 In Latest SPR Purchase
  US Breaks Oil Price Ceiling Of $79 In Latest SPR Purchase

  By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

  The latest crude oil purchase that the Department of Energy made as part of refill plans for the strategic petroleum reserve cost an average of over $81 per barrel, exceeding the $79 ceiling set by the federal government.

  Per an Argus report, the DoE declined to comment on why it had bought the oil despite the higher price hinting at more news to come later today.

  Back in 2022, to arrest an inexorable climb in retail fuel prices, the White House announced a release of 180 million barrels of crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. Critics warned the move would have a limited effect on prices but compromise the energy security of the country by reducing the level of crude in the SPR.

  The final amount of oil released from the SPR ended up exceeding 180 million barrels with the DoE pledging to replenish the reserve in a timely fashion but only when prices were favorable. The SPR is currently close to a 40-year low as a result of the massive release.

  The replenishing effort has been going on slowly, with three million barrels bought there and another three bought here as the very news of a planned purchase led to an uptick in prices.

  WTI is $73 now https://t.co/lqzYBr9S9Q

  — Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) November 16, 2023

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

  This forced the department to update the price range, at which it would be buying, raising the top end from $72 per barrel last year to $79 per barrel. Yet oil prices have been on a climb recently and WTI broke the $80-yer-barrel threshold earlier this month.

  As of March 22, the SPR stood at 363 million barrels of crude, Argus reported, citing Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm as saying that it should be back to normal by the end of the year. This, however, will not be a result of the replenishment effort but of the cancellation of 140 million barrels in previously planned SPR sales for the period to 2031.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 22:05

• If Americans Just Ate Healthy & Exercised, Then Politicians Wouldn't Be Clamoring About $1,000 Weight Loss Drugs "Bankrupting" Medicare
  If Americans Just Ate Healthy & Exercised, Then Politicians Wouldn’t Be Clamoring About $1,000 Weight Loss Drugs “Bankrupting” Medicare

  If the food-industrial complex had not flooded the nation’s food supply with junk, if the government actively encouraged healthy lifestyles, and if efforts to address the obesity crisis didn’t rely solely on ‘miracle weight loss drugs’ pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, then maybe – just maybe – politicians wouldn’t be clamoring on Capitol Hill, or the elderly (somewhat senile) president in the White House, about out-of-control drug prices.

  But since common sense has vanished in America and folks have given up on Peloton bikes for $1,000 monthly injections of “Wegovy,” the blockbuster weight loss treatment (also a diabetes drug called “Ozempic”) from Novo Nordisk, then socialists, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wouldn’t be reviving the discussion about high drug prices. 

  “Today, a new Yale study found that Ozempic costs less than $5 a month to manufacture. And yet, Novo Nordisk charges Americans nearly $1,000 a month for this drug, while the same exact product can be purchased for just $155 a month in Canada and just $59 in Germany,” Sanders said in a statement.

  Sanders cited the study “Estimated Sustainable Cost-Based Prices for Diabetes Medicines,” conducted by researchers at Yale University, King’s College Hospital in London, and the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders. It was published in the journal JAMA Network Open on Wednesday. 

  

  In the study, researchers found Novo could produce the blockbuster drug for 89 cents to $4.73 per month, as opposed to the monthly retail price of about $1,349 for Wegovy, a semaglutide injection. 

  “As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), I am calling on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic — and the related drug Wegovy — in America to no more than what they charge for this drug in Canada,” Sander said. 

  He added: “The American people are sick and tired of paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while the pharmaceutical industry enjoys huge profits.”

  Sanders warned: “This outrageously high price has the potential to bankrupt Medicare, the American people and our entire health care system.

  There is no rational reason, other than greed, for Novo Nordisk to charge Americans nearly $1,000 a month for Ozempic when it costs less than $5 to manufacture it and can be purchased in Germany for just $59. Novo must substantially reduce the price of Ozempic in the US now. pic.twitter.com/rdyF5MCQbX

  — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 27, 2024

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

  Analysts have forecasted that the market for weight-loss drugs could reach at least $100 billion a year by the end of the decade, with the production of Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro. And a decent chunk of the weight loss drugs will likely be covered by Medicare. 

  “The profit margin is immense” on weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Melissa Barber, a public health economist at Yale and the study’s lead author, told Bloomberg. She added, “There should be a conversation in policy about what is a fair price.”

  Rounding back to the intro of this note, Americans should eat better and exercise. Then, we don’t have to rely on the pharmaceutical-industrial complex. What’s odd is the government does not promote ‘common sense’ healthy lifestyles. Why is that? Are their donors pharma companies?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 21:40

• Creating "Good" AGI That Won't Kill Us All: Crypto's Artificial Superintelligence Alliance
  Creating “Good” AGI That Won’t Kill Us All: Crypto’s Artificial Superintelligence Alliance

  Authored by Andrew Fenton via CoinTelegraph.com,

  SingularityNET and the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance aim to wrest control of AGI away from Big Tech…

  

  After a year of increasingly dire warnings about the imminent demise of humanity at the hands of superintelligent artificial intelligence (AI), Magazine is in Panama at the Beneficial AGI Conference to hear the other side of the story.

  Attendees include an eclectic mix of transhumanists, crypto folk, sci-fi authors including David Brin, futurists and academics.  

  We’re at the conference run by SingularityNET, a key member of the proposed new Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, to find out what happens if everything goes right with creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) — human-level, artificial general intelligence.

  But how do we bring about that future, rather than the scenario in which Skynet goes rogue and kills us all?

  One of the best insights into why those questions are so important comes from futurist Jose Luis Cordeiro, author of The Death of Death, who believes humanity will cure all diseases and aging thanks to AGI.

  He tells Magazine of some sage wisdom that Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, once told him.  

  He said: ‘We have to be positive about the future because the images of the future — of what’s possible — begin with our minds. If we think we will self-destroy, most likely we will. But if we think that we will survive, [that] we will move into a better world [then we] will work toward that and we will achieve it.’ So it begins in our minds.”

  

  Janet Adams, CEO of SingularityNET, warms the conference up with some yoga. (Fenton)

  Beneficial AGI: The quest for artificial general intelligence 

  Humans are hardwired to focus more on the existential threats from AGI than on the benefits.

  Evolutionary speaking, it’s better that our species worries nine times too often that the wind rustling in the bushes could be a tiger than it is to be blithely unconcerned about the rustling and get eaten by a tiger on the 10th occurrence.

  Even the doomers don’t put a high percentage chance of AGI killing us all, with a survey of almost 3000 AI researchers suggesting the chance of an extremely bad outcome ranges from around 5% to 10%. So while that’s worryingly high, the odds are still in our favor.

  Opening the conference, SingularityNET founder and the “Father of AGI,” Dr. Ben Goertzel, paid tribute to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s concept of defensive accelerationism. That’s the midpoint between the effective accelerationism techno-optimists and their “move fast and break things” ethos, and the decelerationists, who want to slow down or halt the galloping pace of AI development.

  Goertzel believes that deceleration is impossible but concedes there’s a small chance things could go horribly wrong with AGI. So he’s in favor of pursuing AGI while being mindful of the potential dangers. Like many in the AI/crypto field, he believes the solution is open-sourcing the technology and decentralizing the hardware and governance. 

  

  Dr Ben Goertzel on keyboards with his surprisingly good robot-fronted band. (Fenton)

  What is the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance?

  This week SingularityNET announced it has teamed up with the decentralized multi-agent platform FetchAI — founded by DeepMind veteran Humayun Sheikh — and the data exchange platform Ocean Protocol to form the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI).

  It will be the largest open-sourced independent player in AI research and development and has proposed merging SingularityNET, FetchAI and Ocean Protocol’s existing tokens into a new one called ASI. It would have a fully diluted market cap of around $7.5 billion — subject to approval votes over the next two weeks. The three platforms would continue to operate as separate entities under the guidance of Goertzel, with Sheikh as chair.

  According to the Alliance, the aim is to “create a powerful compelling alternative to Big Tech’s control over AI development, use and monetization” by creating decentralized AI infrastructure at scale and accelerating investment into blockchain-based AGI.

  

  What are the benefits of AGI?

  Probably the most obvious beneficial impact is AGI’s potential to analyze huge swathes of data to help solve many of our most difficult scientific, environmental, social and medical issues.

  We’ve already seen some amazing medical breakthroughs, with MIT researchers using AI models to evaluate tens of thousands of potential chemical compounds and discovered the first new class of antibiotics in 60 years, one that’s effective against the hitherto drug-resistant MRSA bacteria. It’s the sort of scaling up of research that’s almost impossible for humans to achieve.

  And that’s all before we get to the immortality and mind-uploading stuff that the transhumanists get very excited about but which weirds most people out.  

  This ability to analyze great swathes of data also suggests the technology will be able to give early warnings of pandemics, natural disasters and environmental issues. AI and AGI also have the potential to free humans from drudgery and repetitive work, from coding to customer service help desks.

  While this will cause a massive upheaval to the workforce, the invention of washing machines and Amazon’s online businesses had big impacts on particular occupations. The hope is that a bunch of new jobs will be created instead.

  Economic professor Robin Hanson says this has happened over the past two decades, even though people were very concerned at the turn of the century that automation would replace workers.  

  Hanson’s study of the data on how automation impacted wages and employment across various industries between 1999 and 2019 found that despite big changes, most people still had jobs and were paid pretty much the same.

  “On average, there wasn’t a net effect on wages or jobs in automation of U.S. jobs from 1999 to 2018,” he says.

  

  SingularityNET CEO Janet Adams and Sergey Shalyapin, the platform’s chief technology officer. (Fenton)

  AGI could make better decisions than we can: SingularityNET CEO Janet Adams

  Janet Adams, the optimistic CEO of SingularityNET, explains that AGI has the potential to be “extraordinarily positive for all humanity.”

  “I see a future in which our future AGIs are making decisions which are more ethical than the decisions which humans make. And they can do that because they don’t have emotions or jealousy or greed or hidden agendas,” she says.

  Adams points out that 25,000 people die every day from hunger, even as people in rich countries throw away mountains of food. It’s a problem that could be solved by “intelligent allocation of resources across the planet,” she says. 

  But Adams warns AGI needs to be trained on data sets reflecting the entire world’s population and not just the top 1% so that when they make decisions, “they won’t make them just for the benefit of the powerful few, they will make them for the benefit of the broader civilization, broader humanity.”

  AI safety and ethics: Addressing the concerns

  Anyone who watched the early utopian dreams of a decentralized internet crumble into a corporate ad-filled landscape of addictive design and engagement farming may have doubts this rosy future is possible.

  Building high-end AI requires a mountain of computing and other resources that are currently out of reach of all but a handful of the usual suspects: Nvidia, Google, Meta and Microsoft. So the default assumption is that one of these tech giants will end up controlling AGI.

  Goertzel, a long-haired hippy who plays in a surprisingly good band fronted by a robot, wants to challenge that assumption. 

  Goertzel points out that the default assumption used to be that companies like IBM would win the computing industry and Yahoo would win search.

  

  A tattered copy of The Prometheus Project. (Source: Internet Archive)

  “The reason these things change is because people were concretely fighting to change it in each instance,” he says. “Instead, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the Google guys came along.”

  The founder of SingularityNET, he’s been thinking about the Singularity (a theoretical moment when technological development increases exponentially) since the early 1970s when he read an early book on the subject called The Prometheus Project. 

  He’s been working on AGI for much of the time since then, popularizing the term AGI and launching the OpenCog AI framework in 2008.

  Adams says Goertzel is a key reason SingularityNET has a credible shot.

  “We are the biggest not-for-profit, crypto-funded AI science and research team on the planet,” Adams says, noting their competitors have been focused on “narrow AIs” like ChatGPT and are only now shifting their strategy to AGI.

  “They’re years behind us,” she says. “We have three decades of research with Dr. Ben Goertzel in neural symbolic methods.”

  But she adds that opening up the platform to any and all developers around the world and rewarding them for their contribution will give it the edge even over the mega-corporations who currently dominate the space.

  “Because we have a powerful vision and a powerful commitment to building the most advanced, most intelligent AGI in a democratic way, it’s hard to imagine that Big Tech or any other player could come in and compete, particularly when you’re up against open source.”

  “[We will] see a potentially huge influx of people developing on the SingularityNET marketplace and the continued escalation of pace toward AGI. There’s a good chance it will be us.”

  

  HyperCycle CEO Toufi Saliba (Fenton)

  Decentralized AI: Opening the door to open source development 

  The Prometheus Project proposed that AI was such an earth-shattering development that everyone in the world should get a democratic vote on its development.

  So when blockchain emerged, it seemed like implementing decentralized infrastructure and token-based governance for AI was the next most practical alternative.

  HyperCycle CEO Toufi Saliba tells Magazine this mitigates the threat of a centralized company or authoritarian country gaining immense power from developing AGI first, which would be “the worst thing that ever happened to humanity.”

  It’s not the only potential solution to the problem. Meta chief AI scientist Yan Le Cun is a big proponent of open-sourcing AI models and letting a thousand flowers bloom, while X owner Elon Musk recently open-sourced the model for Grok.

  But blockchain is arguably a big step up. SingularityNET aims to network the technology around the world, with different components controlled by different communities, thereby spreading the risk of any single company, group or government controlling the AGI.

  “So you could use these infrastructures to implement decentralized deep neural networks, you could use them to implement a huge logic engine, you can use them to implement an artificial life approach where you have a simulated ecosystem and a bunch of little artificial animals interacting and trying to evolve toward intelligence,” explains Goertzel.

  I want to foster creative contributions from everywhere, and it may be some, you know, 12-year-old genius from Tajikistan comes up with a new artificial life innovation that provides a breakthrough to AGI.”

  

  It’s possible the fate of the world may rest in this man’s hands. (Fenton)

  What is HyperCycle? What is OpenCog Hyperon?

  HyperCycle is a ledgerless blockchain that’s fast enough to allow AI components to communicate, coordinate and transact to finality in under 300 milliseconds. The idea is to give AIs a way to call on the resources of other AIs, paid for via microtransactions.

  For now, the fledgling network is being used for small-scale applications, like an AI app calling on another AI service to help complete a task. But in time, as the network scales, it’s theoretically possible that AGI might be an emergent property of the various AI components working together in a sort of distributed brain. 

  “So, in that approach, the entire world has a much higher chance to get to AGI as a single entity,” Saliba says.

  Goertzel didn’t develop HyperCycle for that reason — he just needed something miles faster than existing blockchains to enable AIs to work together.  

  The project he’s most excited about is OpenCog Hyperon, which launches in alpha this month. It “combines together deep neural nets, logic engines, evolutionary learning and other AI paradigms in the same software framework, for updating the same extremely decentralized Knowledge Graph.”

  The idea is to throw open the doors to anyone who wants to work on it in the hope they can improve the METTA AGI programming language so it can scale up massively. “We will have the complete toolset for building the baby AGI,” he says. “To get something I would want to call it baby AGI we will need that million times speed up of the METTA interpreter,” he says.

  “My own best guess is that Opencog Hyperon may be the system to make the [AGI] breakthrough.”

  AI governance: The role of voting systems 

  Of course, decentralization does not ensure things will go right with AGI. As Goertzel points out, the government of Somalia was decentralized very widely in the 1990s under a bunch of warlords and militias, but it would have been preferable at the time to live under the centralized government of Finland.

  Furthermore, token-based governance is a long way from being fit for prime time. In projects like Uniswap and Maker, large holders like a16z and the core team have so many tokens it’s almost not worth anyone else voting. Many other decentralized autonomous organizations are wracked by politics and infighting.

  The surging price of crypto/AI projects has attracted a bunch of token speculators. Are these really the people we want to put in control of AGI?

  Goertzel argues that while blockchain projects are currently primarily attractive to people interested in making money, that will change as the use case evolves. 

  “If we roll out the world’s smartest AI on decentralized networks, you will get a lot of other people involved who are not primarily oriented toward financial speculation. And then it’ll be a different culture.”

  But if the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance does achieve AGI, wouldn’t its tokens be ludicrously expensive and out of reach of those primarily interested in beneficial AGI?

  

  As Goertzel has told Magazine previously, our chances of controlling AGI after a certain point are slim. (Fenton)

  Goetzel suggests that perhaps a weighted voting system that prioritizes those who have contributed to the project may be required:

  “I think for guiding the mind of the AGI, we want to roll out a fairly sophisticated, decentralized reputation system and have something closer to one person, one vote, but where people who have some track record of contributing to the AI network and making some sense, get a higher weighting.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 21:15

• Chinese Ex-Trade Minister Who Backed Trump Warns US That 'Dismantling' Global Trade Is Blowing Back On Ordinary Americans
  Chinese Ex-Trade Minister Who Backed Trump Warns US That ‘Dismantling’ Global Trade Is Blowing Back On Ordinary Americans

  President Joe Biden in late February said “unprecedented action” is being taken in response to an emerging scenario where “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security.” He said at the time, “China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practice.”

  This is but one leading example of what Beijing has complained about as being hardline moves of Washington targeting Chinese goods and thus eroding the very free trade system it once led the world in establishing. This week China’s former vice minister of foreign trade, Long Yongtu—who once expressed hope that Trump would get reelected as he’s “easy to read”—reflected on the past few years of changes since the Trump administration.

  He spoke of Washington-driven efforts which are resulting in rising protectionism and supply chain decoupling at an event ahead of the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia. His talk emphasized that ultimately Washington’s anti-China trajectory is hurting ordinary Americans as Chinese companies scramble to buy up land in Mexico as a necessary alternative to being able to do business directly in the US. 

  

  “These Chinese companies could have continued to make goods in China for America at reasonable prices, but now they have to bear the extra costs of migrating to Mexico, and US consumers are grappling with more expensive goods,” Long explained, citing a seven-fold increase in Chinese investors purchasing land in Mexican industrial parks going back to 2019.

  “It is the globalized economic and trade systems that are at stake, they were built by the US and the West after World War II, but now the US is dismantling the system,” he continued.

  The 81-year old Long, it must be remembered, served as China’s lead negotiator during its 15-year talks to join the World Trade Organization over twenty years ago, which happened in 2001. During his fresh comments, Long said, “The WTO has been marginalized, and I think the most urgent task today is how countries can work together to strengthen the function of the WTO and carry out some necessary reforms.”

  A flurry of both US and international reports over the past couple years have amply demonstrated and documented the trend, replete with stories like the following in Economic Times:

  Bill Chan had never set foot anywhere in Mexico, let alone the lonely stretch of desert in the north of the country where he abruptly decided to build a $300 million factory. But that seemed a trifling detail amid the pressure to adapt to a swiftly changing global economy.

  It was January 2022, and Chan’s company, Man Wah Furniture Manufacturing, was confronting grave challenges in moving sofas from its factories in China to customers in the United States. Shipping prices were skyrocketing. Washington and Beijing were locked in a fierce trade war.

  Man Wah, one of China’s largest furniture companies, was eager to make its products on the North American side of the Pacific. “Our main market is the United States,” said Chan, CEO of Man Wah’s Mexico subsidiary. “We don’t want to lose that market.”

  That same objective explains why scores of major Chinese companies are investing aggressively in Mexico, taking advantage of an expansive North American trade deal. Tracing a path forged by Japanese and South Korean companies, Chinese firms are establishing factories that allow them to label their goods “Made in Mexico,” then trucking their products into the United States duty-free.

  There are not just economic but potential geopolitical ramifications of the trend. If China is sweeping up vast property in Mexico for production, it raises questions over the extent to which in some cases Chinese government-affiliated companies could be ‘on America’s doorstep’ in greater numbers. This would have serious ramifications in any future hot conflict scenario, for example in a new Taiwan crisis.

  China’s development creates opportunities for the rest of the world rather than poses threats, said Long Yongtu, former chief of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in south China’s Hainan Province on Wednesday.https://t.co/OjBZ6XJgc5 pic.twitter.com/m3kGU1rZ55

  — CCTV+ (@CCTV_Plus) March 28, 2024

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

  Long in his Tuesday comments at the Boao Forum urged that “ordinary Americans should be better informed on the manifold benefits of free trade, and that discussions should return to the realm of common sense and the proven and objective laws of economics and trade.” He also declared that China’s global reach represents “opportunity” and should not be seen in the West as a “threat” – a common refrain of Beijing.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 20:50

• On The Brink Of A Dramatic Change: The Digitalization Of Money
  On The Brink Of A Dramatic Change: The Digitalization Of Money

  Authored by Efrat Fenigson via Bitcoin Magazine,

  The current state of Central Bank Digital Currency Projects globally summarized by Efrat Enigson, independent journalist and host of the “You’re The Voice” podcast…

  

  “What underpins a world order is always the financial system.

  We are on the brink of a dramatic change where we are about to, and I’ll say this boldly, abandon the traditional system of money and accounting and introduce a new one. And the new one is what we call blockchain.

  It means digital. It means having an almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on. It also raises huge dangers in terms of the balance of power between states and citizens. In my opinion, we’re going to need a digital constitution of human rights if we’re going to have digital money.

  Most people think that digital money is crypto and private, but what I see are superpowers introducing digital currency. The Chinese were the first. The US is on the brink of moving in the same direction. The Europeans have committed to that as well.”

  This revolutionary speech about a new financial system, was delivered at the World Government Summit in March 2022 in Dubai, by Philippa “Pippa” Malmgren, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Chatham House; her father, Harald Malmgren served as a senior advisor to US Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Ford and others. She’s a technology entrepreneur and economist, who served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, for Economic Policy on the National Economic Council and is a former member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and Corporate Governance.

  Her words about the transition to a new world order that requires a new financial structure correspond well with the words of French President Emmanuel Macron in June 2023 at the Global Finance Summit in Paris: “The world needs a public financial shock to fight global warming, and the current system is not suitable for dealing with the world’s challenges.” The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, also called for “a clean slate” and said the Bretton Woods organizations (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) do not serve their goals nor respond to society’s needs.

  

  The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact. Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/PR

  “THE NEW BRETTON WOODS MOMENT”

  “A new international monetary system is taking shape, some call it the new Bretton Woods moment that needs to be seized to create a new global financial governance,” says the investigative journalist Whitney Webb in a recent sitdown interview, where she mention that according to Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England & Bank of Canada and the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, the three pillars of the new multi-polar world are Digital IDs, CBDCs and ESG, through a global carbon market. All world governments are pushing this agenda, that in order for it to succeed, all monetary systems and supporting systems must become digital and rely on digital data.
  A good example of this was revealed at an event of the Central Bank of Israel with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – which I attended – in September 2023 in Tel Aviv, where the “Genesis Project” was presented. As part of this project, “green” bonds are issued, based on carbon quotas in the CBDC infrastructure. This is how the climate agenda is linked to financial markets.

  “DEBT SERFDOM”

  “Stablecoins could be the way in which the US is further globalizing the dollar, spreading its adoption directly to the world’s general public in order to continue increasing its debt and encourage uptake and usage of the dollar”, says Mark Goodwin, Editor in Chief of Bitcoin Magazine, in this interview with Whitney Webb. He suggests that the politician’s outcry of de-dollarization and the weakening of the dollar are a distraction from perpetuating the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
  “While CBDCs are what people are becoming fearful and aware of, it may just be the red herring, and the real strategy of the US dollar’s survival is highly regulated stablecoins (such as Tether), which can easily be programmable, even more than CBDCs, as well as seized, regulated and controlled indirectly by governments. 100 billion dollars in treasuries were already purchased by Tether, its subsidiaries and owners. Tether is positioned alongside the top 20 nation states buying debt from the US, with around one tenth of China or Japan that have a trillion dollars debt to the US”.

  

  Whitney Webb & Mark Goodwin. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC9dJYqDZ9c

  This theory, together with the words of Mark Carney, Pippa Malmgren, Emmanuel Macron & Lula Da Silva, join the calls of global leaders and heads of states, pointing to the replacement of the monetary and financial world order, to introduce a new monetary system. Many experts say that we are reaching the end of the current fiat monetary system experiment, which is destined to collapse. Since world leaders are aware of this, they prefer to engineer a controlled demolition, to maintain control and steer the course, and enter the new era with power firmly within their grasp.

  CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY SYSTEM (CBDC)

  Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), tie the financial freedom of citizens to the government and the banking establishment. The central bank issues its centralized digital currencies, and essentially creates a new monetary system, “fiat on steroids”, a system that takes everything that is bad in the fiat system, and adds more of it; surveillance, control, censorship, and enforcement capabilities. A modern prison? Indeed, the CBDC is the ultimate prototype of a prison without physical chains. By connecting CBDCs to digital identity cards, and to government systems such as universal basic income, social credits and more, we get the ultimate control apparatus. This apparatus will dictate to citizens what they’re allowed to purchase, what the permitted quotas are while limiting consumption according to rules and use cases, at programmed times, places and cadences. The system is able to determine the use of a geographic radius (geo-fencing), and to determine expiration dates on the money. Each remote controlled digital wallet can also be switched on and off by its operators. More than 130 countries are in the initial stages of piloting CBDC systems, of which 36 countries are in advanced pilots, and 3 countries have already launched systems (Nigeria, Jamaica and the Bahamas).

  WILL RIPPLE (XRP) BE THE CHOSEN PLATFORM FOR CBDC?

  Ripple, a digital payment network and transaction protocol that owns the cryptocurrency XRP, is considered one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, and is strategically positioning itself at the heart of government financial innovation, aiming to be the cornerstone of future CBDCs.

  The company is in talks with about twenty governments around the world to develop their CBDCs using Ripple’s technology. In May 2023, Ripple launched a dedicated CBDC platform to assist central banks, governments and financial institutions around the world in issuing CBDCs and stablecoins. To date, Ripple has partnered with six governments for CBDC pilot projects: Georgia, Colombia, Montenegro, Hong Kong, Bhutan and the Republic of Palau.

  The National Bank of Georgia, for example, has chosen Ripple as its technology partner for its CBDC pilot last year, citing Ripple’s technical expertise and team capabilities. Its interest in CBDCs is in leveraging modern technologies, such as the programmability aspect of CBDCs, aiming to create a platform with smart contract and programmable token capabilities to stimulate innovation in the financial sector.

  In the case of Bhutan, Ripple’s technology was chosen in 2021 for the country’s CBDC project to enable advanced cross-border payments, and assist in “financial inclusion” – in line with Bhutan’s mission to increase financial inclusion in Bhutan to 85% by 2023.

  In 2022, Ripple reached the final stage of the G20 Techsprint CBDC Hackathon, hosted by Indonesia and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), and in August 2023, the Republic of Palau launched a USD-backed digital currency, developed by Ripple.

  Promoting its platform as an infrastructure for a CBDC, Ripple advocates for government regulation of cryptocurrencies, and tries to position itself as the preferred solution for CBDC projects. Its claim to fame of being the ideal CBDC partner for governments is the combination of speed, efficiency, a sustainable and “green” blockchain network that uses little energy (compared to the Bitcoin network), and interoperability – the ability to communicate and work with CBDC solutions in other countries on the Ripple infrastructure. The company warns that there is a risk for CBDC adoption by the public, caused mainly by a lack of market education, and it encourages the programming and expiration dates capabilities, which are perceived by most of the public as particularly Orwellian features of CBDCs.

  Ripple encourages the abolition of cash (and a move to a cashless society), and unsurprisingly, it promotes the climate agenda; The company’s website presents its commitment to a clean, prosperous and secure low-carbon future, with a plan to reach carbon net-zero by 2030.

  Apparently, in line with Ripple’s expansion strategy vis-a-vis governments, the company makes sure to recruit employees who came from central and commercial banks. One of the company’s top executives is Andrew Whitworth, policy director at Ripple, who previously worked at the Bank of England. At the same time as his role in Ripple, Whitworth also serves as a Director of the “Digital Pound Foundation”, an organization that has declared itself the authority on the Digital Pound; it advises and influences the government’s decisions regarding CBDC projects and deployments. Clearly an inside connection such as this might give Ripple an advantage in shaping digital currency policies to fit their platform and solutions. Does this hint a conflict of interests, or at least an unfair play?

  Another avenue through which institutional influence and implicit control over Ripple could manifest is via a legal battle with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) concerning the XRP cryptocurrency. Engaging in such legal disputes inevitably positions Ripple in a scenario where maintaining a positive relationship with institutions becomes crucial. Consequently, it’s no surprise that Ripple prioritizes governments, central banks, and financial institutions as its primary target audience in its market strategy.

  

  Photo: Lord XRP Twitter account

  INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS IN CBDC

  China spent a couple of years rolling out relatively failed CBDC projects without widespread adoption, while injecting 30 million yuan as free money to encourage user adoption. Transactions using the digital yuan hit 1.8 trillion yuan (US$249 billion) in June 2023.

  Recently, significant progress has been made: the two main payment services and applications in China – WeChat and Alipay – which have a traffic of about 3-4 trillion dollars per year, integrated the Chinese CBDC service into their applications. The central bank regulator made it clear that digital yuan isn’t meant to compete with the two payments giants. Rather, it’s supposed to play a complementary role.

  Elon Musk, who owns, among other things, the Twitter/X platform, has stated that he wants to make the platform an “everything app” like the Chinese WeChat, including payment management. Will X also follow the Chinese route and integrate the CBDC solution into it, or will it try to become a CBDC infrastructure itself with the help of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, the Dogecoin?

  The CBDC pilot in Nigeria didn’t exactly take off either, after the citizens took to the streets to protest the abolition of cash in the country, and resented the introduction of an unneeded digital solution, while demanding the return of cash. After a long and painful protest, the cash was returned alongside the new digital currency, which was not canceled and became part of reality. Furthermore, a new stablecoin is in preparation in Sandbox mode in Nigeria. The cNGN is a Naira stablecoin which some claim has more potential than the e-Naira to be widely adopted. “The stablecoin will be more broadly interoperable than the CBDC, which is only available in the central bank’s wallet. At launch, the central bank’s wallet usability was weak, although it is now quite good”, said Bolu Abiodun, a reporter at Techpoint Africa.

  

  Source

  The UK saw a strong public backlash to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last year, with more than 50,000 responses sent to the Bank of England following a public hearing on the Digital Pound, aka the UK’s national CBDC.

  GERMANY – AWARENESS OF “EXCESSIVE SURVEILLANCE”

  In Germany, the technical guidelines document for a digital currency of a central bank was published in January 2024. Below are several quotes from the document, reflecting the tyrannical nature of the new currency, and the awareness of the central bank for trust issues it can create:

  • Programmability is the institution’s authority to dedicate your money for certain uses, and to prohibit the use of your wallet when it is “outside the permitted scope”.
     
  • “The central bank can revoke CBDC notes, e. g. as an instrument of monetary control. Revocation of CBDC notes is performed by an authorized entity, the revocation authority, controlled and operated by the central bank.” This sounds like a technique to confiscate and apply a shelf life to money.
     
  • “Payments permitted under certain restrictions.. if the central bank sees fit to impose them” – the document lists restrictions that can be applied to wallets, depending on the amount of personal information that will be provided. For example, the amount of money in the wallet, the number of payments per day, the amount of money per transaction or per day.
     
  • The good news: The German central bank is aware of the possibility of public opposition to a surveillance system: “Many of these design choices are general decisions on the trade-off between excessive surveillance and legitimate monitoring functions for AML and KYC purposes in conjunction with measures for mitigating fraud and misconduct. These decisions are extremely sensitive in nature and can strongly influence the level of trust that users place into the CBDC”.

  ISRAEL – THE DIGITAL SHEKEL WILL BE DISTRIBUTED THROUGH COMMERCIAL BANKS

  Israel takes an extensive and active part in various CBDC pilots, such as the Sela project, Eden, Icebreaker and more, which I have reported on extensively in the past. The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel announced that in December 2024 a technical design document for the Digital Shekel will be published, and its implementation will then begin in partnership with the private sector.

  The Bank of Israel’s latest document from last week covers the proposed architecture of the Digital Shekel. Here are some interesting points from the document:

  • The distribution of the Digital Shekel will be two-tiered: instead of direct contact between consumers and the central bank for funding and defunding, an indirect method similar to the distribution of cash today will be used. The banks will purchase digital shekels from the central bank in large quantities and transfer them to customers upon wallet charging.

  • The system will be able to apply and enforce limits, for example limits on the balance that users are allowed to hold in the Digital Shekel.

  • The system will support the possibility of applying interest on the Digital Shekel.

  • Users will be able to access the Digital Shekel through several payment providers, including credit cards, Google/Apple Pay, wearables, payment apps and more.

  • Unlike most retail CBDC solutions, Israel’s model allows users to open a wallet with a payment service provider (PSP) and connect to multiple third-party banks to fund and defund balances.

  Another interesting development in Israel is the announcement of a plan to launch a new stablecoin pegged to the shekel, called BILS, by the exchange platform, Bits Of Gold. Crypto Jungle website reports that the Israeli Capital Market Authority approved the pilot, according to the draft principles published by the Central Bank of Israel. Interesting to note that the company providing the infrastructure for the issuance and custody of the currency is the Israeli technology giant “FireBlocks”, which took part in the “Eden” pilot project of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange for the issuance of digital bonds, built to adapt in the future to a potential CBDC infrastructure.

  NO INTERNET? DON’T WORRY, GOVERNMENTS WILL TAKE CARE OF CONNECTIVITY ANYWAY

  A number of CBDC pilots, like in India, the European Union and more, focus on the adoption of the system by everyone, even amongst people without internet access. The washed-up name “financial inclusion” implies that the system will not skip anyone, not even citizens without Internet connectivity in remote areas, or without reception. In India for example, there are 683 million people living without an internet connection and largely outside the control of the state. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) plans to bring these remote areas into a new surveillance network through various technological means. A successful launch of CBDC in India also corresponds with the government’s overarching goal of reducing cash usage and improving financial monitoring.

  THAILAND – FREE MONEY FOR THE MASSES

  In September 2023, the Thai government announced that any Thai citizen over the age of 16 who chooses to participate in the CBDC pilot, will receive free CBDC worth $280 (10,000 baht) – quite a lot of money in Thai terms. This digital money will be loaded into the digital wallet application and will be available for use within 6 months, and within a radius of 4 km from the residence of the registered citizens. The pilot targets low-income citizens as a first stage, and later expands to entrepreneurs and small business operators – provided they are registered in the tax system. In Thailand many citizens are not registered in the government systems and not everyone has a bank account. It seems that air-dropping “free money” is another tactic to lure citizens into government systems, with the bait of “free” controlled government money. But is there such a thing as “free lunch”?

  THE EUROPEAN UNION – A POSITIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN IN HIGH GEAR

  The European Union launched a marketing campaign to promote the digital euro about six months ago, to start educating the European public about a reality where that they will be obliged to use a supervised digital euro, led by Christine Lagarde, who was previously convicted of crimes and was promoted to serve as the governor of the European Central Bank, the ECB.

  

  The Digital Euro new marketing campaign. Source: Christine Lagarde’s Twitter account

  At the same time, a charade is going on in the European Union Parliament where the dangers of CBDCs are being discussed, only thanks to the public awareness and discourse, while Lagarde rushes forward and kicks off the marketing campaign to instill in the public the following messages: the digital euro is easy, safe, fast and reliable. Not a word about its Orwellian capabilities to track, program, limit and condition activity through expiration dates, geo-fencing, and remote on and off switching.

  

  Another ECB campaign video for the Digital Euro

  THE DIGITAL EURO WILL NOT BE ANONYMOUS

  In a discussion at the European Union Council in 2023, Lagarde emphasizes a point: the digital euro will not be anonymous. Privacy will exist in the system, but not anonymity. Let’s break this up in a different way: for the banks, the key to surveillance and control is identification. The bank must know who the citizen is and verify their identity, in order to exercise law enforcement or regulations, through technological restrictions. Lagarde’s claim that the technology will allow privacy but not anonymity is unfounded: apparently the central bank considers itself and the financial service providers some kind of God, since in front of them the citizen will be identified, and therefore it is not clear what kind of privacy can exist, without anonymity.

  

  Source: Christine Lagarde’s Twitter account

  In a presentation from March 2024, the ECB presents a timetable for the Digital Euro. In November 2025, the development and implementation phase will begin, with the completion of the “democratic” legislative process.

  The timing of the launch of the Digital Euro corresponds well with the European Union’s initiative to issue digital identity cards to all EU residents between now and 2030, to enable the necessary government identification and tracking of its citizens. Identical initiatives are enacted and promoted in many other countries around the world at the same time. Where I live, in Israel, ID cards and passports have been mandatory and digital for many years, and also biometric since 2013 – therefore there is no need to start the marketing campaign for the Digital Shekel yet, as the digital infrastructure exists hence the first step of digitalization is already done.

  

  The timetable of the Digital Euro by the ECB

  This phase of the project is the “preparation phase”, the ECB reveals, in which they are preparing for the launch phase of the Digital Euro. Of course, we are reassured that no final decision has yet been made regarding the launch of the CBDC, and this will only happen with the approval of the “Government Council” after the completion of the democratic legislative process of the European Union. Therefore, in parallel with the democratic debate for or against the Digital Euro, the development of the technology will continue, in order to be prepared for the launch.

  Central bank governors such as Lagarde and Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron insist that the CBDC is digital cash, and also insist that physical cash will not be abolished. It is possible that these central bankers feel the need to make a U-turn from the incriminating speech of the head of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Augustin Carstens, who caused a public outcry when he stated in 2020 that the CBDC technology, unlike cash, will allow monitoring of financial transactions and will be a means of enforcement by the establishment:

  “The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control of the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that

  expression (money) of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”

  Agustín Carstens – BIS General Manager

  THE FUTURE: CENTRALIZED AND CONTROLLED, OR FREE, DECENTRALIZED AND SECURE?

  Ayn Rand, author and philosopher, said that “We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Are we taking giant steps towards a new monetary reality, where the fiat currencies we know become fiat on steroids, aka CBDCs? Or into the reality of “stable” and closely regulated cryptocurrencies, tethered to fiat? Either way, the feeling is that the establishment is doing everything to preserve the debt economy, and its inherent modern slavery. The only way to break these fiat-matrix boundaries is to opt out and enter into a new system, which seems to run in a parallel reality, the Bitcoin system. On the Bitcoin standard, under self-custody, no third party has the ability to confiscate, program or take over private assets. Not even the government or the state. Bitcoin uses a lot of energy for its mining, but this proof-of-work mechanism makes the blockchain network extremely secure and the Bitcoin currency very valuable. Bitcoin is “safe money”, which is out of reach for the establishment. Unlike most other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is a digital currency without intermediaries or third parties (peer-to-peer) in a decentralized and secure network, which allows everyone to be their own bank, instead of relying on banks and external parties. With a fixed and known supply, it represents the most powerful digital asset on the market as a store of value and as a unit of account, and in the future will also be used as a medium of exchange.

  In my recent interview with the media and finance expert, and one of the most famous Bitcoiners, Max Keiser, he compared the CBDC to a parasitic and centralized cancer: “If you were to look at the amount of energy that Bitcoin uses and the rate at which it’s increasing, you would say good is triumphing over evil. So this gives me a lot of hope. And I don’t think centralization in anything works at all, except cancer. Cancer is the only thing that seems to work to be overly centralized and parasitic. That’s the cancer model, but I think we’re gonna win against the cancer of CBDCs.” 

  Follow Efrat’s work here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 20:25

• Putin Threatens To Attack Western Air Bases Hosting Ukrainian F-16s
  Putin Threatens To Attack Western Air Bases Hosting Ukrainian F-16s

  This week Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Torzhok air base in Tver Region which hosts the 344th Training Center for Russian combat pilots. Some or many of these aviators who will likely go on to fly missions in Ukraine.

  In an address to the pilots, Putin referenced accusations frequently voiced by Western leaders that he intends to expand the war in Ukraine by attacking NATO and other European countries. He called the claim “utter nonsense” but went on to issue a warning about US-made F16 fighters jets.

  Describing that US “satellites” in Eastern Europe (for example, Poland) have no reason to be afraid, he said, “The claims that we are going to attack Europe after Ukraine – it is utter nonsense and intimidation of their own population just to beat the money out of them.”

  

  European countries have indeed been seeking to ramp up their defense sectors and spending, especially following two years of arming Ukraine which has largely depleted domestic stockpiles.

  A translation in Politico quoted Putin as further saying “…the possibility of an attack on some other countries, on Poland, the Baltic states, the Czechs are scared. It’s just nonsense,” and that Russia has “no aggressive intentions toward these states.”

  The Russian president further reiterated in the talk that the special military operation in Ukraine was launched out of the necessity of “protecting our people on our historical territories.” Referring to the NATO alliance, he said: “They came right up to our borders… Did we go across the ocean to the borders of the United States? No, they are approaching us, and they have come very close,” according to a Russian media translation.

  Putin also took the opportunity to address international reports that Kiev will soon be given its first batch of F-16 fighter jets. According to his words as summarized in EuroNews:

  At the same meeting, he warned Ukraine’s Western allies against providing air bases in their countries from where the F-16s could launch sorties against the Kremlin’s forces, saying those bases would be a “legitimate target.”

  The F-16s require a high standard of runways and reinforced hangars to protect them when they are on the ground.

  Military analysts have said the arrival of potentially dozens of F-16s won’t be a game-changer, though Ukrainian officials have welcomed them as an opportunity to hit back at Russia’s air dominance. Putin insisted the F-16s “won’t change the situation on the battlefield.”

  That’s when he vowed before the pilots and trainees, “We will destroy their warplanes just as we destroy their tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, including multiple rocket launchers.” Significantly, he upped the ante with this threat, given he made clear that even bases in Western countries could be targeted if Ukraine flies sorties from them.

  

  State-run RT has also sought to emphasize this in relaying Putin’s words in the following:

  F-16s flown by Ukrainian pilots but based in third countries will nevertheless be legitimate targets for Russia, Putin added.

  “Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, wherever they are located,” he said.

  Beginning last summer the Kremlin began highlighting that F-16 fighter jets are capable of carrying tactical nukes which are in select NATO countries’ possession. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for example at that time explained, “Moscow can’t ignore the nuclear capability of US-designed F-16 fighter jets that may be supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers. He went so far as to say that it will be seen as a threat from the West “in the nuclear domain.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 20:00

• The Road To A New McCarthyism
  The Road To A New McCarthyism

  Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

  I wonder how many people have recoiled with horror at what happened in the House of Representatives recently. I am referring to the decision, effectively, to ban the social media platform, TikTok, in the United States (to ‘protect Americans from foreign adversaries’), because it supposedly affords the Chinese government the opportunity to ‘spy’ on Americans and manipulate their thinking. 

  Well, one thing is sure – judging by the margin by which this motion was adopted by the House, and the quality of some of the opinions aired on the topic (that I have listened to), there was precious little thinking going on around the room, with some notable exceptions (352 votes for, 65 against), such as Representative Thomas Massie (R) of Kentucky. What thinking there was – such as the excellent argument put forward by Massie – was not sufficient to sway the rest of the delegates in the direction of common sense. 

  So what was this non-debate about TikTok all about? Most readers would probably already know about it, but it bears repeating, lest the intricacies of the hidden assumptions escape one’s attention. In sum, as mentioned earlier, it comes down to the claim that China is using TikTok to spy on American citizens, and in addition to influence their thinking and behaviour. This, despite the glaring fact that – as Clayton and Natali Morris argue in the first video linked above – the US spies on its own citizens with impunity, not to mention that it also conducts espionage on China. 

  The two investigative reporters of Redacted further highlight the remarkable speed with which the US Congress has addressed the putatively urgent issue concerning TikTok, while allowing the arguably far more urgent matter of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming across the American border to continue unabated. The further irony is, of course – also stressed by the Morris duo – that these illegal immigrants include a far more salient ‘Chinese threat;’ namely, the large numbers of young, ‘military age’ Chinese men. And yet, the border issue is clearly not seen in the same light of urgency as TikTok!

  Should the US Senate confirm the House’s vote to ban this short video app (application) – which is likely – thousands, if not millions of Americans who depend on it for their livelihood, would be left high and dry. This does not seem to have bothered the members of the House either. 

  

  But most egregiously, it is either lost on the members of the House, or they wittingly connive at the fact that this Act will endow the American President – Joe Biden, at present – with tremendous powers to control anything deemed to be under the influence of so-called ‘foreign adversaries,’ real or imagined. ‘Anything’ here includes not only comparable apps, but internet platforms and websites too. So, if X (formerly Twitter) is regarded by the incumbent of the presidency, for whatever reason, as posing a threat to US citizens in terms of influence or ‘manipulation’ by ‘foreign adversaries,’ it could be banned. It is redundant to emphasise the dictatorial potential of such a situation, but we’ll get to it later, anyway. 

  In Thomas Massie’s speech to the House he makes a telling distinction: while other speakers described TikTok as a Chinese ‘Trojan horse,’ he perspicaciously turns this metaphor back on the bill itself, insisting that it is itself the real Trojan horse. On March 12 he warned that anyone who thought it was not a Trojan horse would have to explain why there is a very telling exclusion in it, namely (quoting from the bill):

  The term ‘covered company’ does not include an entity that operates a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.

  This exclusion hides more than it shows Why? Because the exclusion pertains to ‘entities’ that are innocuous from a political point of view. But what about platforms like Rumble, X, or BitChute which, unlike YouTube and Facebook, are not censored, and therefore include many items to which the current regime (being part of the neo-fascist cabal) is hugely allergic? In other words, once signed into law, this Trojan horse bill could attack Americans from inside the walls of Troy, as it were, at the whim of the head honcho in the White House. And one need not add that, in the hands of its present occupant it would be a weapon of mass despotism. 

  Ironically, Senator Rand Paul’s insights concerning the House decision bring to light the unacknowledged lies and cover-ups lurking behind the ostensibly ‘open’ debate preceding the voting. He did not waste any time commenting (in the first video linked above) that:

  Reactionaries who want to ban TikTok claim the data can’t be secured because the ‘algorithm’ is in China. 

   Not true.

  The truth is the algorithm runs in the US in Oracle cloud with their review of the code. (NOT in China.)

   Maybe we should examine the facts before committing violations of the 1st and 5th Amendments. 

   They want to ban TikTok because it’s ‘owned by China.’

   Not true.

   60% of the company is owned by US and international investors.

   20% is owned by the company founders. 

   20% is owned by company employees, including over 7,000 Americans.

   The CEO of TikTok is from Singapore, not China.

   So ask yourself why they keep repeating this lie to scare you?

  In characteristically courageous fashion, Rand Paul did not hesitate to expose the lies that were bandied about in the House, neatly repudiating them by providing the true state of affairs in each case. But he did not stop there. This was followed by:

  My statement on the House TikTok ban.

  The passage of the House TikTok ban is not just a misguided overreach; it’s a draconian measure that stifles free expression, tramples constitutional rights, and disrupts the economic pursuits of millions of Americans. 

  With an iron fist, Congress dictated an unrealistic and narrow path for divestment, effectively banning TikTok and ignoring its substantial investments in data security.

  This act is not securing our nation – it’s a disturbing gift of unprecedented authority to President Biden and the Surveillance State that threatens the very core of American digital innovation and free expression.

  Joe Biden must be overjoyed, licking his lips at the thought of having been gifted with the dubious means to silence his critics and opponents at will, at the cost of Americans and people in the rest of the world being informed through available sources of their choice. It would amount to a situation hardly distinguishable from one where the state owns all the media – in other words, an unadulterated dictatorship. That is, unless it is stopped at the Senate level, which is unlikely. 

  One wonders whether the outcome of Murthy vs. Missouri, before the Supreme Court today (March 18), dealing as it does with the troubling issue of censorship (and therefore with the implications and purview of the First Amendment), would have a noticeable retrospective effect on the TikTok ban, which – at bottom – relates to the same question. 

  What is astonishing about all of this is the apparent ease and rapidity with which the bill passed through the House, as Clayton Morris points out in the first video, linked above, highlighting the contrasting lack of interest in actively tackling the undeniable problem of unchecked ingress of illegal immigrants at American borders (referred to earlier). In a country which has always boasted about having the First Amendment, or rather, what it stands for – freedom of speech – which implies guaranteeing the continued existence of those sources of information which make freedom of expression possible, one might have expected the results of the vote to have been the other way around. 

  As it stands, is it far-fetched to read in these results the degree to which the collective mindset in the US has already morphed into one that is, incomprehensible as it may seem, receptive to despotic rule? I think not. The neo-fascist technocrats, who must surely have regarded the United States as the biggest hurdle to cross in their quest for world domination, must be writhing with uncontrollable convulsions of glee at present. After all, they are witnessing the crumbling of this erstwhile ‘bastion of freedom,’ which their puppet in the White House and his minions have set in motion with relative ease, it would seem. 

  A situation such as the one briefly sketched above as a distinct possibility, would eerily resemble what was the case in the early 1950s in the United States, which went by the name of the ‘Red Scare.’ The Eisenhower Library (online) provides this useful sketch of this lamentable episode in American history:

  Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was a little-known junior senator from Wisconsin until February 1950 when he claimed to possess a list of 205 card-carrying Communists employed in the US Department of State. From that moment Senator McCarthy became a tireless crusader against Communism in the early 1950s, a period that has been commonly referred to as the ‘Red Scare.’ As chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigation Subcommittee, Senator McCarthy conducted hearings on communist subversion in America and investigated alleged communist infiltration of the Armed Forces. His subsequent exile from politics coincided with a conversion of his name into a modern English noun ‘McCarthyism,’ or adjective, ‘McCarthy tactics,’ when describing similar witch hunts in recent American history. [The American Heritage Dictionary gives the definition of McCarthyism as: 1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition. Senator McCarthy was censured by the US Senate on December 2, 1954 and died May 2, 1957.]

  Several things strike one in this excerpt, the first of which is the phrase ‘witch hunts,’ with its disquieting connotations of persecuting people on the basis of flimsy, but ‘useful’ evidence of supposed malpractice of some kind – such as having a black cat, metaphorically speaking, equivalents of which could include ‘misinformation,’ disinformation,’ and even (God forbid) ‘malinformation,’ all of which have been thoroughly tainted, from a mainstream perspective, with connotations of proverbial witchcraft. The TikTok ban would allow members of the Biden Inquisition to scream ‘Witch!’ at anything which does not gel with the official narrative, such as the items found on X, Children’s Health Defense, or BitChute, to mention only some likely candidates.

  Then there is the related American Heritage Dictionary’s illuminating description, quoted in the excerpt above, which links McCarthyism explicitly with the ‘political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence’ as well as with ‘the use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition.’ To anyone with a modicum of comprehension of what is at stake, this would appear to be uncannily apposite. Given its track record, could anyone expect of the Biden administration any ‘regard to (contrary) evidence’ where accusations of disinformation are concerned? Or the employment of ‘methods of investigation’ that are fair? Give me a break! 

  To sum up by using a currently popular term, Biden and his DOJ would ‘weaponise’ the TikTok ban to the hilt, to the detriment of the citizens of the US as well as American democracy. And make no mistake: democracy may never recover from what threatens to become nothing less than McCarthyism on steroids. While one has access to the means for resisting this conspicuous act of usurping the constitutionally ‘guaranteed’ rights and freedoms of the American people, one must avail oneself of these – before they disappear.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 19:40

• Flip-Flopping Trump Impeachment Witness Registers As Ukraine Foreign Agent, Claims Allegiance "Still 100% To The United States"
  Flip-Flopping Trump Impeachment Witness Registers As Ukraine Foreign Agent, Claims Allegiance “Still 100% To The United States”

  Former US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, who testified for the Democrats against Donald Trump during the former president’s impeachment, has registered as a foreign agent on behalf of Ukraine and the European Union, the Daily Caller reports.

  

  Sondland initially testified in Trump’s impeachment inquiry that there was no quid pro quo when President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens while withholding US military aid (unbeknownst to Zelensky at the time).

  Trump insists he told Sondland “I want no quid pro quo” with Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/NhyhfI77tk

  — TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 20, 2019

  Sondland later flipped his story, claiming that he told a top Ukrainian official that a meeting with President Trump may be contingent upon its new administration committing to investigations Trump wanted regarding the Biden family and other matters, according to the New York Times.

  And now, he’s a registered agent for Ukraine.

  Sondland filed a registration statement with the U.S. Department of Justice, declaring himself a foreign agent of Ukraine and the E.U. in order to legally represent their interests in the country, according to a document obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

  Sondland’s registration is required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a 1938 law that governs how foreign governments and other entities may lobby U.S. officials. FARA registration is required regardless of U.S. citizenship and must occur before an individual begins lobbying.

  See the registration below:

  During his time in the Trump administration, Sondland personally dealt with various high-ranking Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

  Meanwhile, Ukraine has been trying to lobby members of Congress and executive branch officials to support its war with Russia.

  Sondland Responds

  In a statement to the Daily Caller, Sondland said “This term ‘Foreign Agent.’ It sounds very sinister because that’s the way the FARA laws are written. You’re designated as a foreign agent. I’m not an agent of anyone. I haven’t been asked by Ukraine or the E.U. to represent them. I’m simply having conversations that everyone has all the time with members of Congress and with members of governments of other countries to try and bridge and divide,” adding “The problem is the FARA laws require this registration and you become known as a ‘foreign agent,’ and that’s very different than someone who is hired by the E.U. or hired by Ukraine and paid to do a certain job on their behalf. I am not doing either.”

  “My allegiance is still 100% to the United States, not to the European Union. Unfortunately, I can’t have these conversations without registering,” he continued.

  He also pushed back on the ‘flip-flop’ criticisms, telling the Caller: “I relayed facts that occurred in 2019, some of which had the effect of having a negative…showing President Trump in a negative light and some showing President Trump in a positive light, but I had no agenda to testify against or for President Trump in 2019.”

  Except, that’s not quite what happened.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 19:20

• The Human Tragedy In Haiti
  The Human Tragedy In Haiti

  Authored by Callista L. Gingrich via RealClear Politics,

  Since late February, gang violence in Haiti has surged, overwhelming government and security forces and plunging the nation into further turmoil. The United Nations estimates that armed gangs now control 80 percent of the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

  

  The recent wave of violence in the Caribbean nation’s ongoing gang wars erupted as multiple armed groups banded together, pledging to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who came to power after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and announced postponing Haiti’s elections again last year.

  Citing ongoing gang violence as one of the reasons for staving off elections, Henry flew to Kenya in February to press for the deployment of a U.N-backed police force to support the Haitian National Police in fighting the gangs. The armed groups responded by launching a series of coordinated attacks in Port-au-Prince and preventing Henry’s return to Haiti.

  In the weeks that followed, gangs ravaged two prisons releasing more than 4,000 inmates into the country; destroyed power substations; attacked airports, police stations, and neighborhoods; and took control of major ports and water facilities.

  More than 15,000 people have fled their homes in recent weeks. According to an anonymous woman who spoke with CBS News, “People go inside your house, killing, raping, all those things, burning your house.”

  Americans have been urged to leave the country. Nearly 1,000 have filled out crisis intake forms asking for help or assistance to escape the turmoil. At the time of this writing, hundreds of Americans have not been able to evacuate.

  During a briefing on March 12, the U.S. State Department announced that in addition to pledging a total contribution of $300 million, the United States helped to broker a deal that will form “a new presidential council that will select a new interim prime minister and pave the pathway for elections, as well as the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission.” Once the transitional council is established, Kenya will deploy the police force and Henry will step aside.

  Despite this development, the situation on the ground for the people of Haiti remains desperate. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said during a press briefing on Monday, “It is not hyperbole to say that this is one of the most dire humanitarian situations in the world.”

  Tragically, fear and suffering from gang violence in Haiti is not new – but is a daily reality for many Haitians.

  There are an estimated 200 gangs operating in Haiti, and approximately 95 operate near Port-au-Prince. In 2023, more than 8,400 people were reported killed, injured, or kidnapped, more than two times the amount as the previous year. Further, compared to 2022, rape cases skyrocketed by 49 percent from January to August 2023.

  Bringing violence to neighborhoods, gangs demand so-called protection money from residents, and when they can’t pay, threaten impoverished civilians. Twenty-eight-year-old Annie, who fled Port-au-Prince with her family two years ago, told the BBC, “I saw so many awful things I never thought I would see. We were afraid for our lives.”

  She added, “We are living with death on a daily basis.”

  In addition to gang violence, chronic political instability, natural disasters, foreign intervention, and debt have crippled Haiti’s economy, fueled violence, and hindered development.

  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and more than half of the population lives below the World Bank’s poverty line. In a population of 11.7 million people, approximately 5.5 million Haitians require humanitarian assistance, more than 4 million people are affected by food insecurity, and 19,000 are experiencing famine. 

  “I wake up in the morning and if we have sugar in the house, we make sugar water and put a bit of salt in it, just to drink it and stop the pain of hunger,” Kerby, a Haitian who fled Port-au-Prince due to gang threats, recently told the BBC.

  Amid the recent developments, it is unclear what the governance of Haiti will look like and how it will impact the future of the Caribbean nation.

  As gang violence and chaos continue to wreak havoc, the international community must work to bring peace and stability to Haiti.

  For more commentary form Callista Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 19:00

• Moody's Warns Bridge Collapse Is "Credit Negative" For Baltimore As Economic Shock Emerges 
  Moody’s Warns Bridge Collapse Is “Credit Negative” For Baltimore As Economic Shock Emerges 

  Instead of the woke Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott utilizing his precious time by going on corporate media’s leftists Joy Reid’s MSNBC show and asserting that white conservatives “should be afraid” of the consequences of calling him the ‘DEI Mayor,’ perhaps the unseasoned youngster who over-promised about fixing imploding Baltimore City (after fifty years of a Democratic-controlled City Hall) should realize the local economy is on the cusp of meltdown and potential negative credit risk event following the bridge collapse and resulting paralyzed port. 

  The Port of Baltimore is a significant economic driver for the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland, and an extended closure will spread like cancer through the local economy as snarled supply chains will result in job losses, lower warehouse activity, and tax revenue loss for the government. 

  “I would say the Port of Baltimore is the leading economic driver for the region in Baltimore,” Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Baltimore-based Sage Policy Group Inc., told FreightWaves. 

  Basu said, “One could argue that the leading driver is Johns Hopkins. It’s a difficult comparison, because you’re talking about two very different fields of endeavor. But the Baltimore region has been one of the nation’s underperformers in recent years. In the Baltimore region, we have had to clawback the jobs lost early during the pandemic.”

  

  Cargo to the paralyzed Port of Baltimore will be diverted to other US East Coast ports. Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Baltimore local chapter, warned that thousands of port jobs could soon vanish. 

  

  On Thursday morning, Moody’s published a note that said a prolonged closure of the port would ripple through the local economy and could spark negative credit risk events for the city and state:  

  The bridge collapse threatens to disrupt aspects of the State of Maryland (Aaa stable) and City of Baltimore (Aa2 stable) economies. The suspension of shipping traffic to the Port of Baltimore will likely divert cargo to other East Coast ports, which may affect jobs and tax revenue. The accident also has the potential to hurt the transportation and warehousing sector, though that accounts for a small share of state GDP.

  More from Moody’s about the credit fallout that could soon hit Baltimore: 

  In recent years, the state and Baltimore County (Aaa stable) have provided incentives and worked with developers to facilitate the redevelopment of Sparrows Point, a more than 3,000-acre contaminated industrial site once home to a Bethlehem Steel plant. Over the last nine years, Sparrows Point has seen almost $2 billion of private investment resulting in the development of 14 million square feet of warehousing and distribution facilities. With the Key Bridge providing the only direct access route between Sparrows Point and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, further development at Sparrows Point could be delayed.

  There is no timetable for how long salvage crews will take to remove the massive bridge blocking the harbor’s only entry and exit. Some figures are six weeks, while others are several months. Shippers diverting operations to other East Coast ports will also hit warehousing and trucking businesses in the area. 

  

  We have described to readers for years that Baltimore has been trending down. It’s only in a downward trend when a shock forms that the real troubles begin materializing. And that shock started this week. Sorry, Scott. It’s not a race thing like you describe on MSNBC—you’re just an inexperienced leader. The persistent crime chaos and failed progressive policies are evidence of this. It’s time for new leadership. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 18:40

• Bahrain Opposition Activist Arrested For Criticizing McLaren Ownership
  Bahrain Opposition Activist Arrested For Criticizing McLaren Ownership

  Via Middle East Eye

  A leading opposition activist has been arrested and detained in Bahrain for criticizing on social media the island kingdom’s ownership of the sportscar brand, McLaren.

  Ebrahim Sharif was arrested by Bahraini authorities on Monday morning over social media posts critical of Bahrain’s decision to take full ownership of the McLaren Group, which is involved in Formula One, other motorsports and the manufacture of luxury supercars. 

  

  The former secretary general of the National Democratic Action Society (Wa’ad), Bahrain’s largest leftist political party, Sharif was arrested and detained for three social media posts he wrote in the wake of the McLaren ownership news. 

  Last Friday, Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, which was already McLaren’s biggest shareholder, having first invested in 2007, took over full ownership of the troubled British company, which has been experiencing heavy financial losses.

  Abdulla bin Khalifa al-Khalifa, CEO of Mumtalakat and a member of Bahrain’s ruling royal family, welcomed the deal, heralding “the next phase of the company’s trajectory of growing its leadership position in the luxury super car and motorsports industries.”

  Sharif was interviewed by police on Monday following a summons and subsequently referred to Bahrain’s public prosecution, which ordered that he be kept in detention for seven days pending an investigation over “social media posts that allegedly incite hatred against the regime,” according to Sharif’s lawyer and family.

  If officially charged, the opposition activist could be imprisoned under Article 165 of the Bahrain Penal Code, which states that “A prison sentence shall be passed against any person who expressly incites others to develop hatred or hostility towards the system of government.” Farida Ghulam, Sharif’s wife, confirmed his arrest and the reasons for his detention in a social media post. 

  Middle East Eye asked McLaren if it condoned the arrest and detention of an activist for criticizing its ownership. The company has not yet responded.

  In the first of his contentious social media posts, on March 23 Sharif quoted Karl Marx’s line about history repeating itself first as tragedy, and then as farce. He referenced Bahrain’s prior purchase of Gulf Air, before writing: “With McLaren, we have moved from tragedy to farce. We have completed another cycle of owning failed companies with bottomless losses.”

  McLaren recorded a pre-tax loss of $349m in the first nine months of 2023. 

  The next day, Sharif contrasted Bahrain’s housing projects budget for 2023 (approximately $239m, according to official documentation displayed in the tweet) with the $564m put into McLaren by the sovereign wealth fund. 

  “التاريخ يعيد نفسه مرتين، المرة الأولى كمأساة والثانية كمهزلة”
  (كارل ماركس)

  عندما تملكت البحرين كامل أسهم شركة طيران الخليج (بعد شراء حصتي ابوظبي وقطر) تضاعفت خسائرنا والمبالغ التي نحتاج لضخها سنويا لمنع افلاسها.

  مع #مكلارين انتقلنا من المأساة الى المهزلة. لقد أكملنا دورة أخرى… pic.twitter.com/S8dKmiT3m5

  — Ebrahim Sharif (@ebrahimsharif) March 23, 2024

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

  In a follow-up post, Sharif wrote that “Denial is an official policy, and the narrative of ‘a happy people’ is promoted by superficial media outlets.” And further:

  “Do we believe what officials repeat and find resonance in complicit media, or do we believe what our eyes see, our ears hear, and our feelings sense about citizens living in miserable poverty, chronic unemployment, marginalization, class disparities, and housing waiting lists that extend until the end of their days?

  What the state spent on McLaren Racing last year is multiples of what it spent on housing projects. Do people die… in their overcrowded homes because you prioritize your hobbies and games over the interests of the poor?“

  It was after this last post that Sharif was summoned for an interview by Bahraini police. Commenting on the charges, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, advocacy director at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), said: “These accusations are absurd. No one should be arrested for freely expressing their views or questioning how the government is spending public funds. McLaren’s leadership must speak out on his arrest or else their brand will be stained by Bahrain’s abuses.”

  In 2004, Bahrain hosted its inaugural Grand Prix – the first one to take place in the Middle East. While the 20th anniversary of this event was celebrated at the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this month, activists told MEE it marked “20 years of sportswashing”. 

  BREAKING: Leading opposition activist Ebrahim Sharif was arrested this morning over social media posts critical of the Bahraini government, including criticising Bahrain’s ownership of McLaren.

  The public prosecution ordered 7 day detention pending investigation on allegations… pic.twitter.com/N5LgiGf2ms

  — Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei (@SAlwadaei) March 25, 2024

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

  The deal to take F1 to Bahrain was struck by the motorsport’s then-supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, and the island kingdom’s crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa. 

  Over the 20 years it has hosted the Grand Prix, Bahrain has looked to control this publicity, with political protests broken up so as not to disturb the spectacle around the motorsport, and activists harassed, detained and jailed for speaking out.

  “The Grand Prix helps them, it helps them do this,” Moosa Satrawi, a Bahraini activist who told MEE he had been detained, abused and tortured for protesting unemployment in the island kingdom, said of Bahrain’s clampdown on human rights.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 18:20

• Russia Announces 'Substantiated Evidence' Of Ukraine Link To Crocus Hall Terrorists
  Russia Announces ‘Substantiated Evidence’ Of Ukraine Link To Crocus Hall Terrorists

  Russian authorities say they have found a firm link between the suspects in last week’s terror attack on the Crocus City Hall complex and “Ukrainian nationalists” – according to a Thursday announcement. 

  The Russian Investigative Committee has unveiled preliminary findings, stating that the perpetrators who last Friday killed 140 people and wounded many more had received “significant sums of money” from Ukraine.

  

  Investigators claim to have in their possession “substantiated evidence” that the attackers received payments from Ukraine in the form of cryptocurrency. 

  President Putin had starting Saturday asserted that the terrorists were apprehended just before trying to cross the Ukrainian border. He alleged that the Ukrainians might have been preparing a “window” for them to cross. There were four gunmen who rampaged through the mall and concert venue on Friday, randomly shooting innocent bystanders, but in total eleven were initially arrested, followed by several more arrests of alleged conspirators.

  Days following Putin’s speech the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, told a press briefing that the Kremlin considers that the US, UK and Ukraine may have been involved.

  Importantly, the Kremlin has acknowledged the perpetrators to to be radical Islamic terrorists, and so have said there is some truth to the ‘ISIS-K’ narrative presented by the West; however, Russian officials have persistently raised the question of another entity, country, or intelligence service ultimately backing the attack. For example on Wednesday foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had this to say:

  “Of course, the speed with which they were able to [come to such forthright conclusions] is astonishing. It took them only a few hours to get to a microphone, turn on the lights, summon the press, and draw a conclusion about who is to blame for this horribly bloody terrorist attack.”

  Russian intelligence (FSB) has meanwhile claimed the terrorists would have been “welcomed as heroes” if they had made it to Ukraine. All four gunmen have since been identified as Tajik nationals – and none of those in detention are Russian citizens, according to Moscow authorities.

  As for the new allegations that they had financial links to Ukraine, no evidence was presented publicly to back the statements. It also remains unclear whether these alleged funding links are connected to Ukrainian government entities or just individuals inside Ukraine.

  How is it that U.S. authorities have yet to determine who was accountable for the Baltimore Bridge collapse, while it only took them 45 minutes to identify the responsible behind the terror attack at the Moscow concert Crocus Hall?

  It’s truly astonishing…. https://t.co/Yu1AMlQ6rU

  — Russian Market (@runews) March 26, 2024

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

  The White House meanwhile is not buying any of this. In response, on Thursday the Biden administration rejected these new Russian claims as “nonsense” and said it was clear that the Islamic State was “solely responsible”. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby in a briefing also reiterated that Washington had passed info on to Moscow that a terror attack was imminent. Kirby described this as delivered in the form of a “written warning”. The US Embassy in Moscow also issued a public alert calling on Americans to avoid large public venues and gatherings.

  “It is abundantly clear that ISIS (Islamic State) was solely responsible for the horrific attack in Moscow last week. In fact, the United States tried to help prevent this terrorist attack and the Kremlin knows this,” Kirby said.

  A NY Times report says, however, that the US side did not share its full intelligence with Moscow. “The adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented US officials from sharing any information about the plot beyond what was necessary,” the Times wrote Thursday. The Americans purportedly did this “out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 18:00

• Baltimore Leader Says Conservatives "Should Be Afraid" For Calling Him The "DEI Mayor"
  Baltimore Leader Says Conservatives “Should Be Afraid” For Calling Him The “DEI Mayor”

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

  Baltimore leader Brandon Scott appeared on Joy Reid’s MSNBC show to assert that white conservatives “should be afraid” of the consequences of calling him the ‘DEI Mayor’ and that his “purpose in life” was to make them uncomfortable.

  

  Yes, really.

  Professional race-bator Reid angrily asserted that when right-wingers make fun of DEI, they actually mean just “black people,” claiming, “It’s the reason they complained about Critical Race Theory, it’s not fashionable to be openly racist anymore in America.”

  She then welcomed Scott, who dresses and acts like a Black Lives Matter activist, to address the horrifically “racist” fact that right-wingers don’t support DEI in light of the Baltimore bridge collapse.

  The mayor complained about “young black men” being demonized and treated as the “boogeymen” by racist conservatives who think that “only straight, white wealthy men” should have power.

  “We know what they want to say and they don’t have the courage to say the n-word,” he ludicrously added, before appearing to make some kind of veiled threat.

  “The fact that I don’t believe in their untruthful and wrong ideology and I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from scares them, because me being at my position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being comfortable while everyone else suffers is going to be at risk and they should be afraid because that’s my purpose in life,” said Scott.

  And there you have it, in his own words.

  Scott’s “purpose in life” is to make white people uncomfortable and afraid.

  But remember, you’re the racist for making fun of him.

  Reid also said the ship was “piloted by a very heroic crew from India” and that it was also racist to criticize them despite them failing to prevent the ship from crashing into and destroying the bridge.

  As we document in the video below, the group that managed the Dali cargo ship and the Maryland Port Commission both appear to have prioritized ‘diversity’ over safety before the ‘accident’ that led to the collapse of the bridge.

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 17:45

• DeSantis Signs Property Rights Bill In Florida That Ends "Squatting Scam"
  DeSantis Signs Property Rights Bill In Florida That Ends “Squatting Scam”

  Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation into law Wednesday that ends squatters’ rights in the Sunshine State, stating that “squatting” is a scam that violates private property rights.

  

  After alarming stories about squatters commandeering homes and depriving the owners of their property rights made nationwide news in recent weeks, DeSantis took action.

  “We are in the state of Florida are ending this squatters scam once and for all. And momentarily I’ll be signing HB 621, which will give the homeowner the ability to quickly and legally remove a squatter from a property and which will increase criminal penalties for squatting,” DeSantis said during a press conference on the signing at the Orange County State Attorney’s Office.

  “You are not going to be able to commandeer somebody’s private property and expect to get away with it. We are in the state of Florida are ending this squatters scam once and for all, DeSantis added.

  The common sense law allows property owners to file an affidavit to prove they legally own a property. Squatters will quickly face criminal charges once its proven that they illegally moved into a home.

  If the suspect is unable to produce documents authorizing his residency, the property owner can call on the sheriff’s office to immediately remove the squatter from his home.

  The law establishes harsher penalties for squatting crimes, including “a second-degree felony charge against squatters who damage a home, a first-degree felony charge against those who fraudulently sell or lease a property, and a misdemeanor charge against those who purposefully present a fraudulent lease.”

  Previously, squatters in Florida, as well as other states, were considered tenants after a specific length of time and legal property owners often had to launch lengthy and expensive court battles to legally remove them from their homes.

  “Now, we have not had the same type of issues here, as you’ve seen in California or New York. Nevertheless, our laws were really geared towards this not necessarily being a fad,” DeSantis said.

  The governor said that unlike Democrat-led states that protect squatters, Florida will crackdown on the criminals.

  “They’re siding with the squatters,” he said of the blue states.

  “In fact, we have seen squatters move in and claim residence. This forces a massive, long, drawn-out judicial review before they can even be removed from the property. These are people that never had a right to be in the property to begin with. Earlier this month in New York, a woman returned to a property she inherited to find squatters living there. She changed the locks to get them out, and the state of New York arrested her instead of the squatters.”

  During the signing ceremony in Orlando, Sheriff Dennis M. Lemma said the word “squatter” is too kind and the perpetrators should instead be referred to as “criminals and con artists.”

  “I want to thank our legislative body, both our delegates here in central Florida and abroad, because this received unanimous support, and it’s been long too often where we’ve seen homeowners that have spent their entire life working and earning. Some have inherited homes of parents and to knock on the door and be met with squatters,” Lemma said.

  “Squatters actually is a very, very kind term. These are criminals and con artists that need to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he continued.

  Florida, similar to other states across the nation, has seen repeated incidents of squatters fraudulently moving into a home or property, including a squatter in September who moved into a multimillion-dollar home in Bonita Springs and was found wearing the homeowner’s clothing. Another homeowner in June, who was on vacation abroad before returning to his Ocala house, was forced to confront a squatter who trashed his property in his absence.

  While residents in a neighborhood in Winter Park sounded off in September that squatters had turned the area into a “nightmare” because the police department was “handcuffed” from arresting the suspects as it was considered a civil matter.

  DeSantis pointed out that in Florida, there are many seasonal residents who reside in the state for half the year and leave their houses unattended when they return to their home states in the north.

  The governor said those people shouldn’t have to worry that “some rogue person moves in and tries to assert rights against the lawful property owner.”

  DeSantis said that he believes Florida is the first state to decisively handle this problem.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 17:40

• NYC Delinquent Property Taxes Approach $1 Billion After Expiration of Tax-Lien Punishment
  NYC Delinquent Property Taxes Approach $1 Billion After Expiration of Tax-Lien Punishment

  While New York City embarks on a program to hand out some $53 million in prepaid debit cards to illegals, the city has estimated that overdue property taxes are set to reach their highest level ever, jumping 30% to over $880 million at the end of the fiscal year in June, vs. three years ago. City officials attribute this to the expiration of a tax-lien sales program that would punished delinquencies by allowing the city to sell liens on single-family homes and condos after three years of nonpayment, according to a Tuesday offering document for a city general obligation bond sale cited by Bloomberg.

  

  Under the program created by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1996, and which expired in March 2022, liens slapped on delinquent properties would be discounted and packaged into securities sold to a third-party trust, which borrows money from investors to pay the city upfront, and then assumes responsibility for collecting the outstanding property tax through debt servicing companies (plus fees and interest). After the investors are paid back, the city was entitled to collect additional revenue from fees and interest payments.

  45% of New York’s tax revenue and 30% of overall funds for the current $114 billion budget come from property taxes – which is expected to top $32.7 billion in the current fiscal year.

  

  “It’s not just the absolute dollar amount that I think should worry us all,” city Finance Commissioner Preston Niblack said at a March 4 City Council finance committee hearing, adding that people have realized “there are no consequences for not paying your property taxes.”

  “That just can’t be allowed to continue,” he said.

  To be sure, the rise in unpaid property taxes comes as New York’s office market continues to struggle. The overall vacancy rate for Manhattan office space stood at 22.5% in November, the highest on record, according to the city’s January financial plan.

  Rent-regulated apartments are also facing stress after a 2019 law sharply reduced landlords’ ability to raise rents. -Bloomberg

  The tax-lien program faced pushback from community activists and even state Attorney General Letitia James, who said in December 2020 that “additional fees can quickly turn a relatively small tax lien into an overwhelming financial burden, eventually pushing homeowners into foreclosure,” referring to a mandatory 5% surcharge, legal fees and a 9% or 18% interest rate that compounds daily.

  Between 2018 and 2022, the city collected $260 million from the tax-lien program, according to the city’s bond offering document.

  A better solution?

  Bloomberg further reports that the city’s Department of Finance is working on legislation that would reauthorize tax-lien sales, ensuring that homeowners don’t face foreclosure or eviction.

  “We look forward to working with the [City] Council on this important issue and look forward to a new, more equitable form of property tax enforcement,” said Department of Finance spokesman, Ryan Lavis.

  The City Council, meanwhile, said in a statement that it’s working with the “Administration, advocates, impacted communities, and all stakeholders to advance policies that address outstanding charges while supporting the economic health of homeowners, our communities, and the City.”

  The biggest offenders include a 16-unit Cobble Hill, Brooklyn rental building which owes $52.2 million of the $880 million estimated delinquency. There’s also a 49-unit Bronx apartment building which owes $24.7 million.

  “We have to do something,” said City Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “People should pay their taxes.“

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 17:20

• Piketty's Inequality Con
  Piketty’s Inequality Con

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  If you ask a liberal politician who their favorite economist is, there are three likely responses.

  One response is a panicked change of topic.

  From the slightly more sophisticated politicians who skim the New York Times, you might hear Paul Krugman.

  From the politicians who style themselves intellectuals of the left, you’d hear Thomas Piketty.

  

  Thomas Piketty is a French economist who is a professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, one of France’s most prestigious schools. In 2013, he released a book called Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It was a bestseller. In the book, Piketty argues that the rate of return on capital is greater than long-run economic growth. He projects that this relationship will continue and a small minority of capital owners will become richer, not just in absolute terms due to economic growth, but also in relative terms, as wages comprise a smaller and smaller share of the economy over time.

  Piketty thinks this is bad for typical left-wing reasons and suggests that massive wealth taxes are an appropriate solution to what he sees as the otherwise inevitable concentration of wealth. The New Yorker has argued that Piketty’s work inspired Senator Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for a wealth tax.

  While Piketty’s claims about the desirability of egalitarianism and wealth taxes are to some extent subjective, his book and his reputation are premised on the claim that he carefully assembled data that showed an increasing return to capital over time.

  He claims to have based his work on three centuries of data.

  Unfortunately, for fans of Piketty and left-wing economists who prefer a more fact-based economics approach, it looks like Piketty’s data work is quite sloppy.

  In 2015, Magness and Murphy pointed to a wide range of flaws or mistakes in the book writing that they found “evidence of pervasive errors of historical fact, opaque methodological choices, and the cherry-picking of sources to construct favorable patterns from ambiguous data. Additional evidence suggests that Piketty used a highly distortive data assumption from the Soviet Union to accentuate one of his main historical claims about global “capitalism” in the twentieth century.” According to Magness and Murphy, Piketty bases his measure of 150 years of the world economy on a sample size of just six individual years and just extrapolates the rest of the data! Yikes!

  The critique was influential but perhaps as Alex Tabarrok suggests it was possible to dismiss because the criticism was published in a libertarian-leaning journal. However further work showed even more problems with the Piketty data.

  In 2018, a report from the left-wing Urban Institute came out that showed that work by Piketty which showed extreme increases in economic inequality was an outlier in the field with other studies, even some by other left-wing economists, showing much smaller effects. This is consistent with Magness and Murphy’s concern that Piketty was cherry-picking results to conjure up an image of an inegalitarian dystopia. In 2023, another study tried to look at the same topic and pointed out what you accounted for the extremely progressive American income tax system and income transfers (welfare programs), there was “little change in after-tax top income shares.”

  Inequality changes over time. Sometimes it rises. Sometimes it falls (as is happening right now).

  Piketty didn’t discover a secret law of economics and now we have the data to show it.

  That probably won’t stop some left-wing politicians from citing him- there are even people who cite Karl Marx unironically- but it might let us know who we don’t have to take seriously.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 17:00

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• Germany's Murder Of Europe
  Germany’s Murder Of Europe

  Authored by Drieu Godefrei via The Gatestone Institute,

  In a preparatory impact report, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times before official release, the European Commission estimates that to achieve the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040 then 100% in 2050 — the main objective of the “European Green Deal” — Europe will need to invest €1.5 trillion a year from 2031 to 2050.

  1.5 trillion euros a year. That is equivalent to 10% of the Europe Union’s entire GDP for 2022 — every year! Apart from a war effort, there is no objective of any kind that has ever required the diversion of 10% of a continent’s GDP by political decree.

  

  The new German utopia

  This number shows us that, while Germany has had to give up imposing its hatred of nuclear power on its European partners, it is determined to inflict on Europe the rest of the environmental utopia, i.e. total decarbonization, even at the cost of economic collapse and freedoms.

  You may say that the European Commission is not Germany, but anyone who has worked in the Commission will tell you that there are two insurmountable lobbies at this level: Germany, by far is the most powerful country in Europe, followed by the environmental NGOs, such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which have permanent offices in the Berlaymont, the headquarters building of the European Commission. The fact that the current president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is German is just the icing on the apfelstrudel.

  All the same, everything in this delirious report by the German Commission is wrong.

  The Commission’s pseudo-savvy calculations

  The report states that the cost of inaction would be much higher than €1.5 trillion a year. In fact, explains the report, the European plan will save up to 1% of GDP per year. It should be noted, however, that this figure runs counter to all the IPCC’s projections on the cost of global warming — which is 0.03 % of GDP per year, not 1%.

  Annex 8 of the impact report just published by the Commission states:

  “The IPCC AR6 Working Group II report (2022) confirms that global aggregate economic impacts generally increase with higher degree of global warming. However, due to the wide range of damage estimates and lack of comparability between methodologies, the report does not provide a robust range of estimates but recognizes that global aggregate economic impacts could be higher than estimated in the previous report.”

  In short, the IPCC’s sixth report states that the cost of global warming could actually be greater than that stated in the fifth report.

  Unfortunately (for lack of time? space? ink?) the Commission does not bother to reiterate what was said in the fifth report, which was voluble and precise on the question of the cost of global warming. Let us make up for this shortcoming: according to the fifth IPCC report AR5, chapter 10:

  “For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers… Changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices… and many other aspects of socioeconomic development will have an impact on the supply and demand of economic goods and services that is large relative to the impact of climate change.”

  Above all, the Paris Agreement, of which the Commission claims to be part, aimed to limit global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. Achieving this objective presupposed a drastic global reduction in human greenhouse global gas emissions, not just Europe. However, since 2015, these global emissions have continued to rise, and there is no realistic scenario in which global emissions will decrease. China, which still builds roughly two new coal-power plants a week, and India continue to lay waste to these projections.

  Climate, of course, is a global issue: if Europe reduces its emissions to zero, while the rest of the world continues to increase them, the effect on the climate will be zero. As a result, the German plan will not save a single euro in terms of the damage caused by global warming and extreme events.

  So, the investment needed each year would not be €1.5 trillion invested to save 0.03% of GDP per year. It would be €30 trillion — €1.5 trillion per year for 20 years — invested to change absolutely nothing in the climate of Europe.

  There are no serious analysts left who still maintain that the objective of the Paris Agreement will be achieved; the Paris Agreement is obsolete and to pretend otherwise, as the European Commission is doing, is misleading, irresponsible, and not even scientific.

  In addition, the report goes on to say that reducing European imports of fossil fuels would result in savings of up to €2.8 trillion between 2031 and 2050. At present there is no technical or scientific way of overcoming the intermittent nature of renewable energies such as wind, solar. As a result, Europe’s energy mix will have to continue to rely on fossil fuels in addition to nuclear power, as demonstrated by Germany, the champion of lignite coal and CO2 emissions – and releasing ten times more CO2 than France, per unit of energy produced — in 2024. What is more, this pseudo-savvy calculation presupposes that we know the prices of oil and gas in advance, and that we persist in banning the exploitation of the shale gas that lies beneath Europe’s soil.

  The report by the European Commission shows a frightening headlong rush. The situation in Europe is already dramatic. Since 2008, American GDP has doubled, meaning that Americans earn twice as much as they did in 2008. Since 2008, Europe’s GDP has stagnated. This means that Europeans are increasingly taxed and harassed, and forbidden to move, build, undertake, innovate and start a family as they see fit, while their incomes are not increasing.

  The shale revolution means that America now could be the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, if President Joe Biden had not hobbled domestic energy production on his first day in office. The beneficiaries of his move were Russia, Iran — and China, which can now more easily sell its cheap coal, thereby polluting the climate even more.

  “Meanwhile,” according to Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times, “energy prices in Europe have soared.”

  “The Ukraine war and the loss of cheap Russian gas mean that European industry typically pays three or four times as much for energy as their American competitors. Gloomy European bosses say this is already leading to factory closures in Europe”.

  In practical terms, whole swathes of our populations have entered into a pattern that is the ultimate dream of environmentalists: degrowth. In other words, their impoverishment. Giorgos Kallis, a prominent figure in the field of environmental economics, asserted recently the necessity of adopting a “degrowth” paradigm over the conventional GDP-based model. He contends that economies can and must thrive while simultaneously diminishing inequality and enhancing overall well-being.

  Scenarios

  Three possible scenarios emerge.

  • In the first scenario, the EU will persist in its German ecological utopia, which will throw the whole of Europe even more deeply into the recession in which Germany is already languishing. In the context of its current economic stagnation, Europe cannot afford to divert 10% of its GDP per year to unaffordable, unreliable and intermittent energy sources. Popular revolts will multiply, making the current farmers’ revolt look like “Pat the Bunny.” It should be obvious that our democracies will not be able to withstand the impoverishment deliberately organized by “elites” who have gone mad trying to promote an insufficiently substantiated green ideology.

  • In the second scenario, the EU would not undo the “European Green Deal,” but its entry into force would simply be rescheduled (meaning postponed). This scenario condemns Europe to what economists Lawrence Summers and Henri Lepage name “secular stagnation,” a condition when there is negligible or no economic growth in a market-based economy, on the model of Japan.

  • A third scenario would see a new majority come to power through the European elections in June — after all, what is the point of democratic elections if not to allow a change of course? — and deconstruct (repeal) every piece of legislation in a European Green Deal that has become irrelevant or economically harmful to the most destitute among us in the current global context.

  Ironically, if the IPCC’s projections are to be believed, global warming may occur, and we will adapt to it through innovation. All the resources that Europe is burning up in a phantasmatic “energy transition”, which has failed and will fail — will just burn through money that we will then not have for innovation. What will Europe do when these misguided ideologies have permanently broken the back of its economy?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 03/28/2024 – 02:00

• Rule By Criminals: When Dissidents Become Enemies Of The State
  Rule By Criminals: When Dissidents Become Enemies Of The State

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.”

  – Martin Luther King Jr.

  When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.

  

  In the current governmental climate, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can easily render you an “enemy of the state.”

  The government’s list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing by the day.

  Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely one of the most visible victims of the police state’s war on dissidents and whistleblowers.

  Five years ago, on April 11, 2019, police arrested Assange for daring to access and disclose military documents that portray the U.S. government and its endless wars abroad as reckless, irresponsible, immoral and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

  Included among the leaked materials was gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while American air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The driver’s two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.

  There is nothing defensible about crimes such as these perpetrated by the government.

  When any government becomes almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting—whether that evil takes the form of war, terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity—that government has lost its claim to legitimacy.

  These are hard words, but hard times require straight-talking.

  It is easy to remain silent in the face of evil.

  What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

  Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.

  And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

  Indeed, it is fitting that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—paid the ultimate price for speaking out against the police state of his day.

  A radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn, Jesus was a far cry from the watered-down, corporatized, simplified, gentrified, sissified vision of a meek creature holding a lamb that most modern churches peddle. In fact, he spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire.

  Much like the American Empire today, the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day had all of the characteristics of a police state: secrecy, surveillance, a widespread police presence, a citizenry treated like suspects with little recourse against the police state, perpetual wars, a military empire, martial law, and political retribution against those who dared to challenge the power of the state.

  For all the accolades poured out upon Jesus, little is said about the harsh realities of the police state in which he lived and its similarities to modern-day America, and yet they are striking.

  Secrecy, surveillance and rule by the elite. As the chasm between the wealthy and poor grew wider in the Roman Empire, the ruling class and the wealthy class became synonymous, while the lower classes, increasingly deprived of their political freedoms, grew disinterested in the government and easily distracted by “bread and circuses.” Much like America today, with its lack of government transparency, overt domestic surveillance, and rule by the rich, the inner workings of the Roman Empire were shrouded in secrecy, while its leaders were constantly on the watch for any potential threats to its power. The resulting state-wide surveillance was primarily carried out by the military, which acted as investigators, enforcers, torturers, policemen, executioners and jailers. Today that role is fulfilled by the NSA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the increasingly militarized police forces across the country.

  Widespread police presence. The Roman Empire used its military forces to maintain the “peace,” thereby establishing a police state that reached into all aspects of a citizen’s life. In this way, these military officers, used to address a broad range of routine problems and conflicts, enforced the will of the state. Today SWAT teams, comprised of local police and federal agents, are employed to carry out routine search warrants for minor crimes such as marijuana possession and credit card fraud.

  Citizenry with little recourse against the police state. As the Roman Empire expanded, personal freedom and independence nearly vanished, as did any real sense of local governance and national consciousness. Similarly, in America today, citizens largely feel powerless, voiceless and unrepresented in the face of a power-hungry federal government. As states and localities are brought under direct control by federal agencies and regulations, a sense of learned helplessness grips the nation.

  Perpetual wars and a military empire. Much like America today with its practice of policing the world, war and an over-arching militarist ethos provided the framework for the Roman Empire, which extended from the Italian peninsula to all over Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe, extending into North Africa and Western Asia as well. In addition to significant foreign threats, wars were waged against inchoate, unstructured and socially inferior foes.

  Martial law. Eventually, Rome established a permanent military dictatorship that left the citizens at the mercy of an unreachable and oppressive totalitarian regime. In the absence of resources to establish civic police forces, the Romans relied increasingly on the military to intervene in all matters of conflict or upheaval in provinces, from small-scale scuffles to large-scale revolts. Not unlike police forces today, with their martial law training drills on American soil, militarized weapons and “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset, the Roman soldier had “the exercise of lethal force at his fingertips” with the potential of wreaking havoc on normal citizens’ lives.

  A nation of suspects. Just as the American Empire looks upon its citizens as suspects to be tracked, surveilled and controlled, the Roman Empire looked upon all potential insubordinates, from the common thief to a full-fledged insurrectionist, as threats to its power. The insurrectionist was seen as directly challenging the Emperor.  A “bandit,” or revolutionist, was seen as capable of overturning the empire, was always considered guilty and deserving of the most savage penalties, including capital punishment. Bandits were usually punished publicly and cruelly as a means of deterring others from challenging the power of the state.  Jesus’ execution was one such public punishment.

  Acts of civil disobedience by insurrectionists. Much like the Roman Empire, the American Empire has exhibited zero tolerance for dissidents such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning who exposed the police state’s seedy underbelly. Jesus was also branded a political revolutionary starting with his attack on the money chargers and traders at the Jewish temple, an act of civil disobedience at the site of the administrative headquarters of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council.

  Military-style arrests in the dead of night. Jesus’ arrest account testifies to the fact that the Romans perceived Him as a revolutionary. Eerily similar to today’s SWAT team raids, Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night, in secret, by a large, heavily armed fleet of soldiers.  Rather than merely asking for Jesus when they came to arrest him, his pursuers collaborated beforehand with Judas. Acting as a government informant, Judas concocted a kiss as a secret identification marker, hinting that a level of deception and trickery must be used to obtain this seemingly “dangerous revolutionist’s” cooperation. 

  Torture and capital punishment. In Jesus’ day, religious preachers, self-proclaimed prophets and nonviolent protesters were not summarily arrested and executed. Indeed, the high priests and Roman governors normally allowed a protest, particularly a small-scale one, to run its course. However, government authorities were quick to dispose of leaders and movements that appeared to threaten the Roman Empire. The charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious. To the Romans, any one of these charges was enough to merit death by crucifixion, which was usually reserved for slaves, non-Romans, radicals, revolutionaries and the worst criminals.

  Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.” After Jesus is formally condemned by Pilate, he is sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.”  The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry. After being ruthlessly whipped and mocked, Jesus was nailed to a cross.

  Jesus—the revolutionary, the political dissident, and the nonviolent activist—lived and died in a police state. Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.

  Unfortunately, the radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, has been largely forgotten today, replaced by a congenial, smiling Jesus trotted out for religious holidays but otherwise rendered mute when it comes to matters of war, power and politics.

  Yet for those who truly study the life and teachings of Jesus, the resounding theme is one of outright resistance to war, materialism and empire.

  What a marked contrast to the advice being given to Americans by church leaders to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do.

  Telling Americans to blindly obey the government or put their faith in politics and vote for a political savior flies in the face of everything for which Jesus lived and died.

  Will we follow the path of least resistance—turning a blind eye to the evils of our age and marching in lockstep with the police state—or will we be transformed nonconformists “dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood”?

  As Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us in a powerful sermon delivered 70 years ago, “This command not to conform comes … [from] Jesus Christ, the world’s most dedicated nonconformist, whose ethical nonconformity still challenges the conscience of mankind.”

  Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the contradiction that must be resolved if the radical Jesus—the one who stood up to the Roman Empire and was crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be—is to be an example for our modern age.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 23:40

• Whiskey Rich: Luxury Liquor Trumps Stocks & Art Over Past Decade
  Whiskey Rich: Luxury Liquor Trumps Stocks & Art Over Past Decade

  Some of the world’s ultra-wealthy spend their money on luxury goods such as fine wines, expensive watches, or one-of-a-kind art pieces as a passion, but others consider them investments – and their returns do often end up paying off.

  Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu dives into the 10-year performance of various luxury good classes as of Q4 2023, according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index released as part of the 2024 Wealth Report. The 10-year return of the S&P 500 was included for additional context.

  

  Rare Whisky Bottles Have Outperformed the S&P 500 Since 2013

  Knight Frank’s index uses the weighted average of each individual asset, tracking sales of reference brands and pieces for each asset.

  

  Over the past 10 years, rare whisky (or whiskey, depending on where it was made) has been the best performing luxury asset, appreciating by 280% and even besting the S&P 500.

  Numerous sale records have been broken at auctions since COVID-19, with collectors sometimes shelling out millions for a single bottle. In November 2023 for example, a bottle of The Macallan Valerio Adami 60 Year Old (of which only 40 bottles were produced) sold for $2.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction. Before bidding commenced, Sotheby’s had given the bottle a high estimate of $1.5M.

  Fine wine and luxury watches were the next two best performing luxury goods by 10-year returns, at +146% and +138% respectively.

  At the bottom were jewelry (+37%), such as rings and necklaces, and colored diamonds (+8%), including rare pink and blue diamonds.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 23:20

• The Evolving Battlefield: How AI And Drones Redefine Modern Warfare
  The Evolving Battlefield: How AI And Drones Redefine Modern Warfare

  Authored by Jon Sun and Sean Tseng via The Epoch Times,

  As the Russia-Ukraine conflict unfolds, drones have transcended traditional weaponry, emerging as pivotal agents of change in modern combat. Their deployment has not only diversified tactics on the battlefield but also heightened concerns over the potential for autonomous drones to elude human oversight, posing unprecedented risks to global security. Experts underscore the necessity for stringent human control and regulatory oversight over AI-equipped drones and other autonomous lethal armaments.

  

  The utilization of drones in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been widely documented, showcasing scenarios where drones, after identifying and locking onto targets such as tanks, execute self-destructive attacks. These aerial devices also execute high-altitude bombings, targeting trenches and other military installations. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces frequently publish such footage, underscoring the drone’s instrumental role in shaping contemporary warfare dynamics.

  In a column titled “How the Drone War in Ukraine Is Transforming Conflict,” published by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations in January, the transformative impact of drones was highlighted. The commentary emphasized how small, potent, and user-friendly drones have demonstrated their strategic superiority on the battlefield, prompting a global surge in drone adoption within military strategies.

  Military commentator Xia Loshan, in a discussion with The Epoch Times, remarked on the strategic advantages of drones, stating, “A cost-effective, portable quadcopter drone, equipped to deliver ammunition, can penetrate deep into enemy lines without risking soldier lives, offering precision and efficiency.”

  

  In this aerial image, people inspect destroyed Russian military vehicles by the side of a road in Dmytrivka, Ukraine on April 21, 2022. (Alexey Furman/Getty Images)

  Mr. Xia further noted the expanding utility of unmanned technologies across various domains, including aerial, maritime, underwater, and terrestrial operations, underscoring their revolutionary impact on future military engagements.

  “A drone costing just a few thousand dollars can effectively neutralize an advanced tank worth over 5 million dollars,” Mr. Xia said, illustrating a remarkable disparity in warfare economics.

  Drones’ ease of manufacture, low detection and radar interception rates, and precision targeting via satellite data further accentuate their tactical viability. Importantly, drones facilitate offensive operations without compromising soldier safety, marking a significant evolution in how military objectives are pursued.

  The Emergence of AI Weapons: A Dual-Edged Sword for Humanity

  The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and drone technology have ushered in a new era of warfare, raising profound ethical and existential questions. Among the most pressing concerns is the potential for the development of AI weapons capable of autonomously making lethal decisions.

  Geoffrey Hinton, a British-Canadian computer scientist renowned for his contributions to AI and often dubbed the “godfather of AI,” has voiced his apprehensions about the trajectory of AI development.

  

  British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the ‘godfather of AI’ speaks with technology journalist and CEO of The Atlantic Nick Thompson (R) during the Collision Tech Conference at the Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada, on June 28, 2023. (Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images)

  In a recent dialogue with Japanese media, Mr. Hinton elucidated the dual-edged nature of AI’s evolution. He underscored the danger inherent in AI systems that, if tasked with grand-scale objectives like climate objectives, might identify humanity itself as the problem. Furthermore, Mr. Hinton highlighted the inevitability of AI systems growing more sophisticated as they engage in competition, potentially leading to scenarios where they could manipulate human actions to avoid being disabled.

  Alarmingly, Mr. Hinton speculates that within the next decade, we could witness the advent of AI weapons capable of independently targeting and eliminating humans. He draws a parallel with the history of chemical warfare, suggesting that the international community may only seek to restrict AI weapons following catastrophic consequences, mirroring the reactive measures taken after World War I.

  Echoing Mr. Hinton’s concerns, military expert Mr. Xia points out that AI’s potential threat to humanity is not a new concept. He references the AI program “AlphaGo’s” victories over human champions in Go as an early indicator. However, the integration of AI into weapon systems presents an immediate and grave danger.

  Mr. Xia argues that AI’s capability to enhance weapon system efficiency, coupled with advances in sensor, communication, and computing technologies, is pushing us toward the deployment of fully autonomous AI-controlled weapons.

  “What people are really worried about is that one day AI might control and even enslave humans,” Mr. Xia added.

  The United States has adopted a cautious stance on this issue, insisting on the inclusion of human oversight in any decision-making process involving lethal force. It has also launched a global initiative to establish ethical guidelines for AI use.

  Yet, the lack of unanimous agreement among nations, with significant powers like China, Russia, and North Korea abstaining, poses a formidable challenge. The partial adherence to these ethical principles, Mr. Xia warns, could lead to a perilous lack of constraints on AI in military applications, posing a significant risk to global security and humanity’s future.

  

  A Ukrainian serviceman of an air reconnaissance squad of the 45th Brigade prepares to launch a Leleka reconnaissance UAV on a position in Donetsk region of Ukraine on June 27, 2023. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

  The Surge in Small Drone Demand: A New Era in Warfare

  In a notable development earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of a specialized drone department within the Ukrainian military. This initiative aims to domestically produce 1 million drones within the year, highlighting the growing reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in modern conflict zones.

  Ukraine’s commitment to enhancing its drone capabilities is evident, with over 200 companies currently engaged in drone production. The war effort has even seen civilian-crafted drones being deployed to the front lines, with estimates suggesting a demand of 10,000 drones per month to sustain operations.

  The escalation of drone production in Ukraine, which saw a 16.8-fold increase following the Russian invasion, mirrors a broader trend in military technology. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also emphasized the strategic importance of drones, advocating for the accelerated development of dual-use UAVs. This focus on drone technology is indicative of the changing dynamics of warfare, where unmanned systems are playing increasingly critical roles.

  

  A military operator walks past DJI Matrice 300 reconnaissance drones, bought in the frame of the program ‘The Army of Drones’ set up ready for test flights prior to being sent to the front line in the Kyiv region on Aug. 2, 2022. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

  At a recent defense industry exhibition in Singapore, which ranks among Asia’s largest, military representatives from around the globe were briefed on the latest advancements in drone technology. American manufacturers showcased the Switchblade 300, a compact drone designed for kamikaze missions, which has been supplied to Ukraine by the United States.

  The drone, capable of destroying targets up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away through a suicide attack, exemplifies the tactical versatility and demand for UAVs capable of precision strikes.

  An Israeli innovation that captured attention at the exhibition was a “next-generation” drone by Elbit Systems, capable of autonomous flight up to 24 hours. This development underscores the global appetite for advanced drone capabilities, with calls for new features growing louder.

  The conflict in Ukraine has served as a catalyst for nations worldwide, including the United States, Europe, Japan, and China, to accelerate their drone development programs and integrate UAVs into their strategic planning. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, for instance, have analyzed drone usage in Ukraine to devise countermeasures and anticipate a future where drones could potentially replace manned combat helicopters.

  Professor Seigo Iwamoto from Kyoto Sangyo University describes small drones as “the poor man’s air force,” highlighting their affordability and accessibility. He notes the proliferation of drones among various armed groups, equating their impact on warfare to that of firearms. This democratization of aerial technology could lead to increased casualties in escalated conflicts.

  Amidst growing tensions, Mr. Xia remarks on the strategic positioning between the U.S. and China, with the Pentagon’s “Replicator” program aiming to utilize a multitude of small, intelligent, and cost-effective platforms. This initiative seeks to counterbalance China’s numerical superiority in ships, missiles, and personnel, showcasing the strategic pivot towards leveraging drone technology in global military strategies.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 23:00

• CBO Director Warns Of Debt Market Meltdown With US Debt Is On "Unprecedented" Trajectory
  CBO Director Warns Of Debt Market Meltdown With US Debt Is On “Unprecedented” Trajectory

  We’ve been pointing it out for so long – in fact, for most of our 15 years in existence – that it has become more of a chore than actual reporting, especially since the “number only go up“, as it hits a new all time high virtually every day. We are talking, of course, about the exponential curve that is the US debt, arguably one of the most boring and at the same time, most exciting topics of all time (because one day the “number go up no more” and you want to be far, far away when that happens).

  

  Perhaps the catchiest observation we made on the trajectory of US debt was last September when we first noted that it is rising by $1 trillion every three months, or every 100 or so days…

  Total US Debt surpasses $33 trillion for the first time.

  For those keeping tabs, the US added $1 trillion in debt in three (3) months. pic.twitter.com/9eJVnX1YnZ

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 18, 2023

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

  … a soundbite which has since been picked up and stolen by pretty much everyone else in the media, if with the usual 6+ month lag behind us.

  

  Not only has it gotten boring to be ahead of the curve by almost half a year, but pretty much every possible warning that could be said about the exponential increase in the US debt has been – well – said.

  And yet, every now and then we are surprised by the latest developments surrounding the unsustainable, exponential trajectory of US debt. Like, for example, the establishment admitting that it is on an unsustainable, exponential trajectory.

  That’s precisely what happened overnight when in an interview with the oh so very serious Financial Times (which has done everything in its power to keep its readers out of the best performing asset class of all time, bitcoin), the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Phillip Swagel, issued a stark warning that the United States could suffer a similar market crisis as seen in the United Kingdom 18 months ago, during former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s brief stint leading Britain – which briefly sent yields soaring, sparked a run on the pound, led to an immediate restart of QE by the Bank of England and a bailout of various pension funds, not to mention the almost instant resignation of Truss – citing the nation’s “unprecedented” fiscal trajectory.

  The striking words from the head of the CBO, best known perhaps for publishing doomer debt/GDP projection charts such as this one…

  

  … warned of the dangers of the U.S. facing “what the U.K. faced with former prime minister Truss — where policymakers tried to take an action, and then there’s a market reaction to that action”, comes as US government debt continues to break records, fueling concerns about the burden that places on the economy and taking a toll on America’s credit rating.

  As a reminder, in September 2022, Truss roiled markets as she pressed for significant tax cuts, including changes lessening the tax burden on wealthier individuals without offsets, as well as other economic measures. The budget proposal spurred a major selloff of British debt, forcing U.K. interest rates to decades-long highs and causing the value of the pound to tank. While Truss defended her agenda as a means to spur economic growth, she stepped down as prime minister after less than two months on the job following the market revolt to her administration.

  Meanwhile, it was up to the Bank of England to bail everyone out: the central bank intervened in the market, pledging to buy gilts on “whatever scale is necessary” with Dave Ramsden, a senior official at the central bank, saying at the time that “were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability.”

  Needless to say, by bringing up the catastrophic rule of Truss, who for at least a few days tried to impose a regime of fiscal and monetary austerity which immediately blew up the UK bond market and led to an instant market crisis, Swagel is admitting that there is nothing that can be done to reverse the growth of US debt and to make what is already an exponential chart less exponential. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  And while Swagel said the U.S. is “not there yet,” he raised concerns of how bond markets could fare as interest rates have climbed. Specifically, he warned that as higher interest rates raise the cost of paying its creditors, on track to reach $1 trillion per year in 2026, bond markets could “snap back.”

  Well, we have some bad news, because if one calculates total US interest on an actual, annualized basis… we don’t have to wait until 2026, we are there already and then some.

  Indeed, it seems like it was just yesterday when everyone was talking about US debt interest surpassing $1 trillion (and more than all US defense spending). Well, hold on to your hats, because as of this month, total US interest is now $1.1 trillion, and rising by $100 billion every 4 months (we should probably trademark this before everyone else steals it too).

  

  According to the CBO, US government debt is set to keep rising. “Such large and growing debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of US debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook,” it said in a report last week. “It could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.”

  Only that will never happen, because a politician who is “constrained” in their policy choices – one who doesn’t feed the entitlements beast in hopes of winning votes (while generously spreading pork for friends and family) – is a politician who is fired.

  Perhaps afraid he would sound too much like ZeroHedge, the CBO director left a glimmer of hope, saying that the nation has “the potential for some changes that seem modest — or maybe start off modest and then get more serious — to have outsized effects on interest rates, and therefore on the fiscal trajectory.” But we doubt even he believes it.

  In the CBO’s long-term budget outlook report released last week, the budget agency projected the national deficit would rise “significantly in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years, reaching 8.5 percent of GDP in 2054.” Which of course, is laughable: the US deficit is already at 6.5% of GDP – a level that traditionally implied there is a major economic crisis – and yet here we are, with unemployment *reportedly* at just 3.8%. Said otherwise, the US deficit will – with 100% certainty – hit 8.5% of GDP during the next recession which will likely be triggered as soon as Trump wins the November election.

  

  The budget scorekeeper attributed the projected growth to rising interest costs, as well as “large and sustained primary deficits, which exclude net outlays for interest.” In short, everything is already going to hell to keep “Bidenomics” afloat, but when you also throw in the interest on the debt, well.. that’s game over man.

  Socialists, and other liberals who are only good at spending other people’s money and selling debt until the reserve currency finally breaks, quickly sprung to defense of the debt black hole that the US economy has become.

  Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the communist-leaning Center for American Progress think tank, pointed to improved deficit projections in recent years, as well as forecasts from the CBO he said “don’t project anything that looks like a panic.”

  “If someone were thinking about, ‘Should I panic or should I not panic?’ I would just say, ‘hey, the underlying situation has gotten better, right?’” Kogan said, adding “there’s been lower, long-term projected deficits in the Biden administration.”

  Instead of responding, we will again just show the latest CBO debt forecast chart and leave it up to readers to decide if they should panic or not.

  

  What Kogan said next, however, was chilling:  “You either should have been worried a long time ago, or you should be less worried now,” he said. “Because we’ve been on roughly the same path for forever, but to the extent that it’s different, it’s better.”

  Actually no, it’s not better. It much, much worse, and the fact that supposedly “serious people” are idiots and make such statements is stunning because, well, these are the people in charge!

  But he is certainly right that “you should have been worried a long time ago” – we were very worried, and everyone laughed at us, so we decided – you know what, it’s not worth the effort, may as well sit back and watch it all sink.

  And now bitcoin is at a record $72,000 on its way to $1 million and gold is at a record $2,200 also on its way to… pick some nice round number…. in fact the number doesn’t matter if it is denominated in US dollars because very soon, the greenback will go the way of the reichsmark.

  And just to make sure that nothing will ever change, even after the US enters the infamous Minsky Moment, shortly after the close we got this headline::

  • *UNITED STATES AA+ RATING AFFIRMED BY S&P; OUTLOOK STABLE

  Because when nobody dares to tell the truth, why should anything change?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 22:40

• Cattle-Tracking Provision That May Limit Beef Supply Passed In Omnibus Bill
  Cattle-Tracking Provision That May Limit Beef Supply Passed In Omnibus Bill

  Authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A controversial measure to include $15 million for the electronic tracking of livestock has made it through Congress via the recently passed omnibus bill, raising fears among critics that the new system could be weaponized by the government to limit beef consumption.

  

  American cattle rancher Shad Sullivan told The Epoch Times that he fears that the electronic tags will be the end of the small rancher.

  “They are going to use it as a taxing mechanism to eventually control the livestock,” Mr. Sullivan said. “In the European Union, they used these measures under the guise of climate change lies to limit the cattle supply, and if they do that here, it will destroy our industry.

  “If the tag mandate is implemented it will be the key to open the door to the gas chamber for independent ranching.”

  Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who owns livestock, also sounded the alarm that the move could lead to the erosion of the industry.

  “The left wants to ban cattle and before you can ban anything you need a registry, you need to know where it’s at and who owns it and that’s why they want to tag cattle,” he said in a March 23 post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “We’ve seen it happen in Europe.”

  In a previous post, Mr. Massie wrote that, if passed, the electronic tracking “will be used by the GREEN agenda to limit beef production, and by the corporate meat oligopoly to DOMINATE small ranchers.”

  The omnibus bill, which was passed on March 22, combines six essential spending bills into one and includes text that allocates $15 million to “related infrastructure” needed for the program.

  The full text of the provision reads: “The agreement directs the Department to continue to provide the tag and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule, including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification (EID) tags and related infrastructure needed for stakeholders to comply with the proposed rule, ‘Use of Electronic Identification Eartags as Official Identification in Cattle and Bison,’ should that rule be finalized.”

  Since its initial proposal last year, the mandate for electronic ear tags for cattle and bison crossing state lines has stirred controversy, particularly among small ranchers. They fear that the added costs, which large corporate ranchers can absorb, will drive many smaller operations out of business.

  Currently, most livestock are tracked using tags that display 11-digit numbers, which are both visible and trackable. On Jan. 19, 2023, the Federal Register published proposed regulations to mandate the inclusion of radio-frequency identification in ear tags. These enhanced tags must be “both visually and electronically readable” to be recognized as official for the interstate movement of cattle and bison.

  “Livestock,” under the regulation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; includes all sexually intact cattle and bison 18 months of age and older; all female dairy cattle of any age; all male dairy cattle born after March 11, 2013; cattle and bison of any age used for rodeo or recreational events; and cattle and bison of any age used for shows or exhibitions, according to the proposal.

  Since 2003, following the discovery of the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, in the United States, ranchers have been pushed to adopt electronic identification tags for livestock movement. The cattle industry has been gradually advancing toward enhanced traceability rules and technology ever since.

  However, the federal mandating of electronic ear tags would place unnecessary and punitive costs on American ranchers while also further raising the price of beef, according to Justin Tupper, president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association.

  “It is another example of ridiculous spending,” Mr. Tupper told the Epoch Times. “If they are going to use these funds to hand out free tags to those who would want them then there would be no real harm, but that is not what it looks like they are doing here.

  “Instead they are going to give them to the big tag companies to shove down our throat to mandate it, which is an entirely different thing.”

  A new mandate on livestock would only add another obstacle to an industry already decimated by regulations and drought.

  The beef cattle supply has already dropped to its lowest point in decades, raising the price of beef to another all-time high and renewing concerns over the long-term health of the nation’s farming community. A series of severe droughts, coupled with government policies that continue to favor large, industrial food processors, has reduced the nation’s supply of beef cattle to a level not seen since the early 1950s, according to Mr. Tupper.

  Lawmakers slipped the funding for the electronic ear tag infrastructure into a single paragraph in the omnibus bill, which allowed lawmakers to pass legislation without the scrutiny that would normally occur and is another example of the increasingly intrusive role the federal government has in the lives of the independent ranchers, he said.

  “Anything that is mandated we are going to push back very hard against,” Mr. Tupper said. “We always have to be aware of who controls the data.

  “We are well aware of the fact that data can exert a tremendous amount of control over the nation’s livestock.”

  The provision could also be the beginning of the end for the independent American rancher, according to Mr. Sullivan.

  “The beef industry is the last bastion of freedom,” he said. “Ranchers across the nation have to stand up. If not, these tags will be the end of the small rancher.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 22:20

• Who's Leading The Race To Mine The Deep Sea?
  Who’s Leading The Race To Mine The Deep Sea?

  India has applied to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for two new licenses to explore parts of the Indian Ocean sea bed for minerals crucial to the green energy transition. If they are granted, India would hold four contracts, making it the country with the second highest number of active contracts for deep sea mining exploration projects in the world.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, based on ISA data, China currently has five contracts, making it the leading country in terms of contracts for permitted deep sea mining exploration.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  There are currently 31 contracts that have been signed off on by the ISA, 30 of which are active, and each of which last 15 years. Several of these involve governmental entities – for example, the Government of India, the Government of Poland, the Government of the Republic of Korea all appear on the ISA website. However, the majority are private companies that have so far directly engaged in contracts for deep-sea mining with the ISA.

  There are three main categories of deep sea mineral exploration: finding and collecting polymetallic nodules (PMN), polymetallic sulfides (PMS) and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (CFC) in the deep seabed. India’s two new proposed contracts apply to the latter two methods, first for the exploration of PMS in the Carlsberg Ridge of the Central Indian Ocean and secondly for the exploration of CFC in the deep seabed of the Afanasy-Nikitin Seamount in the Central Indian Ocean.

  According to the ISA, the majority of companies looking into seabed exploration are focused on polymetallic nodules (19; with 17 of these focused on the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone), followed by polymetallic sulfides (7) in the Southwest Indian Ridge, Central Indian Ridge and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and then only 5 companies looking into polymetallic crusts in the Western Pacific Ocean.

  As Gaby Ramirez’s article for Unbias the News outlines, the issue of deep sea mining is a complex and divisive one. Supporters argue that in order to manage a successful green transition, we will need more of these precious metals and fast. Critics argue, on the other hand, that far more information is needed before further action can be taken, namely on how such extractions will impact the environment of what has been called the “final frontier” of the Earth.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 22:00

• "There's A Lot More Chainsaw": Argentine President Milei To Fire 70,000 Government Workers
  “There’s A Lot More Chainsaw”: Argentine President Milei To Fire 70,000 Government Workers

  Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei, perhaps best known for his shotgun approach to government jobs…

  Bloomberg reports that Argentina’s President Javier Milei is planning to fire 70,000 government workers
  pic.twitter.com/GL4TMOpehA

  — Business Blurb™ (@BusinessBlurbUS) March 27, 2024

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

  … plans to fire 70,000 government workers in the coming months, in what Bloomberg called “one of the clearest signs yet of how the libertarian’s chainsaw-style approach intends to slash the swollen state.”

  Beyond the job cuts, Milei also boasted at an event on Tuesday that he has frozen public works, cut off some funding to provincial governments and terminated more than 200,000 social welfare plans, which he labeled as corrupt, all as part of his strategy to reach a fiscal balance at any cost this year.

  “There’s a lot of blender,” Milei said in an hour long speech at the IEFA Latam Forum in Buenos Aires, referring to the erosion of wages and pensions by 276% annual inflation. “There’s a lot more chainsaw.”

  Other key points from Milei’s speech Tuesday:

  • Milei said peso futures contracts are aligned with the central bank’s 2% monthly crawling peg scheme, labeling calls to sharply devalue the currency again “ridiculous”
  • Argentina central bank on the path to achieving net neutral reserves after starting with debt liabilities that surpassed cash on hand by $11.5 billion in December
  • Milei says he’ll double down on his attempts to reform the Argentine economy after 2025 congressional elections, with more than 3,000 reforms in the pipeline
  • He described the Senate rejecting his emergency decree as “marvelous” because “it left all the dirty fingers” of exposed of politicians he calls “delinquents”
  • Milei expects V-shaped economic recovery

  Full speech is below:

  It’s not just the US that has a government worker problem with its 23.2 million state parasites…

  

  … Argentina’s state (and deep state) is also rather extensive. And while Milei’s termination plans affest just a small fraction of Argentina’s 3.5 million public sector workers, the job cuts are bound to face tremendous pushback from the country’s powerful labor unions and could jeopardize his high approval ratings. One union representing some government workers went on strike Tuesday, while a government report detailed that private sector workers suffered the worst one-month wage loss in at least three decades once he took office in December.

  The leader of the state workers union ATE quickly shot back on X, announcing a national strike without providing further details.
  Milei cited polls showing Argentines are more optimistic about the economy’s future, while a recent indicator of the public confidence in the government rose despite his austerity measures.

  “People have hope, they’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Milei concluded.

  Well… maybe, but maybe not, because it doesn’t take much by those used to state handouts to organize and collapse the system. And sure enough, a quick look at the country’s real GDP (as measured by the EMAE monthly activity indicator), shows a brutal 4.3% year over year contraction in January, as well as a sequential decline in real GDP of 1.2%, with Goldman noting that “activity softened significantly at the end of 2023 and the weakness extended to the beginning of the year.”

  

  While we appreciate the novelty and excitement sparked by Milei, we wonder: just how much real pain can the people sustain before they demand that he, too, be replaced with someone who promises to ease their pain?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 21:55

• NSF Paid Universities To Develop AI Censorship Tools For Social Media
  NSF Paid Universities To Develop AI Censorship Tools For Social Media

  By Daniel Nuccio of The College Fix

  “Used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others’: report

  The National Science Foundation is paying universities using taxpayer money to create AI tools that can be used to censor Americans on various social media platforms, according to members of the House.

  University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and MIT are among the universities cited in the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government interim report.

  It details the foundation’s “funding of AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools, and its repeated efforts to hide its actions and avoid political and media scrutiny.”

  “NSF has been issuing multi-million-dollar grants to university and non-profit research teams” for the purpose of developing AI-powered technologies “that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others,” states the report, released last month.

  

  Funding for the projects began in 2021 and was issued through the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator grant program, which was initially launched in 2019 to develop interdisciplinary solutions to major challenges of national and societal importance such as those pertaining to AI and quantum technology, it states.

  In 2021, however, the NSF introduced “Track F: Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems.”

  The NSF’s 2021 Convergence Accelerator program solicitation stated the goal of Track F projects was to “develop prototype(s) of novel research platforms forming integrated collection(s) of tools, techniques, and educational materials and programs to support increased citizen trust in public information of all sorts (health, climate, news, etc.), through more effectively preventing, mitigating, and adapting to critical threats in our communications systems.”

  Specifically, the grant solicitation singled out the threats posed by hackers and misinformation.

  That September, the select subcommittee report notes, the NSF awarded “twelve Track F teams $750,000 each (a total of $9 million) to develop and refine their project ideas and build partnerships.” The following year, the NSF selected six of the 12 teams to receive an additional $5 million each for their respective projects, according to the report.

  Projects from the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, MIT, and Meedan, a nonprofit that specializes in developing software to counter misinformation, are highlighted by the select subcommittee.

  Collectively, these four projects received $13 million from the NSF, it states.

  “The University of Michigan intended to use the federal funding to develop its tool ‘WiseDex,’ which could use AI technology to assess the veracity of content on social media and assist large social media platforms with what content should be removed or otherwise censored,” it states.

  The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Course Correct, which was featured in an article from The College Fix last year, was “intended to aid reporters, public health organizations, election administration officials, and others to address so-called misinformation on topics such as U.S. elections and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.”

  MIT’s Search Lit, as described in the select subcommittee’s report, was developed as an intervention to help educate groups of Americans the researchers believed were most vulnerable to misinformation such as conservatives, minorities, rural Americans, older adults, and military families.

  Meedan, according to its website, used its funding to develop “easy-to-use, mobile-friendly tools [that] will allow AAPI [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] community members to forward potentially harmful content to tiplines and discover relevant context explainers, fact-checks, media literacy materials, and other misinformation interventions.”

  According to the select committee’s report, “Once empowered with taxpayer dollars, the pseudo-science researchers wield the resources and prestige bestowed upon them by the federal government against any entities that resist their censorship projects.”

  “In some instances,” the report states, “if a social media company fails to act fast enough to change a policy or remove what the researchers perceive to be misinformation on its platform, disinformation researchers will issue blogposts or formal papers to ‘generate a communications moment’ (i.e., negative press coverage) for the platform, seeking to coerce it into compliance with their demands.”

  Efforts were made via email to contact senior members of the three university research teams, as well as a representative from Meedan, regarding the portrayal of their work in the select subcommittee’s report.

  Paul Resnick, who serves as the WiseDex project director at the University of Michigan, referred The College Fix to the WiseDex website.

  “Social media companies have policies against harmful misinformation. Unfortunately, enforcement is uneven, especially for non-English content,” states the site. “WiseDex harnesses the wisdom of crowds and AI techniques to help flag more posts [than humans can]. The result is more comprehensive, equitable, and consistent enforcement, significantly reducing the spread of misinformation.”

  A video on the site presents the tool as a means to help social media sites flag posts that violate platform policies and subsequently attach warnings to or remove the posts. Posts portraying approved COVID-19 vaccines as potentially dangerous are used as an example.

  Michael Wagner from the University of Wisconsin-Madison also responded to The Fix, writing, “It is interesting to be included in a report that claims to be about censorship when our project censors exactly no one.”

  According to the select subcommittee report, some of the researchers associated with Track F and similar projects, however, privately acknowledged efforts to combat misinformation were inherently political and a form of censorship.

  Yet, following negative coverage of Track F projects, depicting them as politically motivated and their products as government-funded censorship tools, the report notes, the NSF began discussing media and outreach strategy with grant recipients.

  Notes from a pair of Track F media strategy planning sessions included in Appendix B of the select subcommittee’s report recommended researchers, when interacting with the media, focus on the “pro-democracy” and “non-ideological” nature of their work, “Give examples of both sides,” and “use sports metaphors.”

  The select subcommittee report also highlights that there were discussions of having a media blacklist, although at least one researcher from the University of Michigan objected to this, citing the potential optics.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 21:40

• "Zero Critical Reasoning": Employers Say GenZ "Toxic" For Companies
  “Zero Critical Reasoning”: Employers Say GenZ “Toxic” For Companies

  A new report has found that 68% of small business owners say Gen Z employees are the “least reliable,” while 71% say they’re most likely to have a mental health issue in the workplace.

  

  One of the employers surveyed spoke of Gen Z’s “absolute delusion, complete lack of common sense, and zero critical reasoning or basic analytical skills,” according to the Freedom Economy Index report conducted by PublicSquare and RedBalloon this month.

  Less than 4% of those surveyed said Gen Z was the generation that most aligns with their workplace culture, while 62% said Gen Z’s were most likely to create division and toxicity in the workplace.

  Another employer surveyed said the generation is “expecting promotions for simply showing up every day.”

  Exhibit A:

  @brielleybelly123

  im also getting sick leave me alone im emotional ok i feel 12 and im scared of not having time to live

  ♬ original sound – BRIELLE

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

  What’s more, 57% of those surveyed said that Gen Z runs the most risk of creating a workplace lawsuit.

  Newsweek has come out in defense of Gen Z, citing two experts who say the kids are just misunderstood.

  Dan Space, an HR consultant who runs DanFromHR.com, said since the study reflects the feelings of small business owners, it could be skewed. These types of businesses often do not pay well or offer a high-quality company culture, he said, and Gen Z tends to look for those in any type of role or career they take on, he said.

  “Gen Z is one of the most informed, confident and no BS generation because they saw what happened to the millennials before them,” Space told Newsweek.

  

  “Being told to go to college to get a great job, graduating with up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, with zero tools to get a job, land somewhere and not be given the information on salaries, career development, moving towards compensation models that use mixed variations….So I find they are just far more comfortable with not putting up with this BS and being informed,” Space continued.

  Space conceded that Gen Zers are most likely to have mental health issues, ‘but he does believe they are more likely to be confident in discussing it and drawing boundaries,’ Newsweek reports.

  Ok Dan.

  @thebjamin Generational Gap – Born 1970 1980 1990 2000 #genz ♬ original sound – Sterling Malory Archer

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

  Can’t Even-ing intensifies…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 21:20

• The Crude Necessity: Excerpt From "How To Listen When The Markets Speak"
  The Crude Necessity: Excerpt From “How To Listen When The Markets Speak”

  From “How to Listen When Markets Speak“, the latest book by veteran Lehman Brothers trader and creator of the Bear Traps report Larry McDonald, available now for sale at Amazon and all other book sellers.

  “The Crude Necessity”

  Excerpted from Chapter 5, “Fossil Fuels Paving the Way to the Green Meadow”

  “If Trudeau was here, I’d tell him this coffee is made of oil,” Rafi Tahma­zian commented wryly as he poured a cup for each of us. I was sitting with Tahma­zian, one of the world’s finest energy asset managers, in his office in Calgary in November 2021. “Machines to grow it and harvest it, vehicles to transport it, more machines to pack it, electricity to roast and grind the beans, heat to boil the water,” he continued. “It doesn’t happen with pixie dust, old pal. It happens with crude oil.”

  I could hear emails chiming into his inbox as he spoke. He runs the investment division at Canoe Financial, a $2 billion management firm focused on oil, mining, and natural gas. He wasn’t political in his views, but he’d firmly maintained a single belief for many years: “The entire planet is run by crude oil. Everything we touch. Everything we consume. It’s nothing to do with politics. It’s pragmatism. And this war on the supply side of oil is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The COVID-19 pandemic changed the oil sector, perhaps for a de­cade. In 2020, demand dried up like a drop of water on a hot copper pan. The oil markets crashed, sending West Texas Intermediate oil to $0 a barrel. Companies right across the industry switched off their wells, turned off their equipment, and sent their em­ployees home to collect unemployment checks. Even the highways emptied, and Manhattan on a Saturday night didn’t have a car horn within earshot. The Gen Zers and millennials were con­vinced that the energy future was not in the dirty oil patch anymore, that it would be different somehow, free of carbon emissions in a new electri­fied world, and the gas-guzzling cars of the last hundred years would be towed, finally, to the junkyard of history. But this was a terrible misjudg­ment.

  When the world reopened in 2021 after the COVID lockdowns, OPEC imposed a firm limit on supply, while U.S. production was slow to re­cover. Rhetoric about “killing shale” dominated Democratic Party de­bates in 2020, too, which scared a lot of participants away from the space, especially after Biden won the election. Why invest in a kill zone? Unsurprisingly, oil prices climbed higher and higher. Demand quickly outstripped supply, and inflation started to roll through markets as fleets of airlines turned on their massive kerosene- powered turbofans, diesel cruise ships for three thousand people cast off their lines, and highways steadily reloaded with gasoline-powered cars, buses, and trucks. And this was occurring not just in America but all over the world.

  Tahma­zian had been around energy investments all his life, and he was born to trade the energy booms and busts. As we spoke, he leaned in intently: “Larry, think of India. Energy use has doubled there since 2000, and it’s going to grow at three times the global average because they’re urbanizing so fast. That’s going to mean a colossal surge in air-conditioning demand from 2021 to 2031. So we are in a climate crisis, and 1.4 billion people make up the fastest-growing swath of energy demand on planet Earth. That’s three to four times faster than the U.S., UK, Germany, and the rest of the developed world. Of the roughly 320 million households in India, fewer than 22 million have air-conditioning units right now.”

  As I traveled back home to New York, I couldn’t stop thinking about the supply of energy in the foreseeable future or, rather, the lack of it. With the global population on an upward trajectory, planet Earth will have an unstoppable demand for energy in the coming years. Meanwhile, supply growth is under arrest. Western politicians are driving hard for alternative energies and run the other way if someone suggests a continuation of drilling, fracking, and mining. This has left a gaping chasm between the amount of energy and critical resources needed to continue raising our global standard of liv­ing and the amount on tap—a chasm that will only widen in the coming decades.

  

  By my estimate, $2.4 trillion was cut from the fossil fuels and metals capex between 2014 and 2020. Over the same period, the global population grew by 800 million. Today, we might need $3 trillion in additional capital expenditure just to play catch-up. In other words, there have not been nearly enough good old-fashioned investments in coal, oil, gas, uranium, and metals exploration and production, especially in North America.

  But aren’t we well on our way towards knocking out oil with wind farms, solar panels, and hydroelectric power? I largely support the push to adopt green energy, but we’re about twenty years too early. Knocking out oil with green energy right now is a mathematical impos­sibility, especially since some of the most populated countries in the world (such as India, China, and Russia) have no intention of being bound by Western emission standards. If governments really wanted to replace oil as a source of energy on planet Earth, it would currently take a wind farm a little bigger than France, 134 million acres of land. A solar field to replace oil would need to be the size of Spain, at 120 million acres, not to mention that it would need to experience at least 70 percent sunshine for eight hours a day, every day, every year. Now think about the amount of plastic that would be used, the fiberglass, the steel shafts and turbines, the endless mainte­nance, the millions of batteries and cabling. It simply cannot be done without bankrupting the planet. Maybe one day, over the course of many decades, but not today. Right now the top priority should be keeping the lights on, and keep­ing the gargantuan global economy rumbling forward in a responsi­ble, low-inflationary fashion.

  But an increase in oil supply doesn’t just happen with a snap of the fingers. First, there are multiyear regulatory loopholes to jump through. Then govern­ments need to incentivize the companies to do it, instead of slapping windfall taxes on them. Next, the exploration phase has to be carried out, finding the most oil-rich patches of land to drill. That’s an expensive game. Phase four is moving the equipment, a multimillion-dollar problem. Then comes the hiring of qualified people, and then the drilling, infrastructure, transportation, and logistics. It will take about seven to ten years to flood the market once again with oil and gas after the ESG drive eventually fails. And it will.

  

  With the global population growing, energy demand surging, and supply growth under arrest, I believe higher energy and metals prices will be sustained for the next decade. From the COVID lows to the end of 2022, as inflation raged higher, the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) was up 325 percent, the Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) was up 318 percent, the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX) was up 260 percent, and the SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (XME) was up 260 percent. The oil stocks are still in the early innings, and I predict that in the next few years billions of dollars will flow into these companies.

  

  Juicing Inflation

  Energy prices are the root cause of inflation, when you get right down to it. Think of every drop of gasoline and energy used in something simple like our Calgary cup of coffee. Add high oil prices to that, and suddenly that $4 cup of coffee at Starbucks costs $6.

  But there’s a second layer to the relationship between energy and infla­tion. Not only will higher energy costs drive other costs up along with it, but it will make inflation harder to fight. If inflation normalizes in this cycle at 3 to 4 percent instead of 1 to 2 percent as in previous decades, trillions of dollars are misallocated across the investment asset ecosystem, as most portfolios are still massively overweight growth stocks.

  Usually, during a time of recession, the prices of energy and oil drop dramatically due to lower demand, which acts as a major deflationary force. But going forward, the price of energy will likely stay relatively high even during recessions. Through chronic underinvestment in the oil and gas industries, the United States and Canada handed over valuable market share to the Saudis, the Russians, and OPEC, giving them way more control over the global price of oil. In a multipolar world, these not-so-friendly players can now coordinate supply cuts during recessions to keep the price high.            

  If the U.S. had eight thousand drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs), we could just ramp up production and steal market share back from them. But we don’t. DUCs are at a ten-year low, and this dynamic sets us up for a longer-term battle with higher and stickier inflation. We saw this during the minor energy crisis in 2022, and it is going to be the norm in the years ahead.

  With the endless issues hanging over the global energy markets, you might be asking how an investor can capitalize on this knowledge. And my advice is simple: Get long oil. The energy ETFs XLE and XOP are great places to start, along with Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil. In particular, Exxon is interesting because of its massive new reserves in Guyana, right on the northeastern tip of South America. The company has an operating office in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, with numerous ongo­ing exploration and development operations offshore. At its Stabroek oil field, in operation since May 2015, it has made significant discoveries, and the company expects production capacity to reach 1.2 million barrels per day in 2027, up from 375,000 barrels in 2022. This implies that in four years Guyana will represent approximately 25 percent of Exxon’s worldwide production.

  This chart also highlights several smaller oil and gas producers with an attractive valuation and the potential to be acquired by one of the oil majors.

  

  One way to value a company in the energy sector is to compare its enterprise value (the sum of its debt and its market capitalization) with the value of the oil and gas reserves it has in the ground. This comparison measures what the value of the company is per “barrel of oil equivalent,” which is the oil and the natural gas converted into barrels of oil. The lower a company’s enter­prise value is compared with the reserves it has in the ground, the cheaper the company’s valuation is. PDC Energy, for example, is very cheap. Chevron thought so, too: It made an offer for the company in May 2023. (The chart shows PDC’s valuation before Chevron’s offer.)

  In 2022, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink penned a letter outlining his vision of a decarbonized future, calling those working to help knock out oil with green energy “phoenixes,” the immortal birds from Greek mythology that rise from the ashes of their pre­decessors, and suggesting that those who resist the net-zero transitions are “dodos,” a kind of flightless bird that went extinct in the seventeenth century.

  The dodos of the future will be those who cling to their ailing growth stocks. The phoenixes will be invested in hard assets and the still-unloved energy stocks. Borrowing costs will be high, the $2 trillion capex hole will take years to plug, and low prices for fossil fuels—oil, gas, and coal—will soon be a distant memory.

  Much more in the full book

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 21:00

• Virginia Governor Vetos 30 Gun Bills That Would 'Punish' Law-Abiding Citizens
  Virginia Governor Vetos 30 Gun Bills That Would ‘Punish’ Law-Abiding Citizens

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

  Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) took action on 67 bills on Tuesday, including vetoing 30 that he said would “punish” law-abiding citizens and impinge on their 2nd Amendment rights.

  “I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of Virginia, and that absolutely includes protecting the right of law-abiding Virginians to keep and bear arms,” Mr. Youngkin said in a statement.

  

  The Republican governor announced that, in addition to vetoing 30 pieces of gun-related legislation, he had suggested amendments to six and signed 31.

  “I am pleased to sign four public safety bills which are commonsense reforms with significant bipartisan support from the General Assembly, and offer recommendations to several bills which, if adopted, will make it harder for criminals to use guns in the commission of a violent act,” he added.

  Among the vetoes the governor signed were measures that would criminalize possession of a firearm in a building owned or operated by a public institution of higher education.

  One particular bill appeared to target a single individual, the governor noted. House Bill 585 would criminalize home-based firearm dealers who maintain their place of business at their residence within one and a half miles of an elementary or middle school.

  “By all appearances, this legislation targets one individual in Prince William County, to whom the Prince William Board of County Supervisors granted a home-based firearms license,” Mr. Youngkin wrote in his veto memo.

  A five-day waiting period for gun purchases, championed by Democrat state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam of Loudoun County, was also vetoed.

  Another vetoed bill would have banned the import, sale, manufacture, purchase, or transfer of certain firearms and ammunition-feeding devices made on or after July 1.

  Among the vetoed bills were ones that sought to prevent the open carrying of some semi-automatic rifles and shotguns in specific public areas. Another bill proposed the creation of safe storage requirements for firearms in homes where minors or people not legally allowed to possess guns reside. Additionally, there was a bill that sought to create a civil penalty for individuals who leave a handgun visible in an unattended vehicle.

  Among the bills the governor signed into law were two pairs of identical bipartisan gun-related public safety measures, which garnered broad bipartisan support.

  These measures aim to prevent parents from willfully allowing children who pose credible threats of violence to access firearms. Additionally, they prohibit the manufacture, transfer, or possession of an auto sear, colloquially known as a “Glock switch,” that converts firearms into automatic weapons.

  One bill the governor signed introduces the possibility of charging parents with a felony under the state’s child abuse and neglect law if they permit a child access to a firearm after being notified of the child’s potential for violence.

  Furthermore, Mr. Youngkin announced proposals for amendments to six gun bills, setting the stage for legislative debate when the General Assembly convenes for a one-day session on April 17 in Richmond.

  The governor’s proposed amendments to six bills include provisions to prevent firearm transfers to mental health patients, align with federal regulations on serial numbers, set standards for plastic firearms, and mandate parental notification on safe firearm storage.

  The vetoes by Mr. Youngkin drew criticism from Democrats, who lack the numbers to overturn them, needing a two-thirds majority in both chambers.

  Opponents of the vetoed bills questioned their constitutionality, while proponents argued for tighter restrictions on firearms to enhance public safety.

  Mr. Youngkin’s stance on firearms mirrors his campaign rhetoric from 2021, though notably, he did not receive the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.

  During his first two years in office, Mr. Youngkin largely avoided gun-related issues due to the divided control of the Legislature. However, with Democrats now in full control after recent elections, dozens of gun-related bills were sent to his desk, prompting these recent actions.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 20:20

• 'Squatter-Squad' Using Home Inspectors And Other Legal Techniques To Send Squatters Packing
  ‘Squatter-Squad’ Using Home Inspectors And Other Legal Techniques To Send Squatters Packing

  You may have noticed an increase in stories involving homeowners in blue states who can’t evict squatters due to various laws that make it extremely difficult to do so.

  • Owner of LA mansion taken over by Airbnb squatter ‘from hell’ accuses her of extortion
  • Airbnb host’s ‘tenant from hell’ also lived rent-free in an Oakland house
  • I lived illegally in a house for 5 years – I took the time to fix it up and sued for legal ownership, now it’s mine
  • California’s Housing Crisis Is So Bad, Families Are Squatting Abandoned Homes Just to Survive (Mother Jones, of course)

  And more recently, a Queens woman was arrested after trying to evict squatters out of her house. 

  

  As Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog wrote in February;

  Thanks to online listings, it is easier than ever to identify properties that are vacant, and many states have laws that make it exceedingly difficult to get squatters out once they have settled in.  In some cases, squatters are able to live rent free in beautiful homes for months or even years.  This is becoming an absolutely massive problems, especially in certain areas of the country.  For example, it is being reported that squatters have taken over approximately 1,200 homes in the Atlanta area…

  …

  In the state of Washington, squatters have taken over an entire apartment complex and have turned it into a den of crime…

  …

  California also has ridiculous laws, and right now “a very sophisticated criminal ring of squatters” is making a ton of money from the Beverly Hills mansion that they have occupied…

  Given the recent surge in squatting, a Los Angeles-based group known as the Squatter Squad has been making headlines for their novel approaches to evicting squatters; home inspectors and other legal techniques.

  In a viral video from earlier this month, a team of Los Angeles home inspectors can be seen ejecting a group of around a dozen squatters, before entering the home, changing the locks and boarding up the windows, Fox News reports.

  “The police are gonna come,” one of the squatters can be heard telling the inspectors in the front yard of a San Fernando Valley home.

  “That’s fine,” the inspector replies. “We’re coming in.”

  YES, More Of This 👏🏻

  In California squatters are taking over people’s properties so this company called Squatter Squad is coming in and REMOVING THEM 🇺🇸

  If they don’t want to come out & prove they’re on the lease, they’ll rip the doors off the property and force them out

  If… pic.twitter.com/rCR8psO9OS

  — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 22, 2024

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

  Squatter Squad, which took the video, claims to have been legally removing squatters from property since 2018.

  They use various legal techniques, applicable on a case by case basis, to remove people who invade homes and refuse to leave.

  “This was a very tricky and complex job,” said Lando Thomas, a Squatter Squad member.

  The intruders were under the impression that any entry into the house required a three-day notice obtained through court. However, they were wrong. A building inspection only requires a 24-hour notice and does not have to go through the court, he said. -Fox News

  According to Thomas, the intruders thought that any entry into the home required a three-day notice obtained through the court – however they, being idiots, were wrong, as a building inspection only requires 24-hour notice and does not have to go through the court.

  “We’re gonna press charges,” one squatter told them.

  “That’s fine,” the inspector replied. “Take me to court.”

  When the police showed up, they stood in the street and let the inspectors do their work while the squatters packed up their belongings and left.

  

  Success! Until of course George Soros begins funding their lawsuits and California lawmakers ‘work their magic’ for their constituents.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 20:00

• Compound Found In Broccoli Could Help Dissolve Blood Clots And Prevent Stroke
  Compound Found In Broccoli Could Help Dissolve Blood Clots And Prevent Stroke

  Authored by Allison DeMajistre via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Researchers from the Heart Research Institute (HRI) in Australia have found that a common vegetable eaten by millions every day may be able to prevent and treat a leading cause of death worldwide.

  

  The study, published in the journal ACS Central Science, shows results from a three-year investigation into how a natural chemical found in broccoli can help dissolve blood clots and improve the action of a common clot-busting drug used to treat an acute ischemic stroke.

  Current Stroke Treatment

  Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke. In 2021, strokes accounted for one in every six deaths from cardiovascular disease.

  There are two types of strokes: ischemic and hemorrhagic. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain is obstructed by a clot, while a hemorrhagic stroke results when a weakened vessel in the brain ruptures and causes bleeding inside the brain. According to the American Heart Association, ischemic stroke accounts for 87 percent of all strokes.

  The only drug currently available to treat an acute ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a thrombolytic agent that breaks up blood clots and restores adequate blood flow to the brain. Unfortunately, tPA comes with severe limitations and potential dangers, including bleeding into the brain with up to a 45 percent fatality rate when this occurs.

  Xuyu Liu, the study’s lead researcher, who holds a doctorate in chemical biology, stated on the HRI website in 2022: “Current treatments are a double-edged sword—by clearing blood clots, it also means a patient has an increased risk of bleeding in the brain should they need emergency surgery. We are looking for clues in nature to find this magic anti-clotting drug which can work where it’s needed but also still allow patients to have antithrombotic treatments.”

  HRI researchers discovered that the natural chemical in broccoli, sulforaphane, may improve the performance of tPA and could lead to newer, safer, and more effective medications for acute stroke.

  “We know eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and foods low in saturated fats can help prevent heart disease and stroke, but can some of these same vegetables treat and reverse stroke? I think it can and my team is working to prove it at the molecular level,” Mr. Liu said in the 2022 HRI interview.

  Sulforaphane’s Protective Properties

  In an Australian radio interview, Mr. Liu said his team began investigating broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables three years ago by screening a library of over 100 natural products from healthy diets to find something with properties that would prevent blood clots in the brain.

  Mr. Liu’s background included finding ways to prevent cancer with a healthy diet, but when he transitioned into his current role at the HRI, he decided to study sulforaphane derived from cruciferous vegetables and how it could potentially treat blood clots in the circulatory system.

  According to Mr. Liu, sulforaphane isn’t limited to broccoli. In the radio interview, he said that cruciferous vegetables produce sulforaphane as a protective mechanism against insects or other types of destruction.

  For instance, an intact piece of broccoli doesn’t contain sulforaphane. It isn’t until it’s chopped or chewed that it undergoes a chemical reaction that produces sulforaphane. Sulforaphane’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties are designed to protect the plant, but when ingested by humans, studies have found sulforaphane has numerous anti-cancer and health-protective qualities.

  Results and Next Steps

  “What we found in a preclinical trial is that the tPA success rate increases to 60 per cent [sic] when the medication is given with the broccoli-derived [sulforaphane],” Mr. Liu said in an HRI interview. “Excitingly, this naturally occurring compound does not cause any signs of bleeding, which is a common side effect associated with blood-thinning agents tested in stroke treatment.”

  Preclinical testing showed that administering sulforaphane reduced the formation of blood clots while improving the action of tPA. Initial testing also found that sulforaphane could slow the onset of stroke.

  “Not only is the broccoli compound effective in improving the performance of clot-busting medication after a stroke, it could be used as a preventative agent for patients who are at a high risk of stroke,” said Mr. Liu.

  Mr. Liu’s next step is to raise funding for human clinical trials with the hope of developing a new preventative and anti-clotting treatment within five years. “This natural product has been used to prevent cancer before, so I think we have a strong rationale in terms of safety and other pharmacological properties,” he said in the radio interview.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 19:40

• In Reversal, Israel Sending Delegation To White House After "Bibi Made A Mistake"
  In Reversal, Israel Sending Delegation To White House After “Bibi Made A Mistake”

  Israel’s military has stepped up its airstrikes on the southern Gaza city Rafah in the last two days, on Wednesday bombing at least four homes, raising fears that the planned ground assault is imminent, despite the UN Security Council having just issued an official call for immediate ceasefire.

  Gaza health officials said that one of these airstrikes killed eleven people from a single family, as cited in Reuters. One local eyewitness, Jamil Abu Houri, described that “The bombing has increased, and they have threatened us with an incursion, and they say that have been given the green light for the Rafah incursion. Where is the Security Council?”

  

  While UNSC resolutions calling for ceasefire tend to be more symbolic than having real immediate impact, the formal resolution definitely ratcheted the pressure on Israel, and created tension with the White House given that it was the US abstention which allowed it to pass in the first place.

  As for the timing of a ground invasion of Rafah, regional media has cited Israeli military sources who say it will begin soon after the Muslim fasting season Ramadan is finished:

  The pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar daily, citing Egyptian sources who were said to have been in contact with Israel Defense Forces officials, reported that the expected offensive would come after Eid al-Fitr — the three-day holiday that follows Ramadan and ends around April 12 — or in early May at the latest.

  The ground incursion inside the last bastion of Hamas in the Gaza Strip would last from four to eight weeks, the sources said, and would be accompanied by an evacuation of the civilian population sheltering in Rafah, which amounts to about 1.5 million people, toward the center of the Strip along specific routes and at specific times, announced to civilians in each area of the city in advance.

  The Monday UNSC ceasefire resolution had resulted in PM Netanyahu canceling a top Israeli delegation’s expected visit to the White House this week. The Biden administration slammed the move as an “overreaction”.

  On Thursday Netanyahu has reversed course, apparently. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to send two top Israeli officials to Washington as early as next week for talks about a possible military operation in Rafah,” officials told Axios.

  “The Prime Minister’s office has agreed to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced, citing the need for “urgent” discussion on Rafah. According to more from Axios:

  A U.S. official told Axios cancelling the trip and the rhetoric around it was “an unnecessary drama on Netanyahu’s part.”

  A senior Israeli official agreed and said: “Bibi made a mistake.” She said: “We are now working on a convenient date that will work for both sides.”

  🚨🇮🇱 ISRAEL is carrying out a MASSIVE BOMBING campaign on Rafah. So much more that UN ceasefire resolution. pic.twitter.com/Mo9rZzc85W

  — Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) March 27, 2024

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

  Starting early this month President Biden had issued a ‘red line’ for the first time over Rafah, warning Israel against attacking the southern enclave which is still packed with over one million internally displaced refugees. Washington has repeatedly called on Israel to facilitate a mass exodus of civilians before any assault takes place. But Israeli officials say the military must go in to eradicate Hamas.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 19:20

• Navigating The Slippery Slope: How Hoover's Interventions Paved The Way For The Great Depression
  Navigating The Slippery Slope: How Hoover’s Interventions Paved The Way For The Great Depression

  Authored by Vibhu Vikramaditya via The Mises Institute,

  Herbert Hoover’s presidency is often mythically mischaracterized as a period of strict nonintervention in the economy. However, it was in fact defined by a series of economic maneuvers that not only deviated from laissez-faire ideology, but also significantly contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. He initiated his term in 1929 with a proactive push by establishing the Federal Farm Board and later the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. These testified to his interventionist approach, aimed at countering economic instability with federal support that ranged from agricultural price supports to protective tariffs and substantial public works investments. These policies failed to grasp the underlying economic frailties that, combined with a long recession in overexpanded agriculture, inadvertently magnified the crisis.

  

  The Long Recession in American Agriculture

  World War I, primarily waged in Europe, signaled the decline of the old elites and the end of nineteenth-century liberal economic practices. It fundamentally altered American agriculture because European resources once dedicated to food production had shifted to military needs. This caused a surge in demand for food exports and other essentials from the neutral United States. The beginning of World War I in 1914 ignited a period of economic prosperity for American farmers. This demand led to an increase in prices for various farm products. For example, in Minnesota, the average price of corn per bushel increased from fifty-nine cents in 1914 to $1.30 in 1919, and wheat prices saw a rise from $1.05 per bushel to $2.34. The prices of hogs and milk experienced similar surges.

  To fulfill this rising demand, the US government urged farmers to augment their production, and it made credit more elastic. The Federal Farm Loan Act was established by Congress in 1916, introducing twelve federal land banks designed to provide enduring loans for the expansion of farms. Many farmers seized this and similar opportunities, investing in additional land and modern equipment because they expected the economic surge to persist. They invested in land, tractors, and other new labor-saving equipment at interest rates ranging from 5 to 7 percent. By 1920, 52.4 percent of the 132,744 Minnesota farms reporting to the Census of Agriculture carried mortgage debt, totaling more than $254 million.

  Thus, after entering World War I in 1917, the US saw significant agricultural expansion, especially in the Midwest’s wheat and corn areas. Minnesota’s land prices doubled between 1910 and 1920 due to high demand, and by 1929, its farmland cultivation had soared to 18.5 million acres. However, following the wartime boom in agriculture, Europe recuperated from the war’s devastation, and postwar relief efforts were required to keep the demand for US agricultural exports—like grains, pork, beef, and dairy—high from 1918 to 1919.

  US farmers continued to increase production expecting stable demand and prices, but they were met with a gradual economic decline that plummeted further during the Great Depression. Minnesota farmers’ income dramatically dropped from $438 million in 1918 to a mere $229 million in 1922. It continued to decline, plagued throughout the ’20s as a hangover from the unsustainable wartime boom, finally plummeting in 1932 to $155 million. Grounded in the progressive ethos of the time, Hoover sought to actively intervene in the agricultural economy to bring about stability and prosperity. His belief in cooperation between the government and business sectors served as a fundamental principle guiding his policy initiatives as the secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928.

  Hoover recognized the issues of overproduction and subsequently plummeting prices, but he was oblivious to the role that the government had played in overproduction by encouraging overexpansion. He advanced the idea of cooperative marketing associations in the belief that by banding together to sell their products, farmers could stabilize prices and increase their bargaining power, which would mitigate the influence of middlemen and reduce market volatility. This agricultural crisis saw the US becoming heavily protectionist, with heavy tariff impositions on imports (in 1921 and 1922) to prop up domestic agricultural prices. Every possible action was undertaken to avoid the temporary pain of trimming overexpanded industries, which would have allowed capital, labor, and land to find more profitable uses than agriculture.

  This, then, was Hoover’s underlying experience with American agriculture during the Roaring Twenties as secretary of commerce while another sector of the economy, manufacturing and industry, was booming. His experience with agriculture played a determining role in his response to the recession during 1929–30, and it was his actions as the commerce secretary—and misunderstanding the causes of the ills of agriculture—that prepared the ground for the Great Depression. He applied his precedent of dealing with the 1920s crisis in agriculture with an engineered central plan, in the same way as he did during the 1929 crisis throughout the entire economy.

  The war had transformed the US into an economic behemoth. It was the sole major nation remaining steadfastly on the gold standard, which attracted a gold influx as global investment shifted stateside. This influx had the potential to stimulate economic expansion and rejuvenate agriculture, yet the Federal Reserve’s nascent policies were also pivotal in shaping this outcome. In the post–World War I period, the Federal Reserve (newly created in 1913) embarked on a strategy of lowering discount rates to facilitate borrowing and liquidity. In the early 1920s, the New York discount rate was cut from 6.5 to 4 percent, a stark reduction aimed at invigorating economic activity. This policy contributed to a significant uptick in the money supply, with an annual expansion rate of about 7.7 percent from 1921 to 1928. The surge in liquidity and easy credit fueled speculative investments, inflating capital goods, stock, and real estate values to unsustainable highs. When the Fed tightened interest rates in 1928 and 1929 to curb speculation, the boom faded, leaving the still-struggling agricultural sector behind.

  Setting up the Great Depression

  Upon becoming president in March 1929, Hoover launched the Federal Farm Board with $500 million to manage agricultural prices by handling surplus goods—a significant move to aid farmers by aiming for price stability and more reliable incomes. Yet this effort essentially propped up artificially high prices in a sector needing adjustment through brief deflation. Following the 1929 crash, Hoover extended these interventionist tactics to the broader economy, thus replicating the agricultural sector’s stagnation across the entire economic landscape. Hoover subscribed to the wage theory of recessions, which held that the lack of spending power among the workers was the source of the slump and overproduction. In response to the economic crisis, Hoover convened several economic conferences, gathering business and labor leaders to formulate strategies for economic stabilization and recovery.

  Central to these discussions was the issue of wages. Hoover strongly advocated against wage reductions, positing that wage maintenance would preserve workers’ purchasing power, thus sustaining demand and preventing further economic decline. The policy faced obvious and significant opposition from business leaders, who argued that wage maintenance exacerbated unemployment by discouraging hiring and straining business finances. Despite the fact that it had always been the norm for wages and prices to fall during recessions, Hoover remained stern and thus precipitated more unemployment as businesses went bankrupt paying artificially high wages.

  Hoover responded to rising unemployment and economic stagnation by boosting federal investment in public works, notably speeding up the construction of projects like the Hoover Dam. These efforts sought to generate jobs, stimulate industry, and improve infrastructure. However, despite these ambitious objectives, the public works programs fell short, unable to address the root issues of overexpansion across multiple sectors. In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act despite a petition from more than a thousand economists urging him to veto the legislation as it was a misguided attempt to shield US businesses and farmers from international competition through imposing high tariffs on imported goods. Although intended to protect domestic industries during the onset of the Great Depression, it proved counterproductive, exacerbating both deflation and inflation and hindering recovery.

  The act’s protectionist approach ironically perpetuated deflation by raising import duties to record levels, stifling trade and economic growth. It also disrupted price adjustments needed for recovery, as the raised import prices led to inflationary increased domestic prices, discouraging consumer spending. Far from promoting economic recovery, the act provoked international retaliation, sparking a global trade war. This retaliation saw US imports and exports nosedive by 66 percent and 61 percent respectively between 1929 and 1932, thus undermining any recovery efforts and leading to a decline in output.

  Similar to his efforts in agriculture, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932, marking a significant escalation in federal economic intervention. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was tasked with providing crucial financial assistance to banks, railroads, and other major industries, aiming to prevent further economic collapse by ensuring these sectors’ continued operational viability. It had the same effect of propping up the artificially inflated capital values of banks, firms, and major businesses that actually needed quick and thorough liquidations, as had occurred in earlier historical downturns.

  In conclusion, the onset of the Great Depression was significantly influenced by misdirected government interventions. The agricultural boom and subsequent bust, coupled with Herbert Hoover’s policies—including the establishment of the Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as well as the enactment of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—distorted economic realities. These actions, intended to bolster the economy, ironically contributed to the very crisis they sought to prevent, showcasing the delicate balance between policy and economic health.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 19:00

• Investigators Probe 'Dirty Fuel' In Baltimore Container Ship Disaster Amid Mid-Atlantic Supply Chain Crisis
  Investigators Probe ‘Dirty Fuel’ In Baltimore Container Ship Disaster Amid Mid-Atlantic Supply Chain Crisis

  Catastrophic supply chain snarls are materializing in the Mid-Atlantic area after a container ship rammed a 1.6-mile-long bridge at the Port of Baltimore, causing the bridge to collapse and paralyzing terminals along the port. 

  Before we shed more color on the worsening supply chain issues, a new Wall Street Journal report cites people familiar with the investigation into the crash as saying contaminated fuel could’ve contributed to the container ship “Dali” losing power. 

  According to a Coast Guard briefing report viewed by the WSJ, Dali’s lights began to flicker about an hour after the ship began steaming down the marine channel out of the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

  Breakdown of the multiple power failures on the container ship ‘Dali’ that likely caused the impact with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore today.

  [🎞️ Moshe Schwartz]pic.twitter.com/ST5iBXrjxF

  — Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 26, 2024

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  “The vessel went dead, no steering power and no electronics,” said an officer aboard the ship. 

  “One of the engines coughed and then stopped. The smell of burned fuel was everywhere in the engine room, and it was pitch black,” the officer said, adding that the vessel didn’t have time to drop anchors before hitting the bridge. Minutes before the crash, officers on the ship issued a mayday call to the Coast Guard. 

  

  Fotis Pagoulatos, a naval architect in Athens, said contaminated fuel could seize up the ship’s main power generators and result in a complete blackout and loss of propulsion. 

  During a press conference, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said an investigation is underway to review the vessel’s operations and safety logs and black box recorders to determine what happened in the moments leading up to Baltimore’s biggest industrial disaster in several generations. 

  REPORT: There were no vehicles traveling on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it fell into the ocean thanks to heroic police officers who jumped into action.

  It has now been confirmed that the only people on the bridge when it collapsed was a pothole repair crew.

  A total of… pic.twitter.com/U6PZPO8SDG

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 26, 2024

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  Hours after the incident, the White House and federal government agencies quickly ruled out a cyber attack or industrial sabotage as the source of the ship’s power loss. With an investigation barely underway, it would seem too preliminary to rule out those things. It’s not yet illegal to have an open mind. 

  Despite legacy media outlets won’t even entertain the slightest possibility of a cyber attack or industrial sabotage, some X users say they aren’t ruling anything out, considering NATO and Russia are on the brink of a major conflict, the Red Sea crisis continues, Hamas-Irasel war rages on, and Sino-US relations have yet to recover fully. 

  We know that in a matter of seconds, the Dali and its all-Indian crew that rammed the bridge triggered an instant shutdown of the Port of Baltimore that could take weeks, if not months, to restore. 

  “This is a shut down of a major port, and rebuilding will take a significant amount of time as it is over water,” Nada Sanders, a professor of supply-chain management at Northeastern University, told the WSJ in a separate note. 

  Sanders said, “We will see the effects domestically and globally in terms of shortages and higher prices for the average consumer.” 

  Bloomberg Economic Insights shows that the auto, energy, and food industries will be the most affected. Here’s an explanation of the disruption:  

  • The wreckage from the Francis Scott Key Bridge essentially blocks incoming and outgoing traffic to the Port of Baltimore.
  • According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the port ranked 17th in terms of total tonnage handled in 2021. We estimate it intermediates about 2%-3% of US imports.
  •  By those metrics, the disruption to Port of Baltimore traffic would appear to have minimal impact on the broader US economy. But that most likely understates the full effect.

  According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the Port of Baltimore handled about 3% of all East Coast and Gulf Coast imports in the year through Jan. 31. It’s a crucial terminal for European carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Volkswagen AG, and BMW.

  

  It’s also the second-largest terminal for US coal exports, with a shutdown likely crimping shipments to India. And many more terminals will be shuttered… 

  

  The 984-foot ship was hauling containers of Chinese-made furniture, appliances, plasticware, and construction machinery. 

  

  Expect a localized shortage of these products?

  

  US Customs and Border Protection provides a view into Dali’s cargo. 

  

  Why didn’t the State of Maryland or Baltimore City install protective barriers against ship strikes on the Key Bridge? Were woke Democrats in Annapolis too concerned about DEI and burning the state into the ground with reckless spending than care about infrastructure? Yet another failure by Democrats who are asleep at the wheel.   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 18:45

• US, Japan To Initiate Huge Defense Treaty Upgrade With Eye On China
  US, Japan To Initiate Huge Defense Treaty Upgrade With Eye On China

  The United States and Japan are poised to unveil their largest defense treaty revision in decades. The FT has reported that President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are soon to “announce plans to reorganize the U.S. armed forces in Japan to strengthen the development of operational plans and training of the U.S.-Japan at the summit in Washington D.C. on the 10th of next month.”

  Crucially the new agreement is expected to invest the three-star commander of the US Forces in Japan with more operational authority. As it currently stands, and following the development of the US-Japan Security Treaty first signed in 1960, the US commander is required to coordinate approval for operations with US Indo-Pacific Command based out of Hawaii. 

  

  All of this comes amid the backdrop of China-Taiwan tensions being continually on the rise, and as North Korea flexes its military might in response to joint US-South Korea drills on the peninsula.

  Japan currently hosts an estimated 54,000 US military troops plus another at least 8,000 US civilian contractors. Recently there were fears that a Western troop presence would be expanded in Japan with the proposed opening of a NATO office there, but the plan was nixed after strong protestations from Beijing.

  Analyzing the coming upgrade to the US-Japan defense treaty, one regional report explains: “This review responds to criticisms that it is inconvenient for rapid response in case of emergency because of the distance between the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii and the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which are 3850 miles away and have a 19-hour time difference.”

  Prime Minister Kishida has made it a theme of the past couple years that Tokyo is committed to making great strides at becoming an unambiguous regional and “strategic leader” as a “security provider in the Indo-Pacific.” However, Japan officials have long emphasized a stronger armed forces primarily for the sake of ‘deterrence’ – something which Washington has encouraged. Naturally, China doesn’t see these developments as merely for deterrence.

  President Joe Biden has nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen F. Jost to take command of U.S. Forces Japan, according to a Pentagon news release Monday.https://t.co/84Q2tSBKqp

  — Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) March 27, 2024

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  The past two years has also witnessed a flurry of activity between the US and Japan at numerous levels of government especially focusing on an overhaul in the U.S.–Japan defense posture and strategy. There’s also been a plan in motion for a restructuring Marine Corps forces stationed on and around Okinawa.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 18:40

• Baltimore Coal Exports Blocked After Bridge Collapse
  Baltimore Coal Exports Blocked After Bridge Collapse

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  Baltimore Port’s coal exports are likely to be blocked for weeks after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, according to a Pennsylvania coal trading firm.  

  The bridge collapsed early on Tuesday after a cargo ship lost power and slammed into the construction, which crumbled within seconds and will disrupt navigation near the Baltimore port, which is one of the biggest coal export terminals in America.

  Baltimore is the nation’s second-largest coal exporting port after Norfolk, Virginia, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2022, about one-fifth of U.S. coal exports left through Baltimore.

  

  The port of Baltimore is also one of the 20 largest ports in the U.S. and handles both coal and petroleum products.

  Following the bridge collapse, up to 2.5 million tons of coal exports from Baltimore could be blocked for up to six weeks, Ernie Thrasher, CEO at Pennsylvania coal trading firm Xcoal Energy & Resources, told Bloomberg.

  “You’ll see some diversion to other ports but the other ports are pretty busy,” Thrasher added. 

  “There’s a limit on how much you can divert,” said the executive, whose firm works with several coal suppliers. 

  Globally, the disrupted exports are unlikely to have a huge impact on coal prices, but many coal cargoes from Baltimore are typically headed for India, so there the impact could be felt along the supply chain, Thrasher told Bloomberg.

  At any rate, the bridge collapse has already disrupted coal shipments and delivery times.

  For example, rail company CSX, which owns the Curtis Bay coal pier in Baltimore, told Reuters on Tuesday that existing coal customers should expect “potential shipment delays.”

  Coal producer CONSOL Energy said vessel access in and out of the CONSOL Marine Terminal, located in the Port of Baltimore, has been delayed. As of Tuesday morning, the company did not have a definitive timeline of when vessel access or normal operations will resume.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 18:20

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• Escobar: The Nuland/Budanov/Tajik/Crocus Connection
  Escobar: The Nuland/Budanov/Tajik/Crocus Connection

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack.

  

  This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.

  December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”

  January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.

  January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.

  February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.

  February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.

  Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.

  Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).

  Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.

  March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.

  March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.

  March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.

  March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.

  March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.

  ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms

  The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.

  And that brings us to the Tajik connection.

  There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.

  The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.

  All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.

  A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.

  And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.

  The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.

  Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.

  Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.

  Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.

  Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.

  Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.

  The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.

  The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.

  After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.

  That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.

  The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs

  Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.

  Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.

  One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.

  The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.

  The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.

  Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,

  As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.

  Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).

  The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

  But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.

  The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.

  But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.

  Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.

  In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 03/27/2024 – 02:00

• China's 'Unrestricted Warfare': Is It Here Already?
  China’s ‘Unrestricted Warfare’: Is It Here Already?

  Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

  • China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

  • The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by “unrestricted warfare.” Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is perfect.

  • What are some of the steps that should be taken?

  • The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

  The West has correctly identified the Chinese Communist Party as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago. (Image source: iStock)

  If there is one thing FBI Director Christopher Wray has been consistent on, it is the threat of Communist China across a wide range of fronts. At an unprecedented event on July 6, 2022, Wray and his British counterpart, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, held a joint public appearance – the first ever — to discuss the growing security challenge posed by China. Evidently, they saw the matter as urgent.

  In this joint appearance, the two men highlighted the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP’s civil-military fusion state — specifically, that the CCP is intent on acquiring and stealing technology and business secrets from the West. Targeted areas include advanced materials, data and artificial intelligence (AI). China’s President Xi Jinping has made it clear that he intends China to not only catch-up to, but surpass, the West.

  More recently, Wray highlighted how the CCP and those affiliated with it apparently plan to use its technological capabilities to target the West.

  China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

  

  The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by “unrestricted warfare.” Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is perfect.

  Jen Easterly, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), testified before the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party that the threats posed by China are not imaginary: they are real. Her agency already has discovered CCP penetrations into the telecommunications industry, aviation, energy and water infrastructure. As the threat from China continues to grow, the global security environment requires the U.S. and our allies to act now to harden our infrastructure and systems to mitigate the threat.

  The problem is one of supreme urgency.

  No one knows who will win the U.S. presidential election on November 5. If I were head of the Chinese Communist Party, I would probably be saying to myself, “I am stuck with a weak economy, more than a billion people who will not be happy with that, and just more seven months with an American president who calls me a ‘competitor,’ as if the US-Chinese relationship were about EV car dealerships — although that, too. What are my choices? a) Use this opportunity, which will soon be closing, to choke off Taiwan and take over the world’s supply of semiconductor chips. If the U.S. tries to stop us, we could threaten them with mayhem or simply go ahead and make some. b) Instead of Taiwan, why not just go straight for the U.S. while it is bogged down in Ukraine, the Middle East and its election? Or c) We can wait and see who wins (with our help) and if it is the wrong person, we still have two-and-a-half months until the new president is inaugurated.”

  What are some of the steps that should be taken?

  First, stop all investments in China and reroute essentials, such as the manufacture of medicines, to other nations. Any investment, even in paper cocktail umbrellas, goes toward strengthening the People’s Liberation Army against us. We can hear the screeching of Wall Street and their Augustinian cry: “But not yet!” The threat, however, should be viewed in terms of national security. No one will ring a bell when the lights go out.

  The U.S. will also need to impose secondary sanctions, so that any country preferring to do business with China is prohibited from doing business with the U.S.

  In addition, China — for poisoning to death roughly 100,000 Americans each year with fentanyl and other opiates, a mass-murder equivalent to one large plane crash every day — should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. China should also be barred from using the international banking system, or SWIFT, “a secure network that allows more than 10,000 financial institutions in 212 different countries to send and receive information about financial transactions to each other.”

  Second, companies and universities also need to get serious about their security systems to make the theft of intellectual property more difficult to perpetrate but easier to detect. We cannot allow our enemies to short-circuit the difficult and expensive process of technological innovation by simply walking out the door with the plans.

  This precaution, sadly, would do well to include a moratorium, at least for the time being, on students from Communist China attending U.S. universities. Again, there will be more screeching from academic institutions that are fond of holding out their tin cups, but are we really interested in educating our “competitors” to take us over or kill us?

  Third, the U.S. needs to cooperate with its allies to protect the intellectual property and technological advances of our countries’ respective corporations as a national security priority. One excellent example where this cooperation has been successful is between the U.S. and the Netherlands. The governments of the two countries have worked together closely to protect against technology transfer to the CCP. While each country has the decision as to its own trade policies, sharing intelligence and threat assessments enables both countries to make better decisions regarding joint security concerns.

  Fourth, companies must be willing to notify the government if their systems have been attacked or compromised by outside entities. Under current law, publicly-traded companies have four days to report a cyber incident to regulators. Businesses sometimes have been understandably reluctant to acknowledge that their systems have been compromised: there is the risk of reputational damage and unpleasant repercussions. Organizations, however, need to be confident that sharing this information with the government will only be used to help address the specific incident. Tragically, our government has not quite been doing all it can to inspire trust. There might be some extremely unpleasant repercussions from that.

  Finally, there must be a coordinated strategy between our national, state and local governments on the CCP threat, including prime examples of where this system has failed, as in the production of EV batteries in the U.S. by CCP firms; the CCP buying up American farmland, especially near military bases, and the government’s failure to hold the CCP to account for its lies about COVID’s human-to-human transmissibility, which caused the unnecessary deaths of more than a million Americans, and the CCP’s mass-poisoning of Americans with fentanyl, which in itself is an act of war.

  While the federal government has warned “that Chinese EVs could collect your data and send it back to China,” states and local governments are welcoming Chinese EV battery manufacturing plants into their communities, frequently with massive government subsidies. This lack of coordination is a serious vulnerability in our national security posture.

  Wray and McCallum were correct in highlighting the threat from the CCP in 2022. Wray has reemphasized the growing threat.

  The evidence is clear, and the time has come for our elected leaders and public servants — at all levels of government — to respond in a coordinated fashion to this threat.

  The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 23:40

• Which Countries Are Really The Richest?
  Which Countries Are Really The Richest?

  Ranking countries by the size of their economies and their overall net wealth, the U.S. is usually at the top of the list, followed by countries like China, Japan or Germany.

  But, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, sorting countries for their per-capita average wealth – or even for their median per-capita wealth – other countries come out on top.

  Using the two metrics, Switzerland was the richest country in the world with the highest average per-capita wealth of around US$685,000 per adult.

  Looking at median per-capita wealth – the wealth of the person that shares their country with an equal number of richer and poorer people – Iceland tops the ranking with around $413,000 in wealth being held by this (imaginary) person.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Per-capita assets arguably show a more balanced picture of a country’s wealth by acknowledging that smaller countries with less citizens will of course accumulate less wealth in total.

  Yet, calculating averages does not take into account how wealth is distributed in a society.

  Median wealth, on the other hand, increases the more equal a country’s assets are allocated. Iceland and other Scandinavian countries are known for their more equal wealth distribution and data by Credit Suisse reflects this to a degree. Denmark comes in rank 7 and Norway in rank 10 for per-capita median wealth.

  The U.S. is the third-wealthiest country on a per-capita average basis, yet Americans are only in rank 15 for median wealth.

  The situation in Belgium is the other way round: It is listed 13th for average wealth, but third for median wealth, showing that it is a more egalitarian country in terms of wealth distribution.

  Looking at the size of the gap between mean and median wealth, the U.S. comes in rank 7 with an average wealth more than five times or 512% as high as the median wealth. This is exceeded by no major country in the world except Brazil, where this number stands at 517%.

  Some of the smallest relative gaps between mean and median wealth were registered in the countries topping the median wealth list: Iceland, Luxembourg and Belgium. Other countries which might not have the highest mean wealth rates but do have some of the smallest gaps are Eastern European nations Slovakia and Slovenia. Poorer countries which nevertheless have big gaps between average and median wealth include the aforementioned Brazil as well as South Africa, Russia and Nigeria.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 23:20

• New Details Emerge In Death Of Sen. McConnell's Sister-In-Law
  New Details Emerge In Death Of Sen. McConnell’s Sister-In-Law

  Authored by Steve Ispas and Lear Zhou via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Angela Chao, the sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), died on Feb. 11 after backing her vehicle into a pond.

  

  More details have since emerged, including that Ms. Chao was on the phone with a friend for eight minutes after her car hit the pond and was sinking, according to the Blanco County Sheriff’s incident report obtained by The Epoch Times.

  The report also revealed Ms. Chao had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.233 percent, almost three times higher than the legal threshold of 0.08 percent for driving in Texas.

  Ms. Chao, 50, was CEO of the U.S.-based family business, Foremost Group, and a previous top executive for a Chinese shipping giant and board member of China’s World Bank.

  On February 10, Ms. Chao and seven female friends—many with home addresses in New York—had gathered for dinner and drinks at the guest lodge located on Ms. Chao’s private ranch, JW Ranch, in Blanco County, Texas.

  “They had good conversation throughout the night and all were in good spirits,” the incident report states, according to statements from those present.

  As the evening wrapped up, Ms. Chao decided to drive to the main lodge rather than take the short walk from the guest house.

  Security cameras on the exterior of the lodge captured the moment Ms. Chao drove her car into the pond, according to two videos from different angles that were provided to investigators by the property manager.

  The video from the south side camera shows Ms. Chao come into view alone at 11:37:02 p.m. as she “continues to walk unsteadily to her vehicle while continuing to hold her cellular phone in her right hand,” the police report states.

  At 11:38:06 p.m. the vehicle lurches forward toward a wooden barrier, then reverses to the left and over the top of a limestone block wall, entering the water at 11:38:15 p.m.

  The video from the west side camera showed the vehicle floating and spinning after entering water, at 11:41:52 pm the headlight disappears and reappears at 11:42:37 pm.

  The report says at approximately 11:42 pm, Ms. Chao’s friend Amber Landeau-Keinan received a telephone call from Ms. Chao, who told her “in a calm voice” that she was in the “lake,” which was a stock tank, or pond, near the guest house.

  Ms. Chao said she had put the car, a 2020 Tesla model X SUV, in reverse instead of drive while making a three-point turn.

  

  At the time, Ms. Landeau-Keinan was in bed, and as she remained on the phone with Ms. Chao, she got dressed, and knocked on Heela Tsuzuki’s door who was in the next room, to inform her that Ms. Chao was in the pond, the report states.

  The west side camera captures Ms. Landeau-Keinan rushing outside to look for the vehicle at 11:43:21 p.m., while on the phone with Ms. Chao.

  She told Ms. Chao to get out of the vehicle after Ms. Chao said her feet were under water.

  Ms. Chao informs Ms. Landeau-Keinan she’s not able to get out of the vehicle, the report states. Ms. Chao told Landeau-Keinan the water was rising and she was going to die and said “I love you” prior to the vehicle submerging, the report states.

  Another friend, Victoria Garcia, got into the water and swam to the vehicle, while Ms. Landeau-Keinan got into a kayak and paddled toward the vehicle.

  Ms. Tsuzuki notified others about the incident. She tried multiple times to find the ranch manager, Michael Galster and his wife Hill, for assistance, and called 911 but she couldn’t provide the exact location due to a poor carrier signal.

  Call records from AT&T per a subpoena recorded the time of the first 911 call at 11:47:59 p.m., the police report notes.

  The next 911 call, that provided the location, was made at 11:52:53 pm, and by this time Mr. Galster had been located.

  Dispatch called a rescue team at 11:53.04 p.m., and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene at 12:10 a.m.

  When Blanco County Sheriff’s deputy Ryan Bible arrived, he saw the manager standing on top of the “fully submerged vehicle located in the [stock] tank about 25 yards from the north bank,” and “a female in a red dress on a kayak paddling toward the shore,” according to his statement.

  When the medic team arrived at 12:12 a.m., Mr. Bible and deputy Randall Mathew entered the water trying to locate the entrapped Ms. Chao.

  Mr. Galster told them the back passenger door of the vehicle was open, and the two deputies attempted multiple times to get to Ms. Chao through that door but were unable to.

  “During our time in the water there were several females screaming at us frantically on the bank.” Mr. Bible wrote in his statement.

  Mr. Bible swam back to shore to retrieve a breaker bar and tried to break the windshield but failed. With the help of two medics, he eventually broke the driver’s side window.

  “Once the window was busted I swam down and felt a hand.” Mr. Bible said.

  “Medic Ben Collie then was able to pull the hand out from the vehicle and we were then able to extract the female from the vehicle,” he wrote.

  Ms. Chao was out of the water at 12:56 a.m., 1 hour and 8 minutes after the car plunged into the pond. She was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m.

  Lt. Adam Acosta, an investigator with the Sheriff’s Office, telephoned Ms. Chao’s husband, Jim Breyer, about the incident.

  

  “Breyer informed me for religious reasons they didn’t want an autopsy conducted.” Mr. Acosta wrote.

  “This is not an uncommon request from family.”

  Texas Rangers and FBI agents met with the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office on February 15, according to the report.

  “After viewing everything they [Texas Rangers and the FBI] felt this incident was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.” the report concluded.

  However, the case remained open until the toxicology report and telephone records for Keinan and Tsuzuki were obtained, stated the report, which was released on March 20.

  The vehicle was pulled from the pond the night of the accident and released back to the ranch manager later the same day.

  About Angela Chao

  Ms. Chao has five sisters, one of whom, Elaine Chao, is married to Mr. McConnell. Ms. Elaine Chao was Secretary of Transportation in the Trump administration.

  Ms. Chao and her husband, who were married in 2012, both have extensive ties to China. Both are Harvard alumni and Mr. Breyer also attended Stanford.

  Mr. Breyer is a venture capitalist and longtime investor in China via his company Breyer Capital and as the former co-chair of Beijing-based IDG Capital.

  Ms. Chao was one of six independent board members of the Bank of China from Jan. 4, 2017, to June 30, 2022.

  

  “The re-election of Chao as an independent non-executive board member of the bank will help the board to improve its ability to analyze and judge the international situation,” states a document from the bank’s 2018 shareholders meeting.

  The Bank of China has 14 board members; Four executive members, four non-executive members, and six independent members, according to an official document.

  The Bank of China is managed and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with most members on the board also members of the CCP. During her tenure, Ms. Chao was the only board member outside of China.

  From May 2009 to June 2011, Ms. Chao was also a board member of state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), which builds ships for the People’s Liberation Army and Navy.

  The United Steelworkers Union and several other unions filed a petition on March 12 with the United States Trade Representative to investigate China’s maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sector, including CSSC.

  Mr. Breyer has invested heavily in China for many years.

  As co-chair of IDG Capital from 2005 to January 2019, Mr. Breyer helped expand the company and invest in significant Chinese companies.

  IDG touts itself as “the first global investment firm to enter China” on LinkedIn. “IDG Capital has funded more than half of all Chinese unicorns in early rounds.”

  

  A report from the U.S. China Commission calls IDG’s investment track record in China “legendary.”

  According to the report, IDG’s China investments include Qihoo 360, which has been flagged by the U.S. Department of Commerce for “activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”

  Other companies, such as ASR Microelectronics contribute to military-civil fusion programs in China.

  According to the U.S. State Department, military-civil fusion is an aggressive strategy that the CCP uses to develop a first-class military by removing barriers between civilian and commercial sectors and its military. The State Department says the CCP gains ground in this strategy by also “acquiring and diverting the world’s cutting-edge technologies—including through theft—in order to achieve military dominance.”

  Mr. Breyer also sits as a member of an independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.

  The task force is assembled to “assess issues of critical importance to U.S. foreign policy,” according to the website.

  “Task Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy.”

  In a 2022 interview with Techcrunch, Mr. Breyer said he has been very happy to invest in China over the past 16 years, “and I fully am passionate about continuing that for many years.”

  Mr. Breyer was chairman of the advisory committee of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management until 2021.

  “I’m involved with the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Advisory Board, which is really a wonderful who’s-who list of American executives. I was the chair until a year ago, and Tim Cook is now the chair,” he told Techcrunch.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 23:00

• Gov. Al Smith And The Anti-Trump Republicans: Gingrich
  Gov. Al Smith And The Anti-Trump Republicans: Gingrich

  Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClear Politics,

  As I’ve watched some of President Donald Trump’s former appointees and allies say they can’t support him in 2024, I was reminded of a similar scenario in American history. 

  

  In 1936, Former New York Gov. Al Smith decided that he could not support President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s re-election.

  Smith was a popular reform Democrat who had been elected Governor of New York four times. In 1928, he became the first Catholic ever nominated for President by a major party. To strengthen his campaign, Smith convinced Roosevelt, who was then recovering from polio at Warm Springs, Georgia, to come back and run for governor. Smith lost the presidential race to Herbert Hoover, but Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

  When Roosevelt’s New Deal embraced government activism, powerful measures of intervening in the economy, and creating government programs for the poor and unemployed, Smith was alienated. He had been part of the eastern conservative wing of the Democratic Party, which had fought against William Jennings Bryan and his western populism.

  Gov. Smith was closer to the business establishment than to radical college professors.

  Finally, Smith could no longer support the man he had previously recruited. On Jan. 26, 1936, Smith said at the American Liberty League Dinner:

  “I must make a confession. It is not easy for me to stand up here tonight and talk to the American people against the Democratic administration. This is not easy. It hurts me. But I can call upon innumerable witnesses to testify to the fact that during my whole public life I put patriotism above partisanship. And when I see danger – I say ‘danger,’ that is, the ‘Stop, look, and listen’ to the fundamental principles upon which this government of ours was organized – it is difficult for me to refrain from speaking up.”

  Despite Smith’s defection, the Roosevelt New Deal coalition was massive (Roosevelt defeated Republican Kansas Gov. Alf Landon by 523 electoral votes and received 60.8 percent of the vote). Landon carried only Maine and Vermont.

  I tell that story to say this: The anti-Trump Republicans resemble the anti-Roosevelt Democrats of 1936. They yearn for a party which has disappeared. They advocate policies which are no longer realistic or viable. They are repelled by President Trump’s aggressive style and his dramatic shifts in policy.

  They are rapidly becoming a fossilized reminder of a party which no longer exists – and wants to operate in a world which no longer exists.

  Some have begun to harken back to the President Ronald Reagan years as a golden time. They wish the GOP could return to them. It is impossible to return to the 1980s, because the world has changed. The problems have changed. The politics have changed. And the institutions are sicker and more destructive than they were under Reagan.

  I first spent time with then Gov. Reagan in 1974. I worked to create the first Capitol Steps event – and really the first Contract with America – for candidate Reagan in 1980. For eight years, I served in the House as an active ally of President Reagan on nearly every issue. President Reagan was bold in his visionary approach but careful and cautious in taking risks. While he said the ultimate outcome of the Cold War would be “we win they lose,” he did not risk military confrontation with the Soviet Union.

  Reagan would have been appalled at a 22-year war in Afghanistan, which the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs admitted this week was a strategic defeat.

  Reagan warned in his farewell address that we were losing ground to a cultural effort to undermine our history, destroy the spirit of patriotism and eliminate learning what it meant to be an American. He would be much bolder and more radical today – faced with collapsing inner-city schools and radical anti-Americanism on college campuses. The Gov. Reagan who took on the counterculture at Berkeley was a much tougher and more intense opponent than the Morning in America Reagan from the 1984 campaign.

  People who object to President Trump’s aggressiveness and hide behind a sanitized, phony memory of Reagan forget that it was Governor Reagan who said of the Berkeley protests, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with, no more appeasement.”

  As Matthew Continetti recently wrote for the National Review, “If Donald Trump is elected president in November, he will have assembled a coalition unlike any Republican nominee in my lifetime.”

  Citing research from the American Enterprise Institute, Continetti pointed out that President Trump’s favorability is growing. His popularity is now at the highest points since he left office, and he is making steady gains with white and black Americans – and big gains with Hispanic Americans.

  Continetti captured the current challenge for the anti-Trump Republicans: “We aren’t used to a politics where the party of the ‘Left’ represents the establishment, and the party of the ‘Right’ represents an insurgent movement against the settled way of doing things.”

  In short, traditional Republicans who wanted to be part of the establishment are being alienated by new Republicans who want to change that establishment.

  The traditional Republican leadership (largely the Bush wing of the party) came from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and had similar pedigrees. They see themselves as governing within the right wing of the old order. They are naturally repelled by the boisterous, noisy emergence of a working-class Republican movement which includes Latinos, African Americans, and blue collar whites. It doesn’t help that the new Republicans want to shatter the old order – not join it.

  Think of the anti-Trump Republicans as the Al Smith branch of the GOP. Their complaints will tell you more about them than President Trump – and they will also lose.

  For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 22:20

• Team Of Chinese Engineers Targeted By Suicide Bomber In Pakistan
  Team Of Chinese Engineers Targeted By Suicide Bomber In Pakistan

  Separatist Islamic insurgents in Pakistan appear to be engaging in all-out war with the government and its Chinese partners who are building Belt and Road Initiative projects in the south Asian country. Beijing has been investing billions into Pakistan, but some regions are very high-risk in terms of the security situation.

  After a string of attacks on locations hosting major Chinese infrastructure projects, there’s been a fresh suicide attack which killed five Chinese nationals Tuesday. A Pakistani driver was also killed when a suicide attacker crashed his explosive-laden vehicle into the group’s convoy, in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

  The Chinese nationals were engineers on their way from the capital of Islamabad to Dasu, which is the location of a new hydroelectric dam being constructed by a Chinese company.

  

  The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and other similar ethnic separatist groups are an immediate suspect but no group has yet claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.

  Making matters worse for rescue and recovery efforts, the Chinese convoy was attacked at the moment it traversed a mountainous area which has hard to access parts. According to Al Jazeera: 

  “Our rescue team has successfully retrieved bodies of four people whereas recovery of two more people is still ongoing,” Bilal Faizi, spokesman for Rescue 1122 group in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Al Jazeera.

  Rescue officials said the vehicle carrying the Chinese nationals fell in a gorge after the blast and at least two bodies were badly burnt, making their identification difficult.

  Just a week ago there was a prior major terror attack at Pakistan’s strategic port city of Gwadar, which is crucial to the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A group of heavily armed militants stormed the complex last Wednesday and engaged in a lengthy firefight with security forces.

  Pakistan authorities identified the attackers as Baloch separatists, which had also been armed with bombs. At least seven of the militants were shot dead by security forces. The port has for more than the past decade been run by  the China Overseas Port Holding Company.

  Ethnic separatist and radical Islamic terrorist organizations have for years waged a long-running insurgency against the government and its foreign partners, accusing Islamabad of exploiting the population of the region.

  

  These groups have especially sought to target infrastructure and projects of the CPEC, seeing in it further confirmation that the Pakistan government is stealing from locals and enriching itself off foreign investments.

  China has long deployed security forces in order to protect these key economic corridors of the One Belt One Road Initiative, also commonly called the Silk Road Economic Belt.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 22:00

• Infrasound From Wind Turbines Could Be 'A Huge Threat To The Entire Biodiversity': Doctor
  Infrasound From Wind Turbines Could Be ‘A Huge Threat To The Entire Biodiversity’: Doctor

  Authored by Maurice Forgeng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  More than 70,000 wind turbines operate across the United States, and the U.S. government continues to approve offshore wind projects as part of its transition toward clean energy.

  

  When wind turbines rotate, however, they generate not only electricity but also infrasound.

  For Dr. Ursula Bellut-Staeck, this development represents “a huge problem for all forms of organisms,” including humans. The medical doctor and scientific author has been studying the health effects of infrasound for several years. She has been looking into infrasound as a stressor on the cellular level since 2015 and published a paper in 2023 on how infrasound affects microcirculation and endothelial cells.

  Inaudible but Impactful

  Infrasound is defined as a sound wave with a frequency of less than 20 hertz (Hz). The lower the frequency of the sound, the greater its wavelength and the harder it is to shield from it. Infrasound can penetrate walls, people, and animals.

  “With ever larger wind turbines, the frequencies are getting lower and lower. This makes infrasound more problematic and dangerous,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck told The Epoch Times.

  Today’s wind turbines reach frequencies as low as 0.25 Hz. The wavelength of this frequency is just under 0.86 miles.

  Infrasound has another special feature. Humans cannot usually hear frequencies below 16 Hz, which marks the so-called lower hearing threshold. In other words, we cannot hear many of the sounds emitted by wind turbines. However, we may feel them in our bodies as humming or rumbling, as with a loudspeaker. The lower the frequency, the higher the sound pressure level (i.e., the volume) must be to feel or hear it.

  Nevertheless, the mechanical forces emanating from the inaudible sound frequencies can have an effect on the cell and membrane structures, Dr. Bellut-Staeck said.

  Transmitted via the Air and Ground

  Wind turbines generate infrasound when the rotor blade brushes past the mast. The rotor blade pushes large air masses in front of it, which is then interrupted at the mast. Infrasound is then transmitted not only through the air but also through the ground via the tower and can penetrate houses. Buildings, therefore, offer no protection. “On the contrary: Airborne and ground-borne infrasound can add up considerably indoors,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck said.

  Impact on Endothelial Cells

  Infrasound could also affect microcirculation, the blood circulation of the fine capillary network where oxygen and nutrients enter the surrounding tissues.

  More precisely, it’s the endothelial cells located on the inner wall of the capillaries that react to infrasound, Dr. Ursula Bellut-Staeck said. She’s been studying microcirculation and endothelial cells since 2004. In addition to transporting proteins, these cells have many vital functions, such as inhibiting inflammation and controlling blood pressure. In a rat study examining the effects of infrasound, researchers noticed endothelial swelling and outer cell membrane damage within three hours of exposure to infrasound with a frequency of 8 Hz.

  

  “Since around 2015, it has been noticed that people exposed to infrasound and vibration from technical emitters have shown symptoms that correspond to microcirculatory disorders,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck said. This effect was particularly noticeable after smaller wind turbines were replaced by larger ones.

  Reported adverse effects of industrial wind turbines include weakness, dizziness, headaches, concentration and memory issues, ear pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, and sleep disorders, according to research cited in Canadian Family Physician.

  Numerous animals have also reacted to wind turbines. It has been observed that they leave the vicinity of wind turbines. One study published in Scientific Reports showed that many bird and mammal species avoided wind farms and the surrounding areas, affecting distribution and migration patterns. Place-bound animals such as horses, cows, and pets are said to have shown changes in behavior, including signs of stress.

  “The symptoms in animals cannot be [attributed to] a nocebo effect,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck noted, as official authorities sometimes suggest. In contrast to the placebo effect, the nocebo effect describes a negative health effect from expectations of negative consequences.

  Dr. Bellut-Staeck pointed out that other technical systems also emit infrasound and could cause major problems. For example, in or near residences, this applies to heat pumps, biogas plants, and gas turbines. However, she expects large wind turbines to have the most far-reaching consequences for the environment and biodiversity—precisely because of their increasing number and size.

  “Such chronic and impulsive low-frequency stressors can never be compared to natural infrasound pollution [like high surf and strong winds],” she said.

  Are Whale Deaths Connected?

  In 2023, official data revealed an increase in the stranding and death of whales along the U.S. East Coast. There was a temporal and geographical connection between this excess mortality and the geological surveying conducted for the expansion of offshore wind power. As a result, 30 New Jersey mayors signed a petition asking congressmen to help pause offshore wind power expansion activities until a full investigation could be conducted. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has stated, “There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.”

  But Dr. Bellut-Staeck remains concerned by the low-frequency sound and vibrations of ship noise and other sounds. In the ocean, sound travels at 0.91 miles per second—four times faster than in the air. The depth of the oceans, therefore, offers no protection against sound.

  “It doesn’t just affect orientation, but also the regulation of vital bodily functions,” Dr. Bellut-Staeck said. “The consequences for the animals here are also lack of energy, chronic inflammation, disruption of reproduction, excess mortality, and population decline.”

  Vibrational Stress

  As all organisms react to infrasound, Dr. Bellut-Staeck emphasized that “we may have a huge, previously unrecognized threat to the entire biodiversity.”

  Dr. Bellut-Staeck, who does her research in Germany, where wind power is the largest contributor to the power grid, proposes that deep sound and vibration can act as a vibrational stress factor on endothelial cells. As many vital functions require intact endothelial cells, endothelial damage can have serious consequences, including contributing to vascular aging and atherosclerosis.

  The German Federal Environment Agency, however, told The Epoch Times that it has not found any evidence that infrasound from wind turbines causes adverse health effects and that “how infrasound emitted by wind turbines affects endothelial cells has not yet been scientifically proven.”

  International Studies Show Harmful Effects

  Dr. Bellut-Staeck said there are currently no studies to clearly illustrate or prove the risk of infrasound, as most studies focus on acoustic, or audible, sound.

  However, initial studies on the effects of infrasound indicate possible serious health problems. One study published in Environmental Disease concluded there was a high probability that people living near industrial wind turbines would experience harmful health effects due to anxiety, stress, and loss of sleep resulting from exposure to infrasound and other emissions. A German study also identified the toxic effects of infrasound exposure at a cellular level. Another study, published in PLoS ONE, documented brain activity changes following exposure to infrasound stimulation.

  These studies emphasize the need for further research and a better understanding of the impacts of infrasound.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 21:40

• "We Need Somebody Disruptive": Alex Jones, Former Bush Official Clash In Trump ZeroHedge Debate
  “We Need Somebody Disruptive”: Alex Jones, Former Bush Official Clash In Trump ZeroHedge Debate

  Last night kicked off the fifth ZeroHedge debate on the question: “Should Donald Trump be the next U.S. President?“

  The debate featured Infowars host Alex Jones and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos vs. independent journalist Michael Tracy and former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter.

  

  Tracey came in hot, accusing Trump of being two-faced for bashing special interests during the primary, while courting the donor class during the general election:

  “[Trump] was calling out to Miriam Adelson — who’s the widow of Sheldon Adelson — and having private soirees with her, and she’s excepted to give millions of dollars to Trump’s next campaign. He even said it outright. He said because of Miriam’s late husband, [Trump] was compelled to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv in Israel to Jerusalem.“

  Michael Tracey on Trump’s quoted tweet:https://t.co/vLlq5hS5Cu
  “When Trump became the Republican nominee in 2016, what did he do? He courted the donors that he had just gotten the nomination by castigating, including Adelson who went on to become the most prolific donor.” pic.twitter.com/ylcc5czCFS

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 26, 2024

  In an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend spirit, Alex Jones argued that entrenched bureaucratic powers within the U.S. pose an existential threat. Thus, given that Donald Trump is the primary force standing in their way, he deserves mass support.

  “We need somebody disruptive,” said Jones.

  Alex Jones: “That’s why we must back Trump all the way because if they can take down the popular front-runner in all the major polls, they can get everybody.” pic.twitter.com/QpcxgG5p84

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 26, 2024

  “Trump is the first President who has refused to follow the Constitution.”

  Former chief ethics lawyer of the George W. Bush White House, Richard Painter, accused Trump of being the first President to disregard the Constitution regarding the transfer of power after the 2020 US election.

  The comment did not go over well…

  Richard Painter: “I am not going to participate in a debate when people are making things up.”

  Alex Jones: “I don’t know where you found this dinosaur from 50 years ago that tells us George W. Bush — the war criminal — is a good guy.” pic.twitter.com/QtR1xgRYXv

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 26, 2024

  Papadopoulos, meanwhile, offered an international perspective in favor of Trump – who he says keept US adversaries at bay. The former Trump adviser attributes this to siloing Russian exports and increasing NATO funding — while unleashing “the shale renaissance in the United States.”

  Tracey hit back – arguing that such moves were in fact escalatory:

  “Go read Putin’s speech before he launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he cites multiple grievances with the U.S. administration, and half of them are to do with Trump… He hyper escalated tensions with Russia under the auspices of John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and all the other hard-liners.“

  Papadopoulos: “[Trump] sanctioned Nord Stream to cut off the Russian economy from the Europeans…. He bolstered NATO’s defense spending… NATO members were committing to the 2% expenditure.”

  Tracey: “It’s just not consistent with this idea that… he’s not getting us into wars.” pic.twitter.com/htdM9Rhd6z

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 26, 2024

  Watch the full debate here and decide who won:

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 21:25

• Sparks Fly Between US & Israel As Gaza Truce Talks At 'Dead End'
  Sparks Fly Between US & Israel As Gaza Truce Talks At ‘Dead End’

  The latest round of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in Doha has collapsed and ended in anger and finger-pointing, with the the Israeli delegation reportedly packing up and leaving in haste. This point marks several rounds of failed talks.

  A senior Israeli official has declared that efforts toward a truce are “at a dead end” due to unrealistic demands by Hamas. The official further accused Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar of sabotaging diplomatic efforts “as part of a wider effort to inflame this war over Ramadan,” according to Reuters. This brings to an end this latest round of ten days of talks.

  

  Netanyahu’s office repeated its assertion on Tuesday that Hamas had made “delusional” demands, something which has continually stalled talks and prevented any progress. The Israeli statement vowed that it will not address “Hamas’s delusional demands” but will “pursue and achieve its just war objectives.”

  Netanyahu also brought the US into it, lashing out in the following:

  Hamas’s decision to reject a US-brokered compromise is “clear proof it is not interested in continuing talks, and a sad testament to the damage caused by the UN Security Council resolution,” referring to a call for a ceasefire passed Monday night that the US did not veto, thus enabling its passage.

  Hamas has levelled a similar charge at Israel, saying the prime minister is only interested in prolonging the military operation in Gaza. Netanyahu has for weeks made his position clear that any Hamas condition of an Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza which is made part of a hostage release deal remains a non-starter.

  Tensions and finger-pointing between the Biden administration and Israel have been on the rise. According to Axios in the wake of the truce talks collapse, “The Israeli statement angered the White House, which sees it as an attempt by Netanyahu to continue the fight that started the day before between the U.S. and Israel over the UN Security Council resolution, two senior U.S. official said.”

  The UNSC has just passed a formal resolution calling for immediate ceasefire, and its adoption was enabled by the US abstention, which infuriated Israel. Commenting on the Israeli statement and reaction, one US official state: “This statement is inaccurate in almost every respect and unfair to the hostages and their families.”

  On Tuesday there are reports of Israeli airstrikes on Rafah city…

  Rafah now 😭💔😭 pic.twitter.com/sPcONb29Dg

  — Abdullah Omar🇵🇸 (@Abdullah_Om3r03) March 26, 2024

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

  “Hamas’ response was prepared before the UN vote even took place. We will not play politics with this most important and difficult issue, and we will remain focused on a deal to free the remaining hostages,” the US official added.

  As a result of the UN vote, Israel canceled a planned delegation to the White House, which was to discuss the Rafah situation. The White House has called this an “overreaction” on Israel’s part. Israeli leaders have continued to signal that a Rafah ground operation is imminent, even as the US and other allies have warned against it at least until civilians can be moved from harm’s way.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 21:20

• Chicago Board Of Elections 'Mistakenly' Left Out Over 9,000 Mail-In Ballots In Primary Election
  Chicago Board Of Elections ‘Mistakenly’ Left Out Over 9,000 Mail-In Ballots In Primary Election

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

  A Chicago Board of Elections official said Sunday that he had “mistakenly” left out over 9,000 mail-in ballots from one of the races in last week’s Illinois state primary election, sparking renewed scrutiny around voting by mail in the run-up to the November presidential election.

  “In adding up the total number of Vote By Mail ballots the Board had received back so far, I mistakenly left out additional ballots” that came in by mail on the evening of March 18, a day prior to Election Day, according to a March 23 statement by Max Bever, Director of Public Information at the Chicago Board of Elections.

  The race in which the apparent tabulation error took place is between two Democrat candidates for state’s attorney in Chicago’s Cook County, Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III.

  

  Ms. O’Neill Burke, a former appellate judge who trails by roughly 14,000 votes, is widely seen as the more tough-on-crime candidate of the two.

  “We should be booming, and we’re not because of crime,” Ms. O’Neill Burke told The Associated Press. “This is something we can fix.”

  Mr. Harris, a professor and former prosecutor who’s the more progressive candidate of the two, has said punishments should consider racial disparities.

  The Chicago race is open because the current State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who faced criticism for being soft on crime, declined to run a third time.

  ‘I Traded Speed for Accuracy’

  One of the campaign issues in the Cook County state’s attorney race has been the future of Ms. Foxx’s controversial policy not to prosecute retail theft as a felony if the value of the stolen goods is below $1,000.

  Ms. O’Neill Burke has been critical of the policy.

  “It doesn’t deter crime, it promotes it,” she said.

  By contrast, Mr. Harris has vowed to keep it in place, if elected.

  “If someone came and took my cellphone, is that cellphone worth a felony on your record? I do not think so,” he told AP. “We look at recidivism. We charge everyone appropriately.”

  The Cook County state’s attorney’s office is the second largest in the country, after Los Angeles.

  Mr. Bever said in a March 24 update that the attorneys for both candidates met earlier that day and agreed that ballot counting and ballot signature verification would continue through Sunday, with poll watchers present.

  He said that election judges would be processing and counting roughly 13,086 mail-in ballots that had already been reviewed for timeliness, signature verification, and voter histories, with the vast majority of these received back via drop box on Election Day (March 19).

  Around 9,000 of these hadn’t been counted in the initial tally, with Mr. Bever providing an update on the fate of the initially missing ballots.

  “I made an error in reporting the number of Vote By Mail ballots received back on Monday, March 18 before Election Day that should have been included in the ‘received by Election Day’ numbers,” Mr. Bever said in the March 24 update.

  “Approximately 9,143 Vote By Mail additional ballots received back on Monday should have been included in this ‘received by Election Day’ number that would be processed and counted after Election Day, March 19,” he continued.

  The elections official said that the missing ballots had been secured in a receiving cage until they could be processed by scanning machines for signature verification and to rule out possible double-voting.

  He added that the missing ballots were inspected, processed, and counted by election judges between March 22 and March 23, and are already reflected in the unofficial results.

  Preliminary results, as of 6 p.m. on March 24, show Mr. Harris in the lead with 164,371 votes (52.14 percent) and Ms. O’Neill Burke trailing with 150,900 votes (47.86 percent).

  The final tally could still change as the counting period lasts through April 2, with official results to be announced on April 9.

  ‘Sounds Fishy’

  The incident drew scrutiny and criticism on social media, where a report about it was shared by the End Wokeness account, which pointed out that many of the ballots were from dropboxes, where postmarks aren’t required.

  “Sounds fishy,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the post.

  “Mail in dropbox elections are a joke,” the KanekoaTheGreat account, which has over 750,000 followers, posted.

  “Chicago keeps having more problems. There’s no way to have confidence in election results when ballots are ‘found’ later,” internet personality and former candidate for the U.S. Senate, Paul Szypula, said in a post on X.

  “Drop boxes also are sketchy and just invite cheating and mistakes. Democrat-run elections are rife with fraud and we see it happening more and more,” he added.

  Voting by mail has been the subject of increased scrutiny and criticism following the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump claims was marred by irregularities and fraud that he says cost him a win.

  A recent study exploring the likely impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots had in the 2020 election found that the outcome would “almost certainly” have been different without the massive expansion of absentee ballots.

  The study was based on data obtained from a Heartland/Rasmussen survey conducted in December 2023, which revealed that roughly one in five mail-in voters, or 20 percent, admitted to actions that could be potentially fraudulent in the presidential election.

  After the researchers carried out additional analyses of the raw data, they concluded that there was a higher percentage of fraudulent mail-in ballots. They now believe that 28.2 percent of people who voted by mail in 2020 committed at least one type of behavior that is, “under most circumstances, illegal,” and so potentially amounts to voter fraud.

  A Heartland Institute research editor and research fellow who was involved in the study explained to The Epoch Times that there are narrow exceptions where a surveyed behavior may be legal, like filling out a mail-in ballot on behalf of another voter if that person is blind, illiterate, or disabled, and needs assistance.

  However, research fellow Jack McPherrin said such cases were within the margin of error and not statistically significant.

  The new study found that, absent the huge expansion of mail-in ballots during the pandemic, President Trump would most likely have won.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 21:00

• US Lawmakers Demand SEC Clarify Position On Prometheum's Plans For Ether
  US Lawmakers Demand SEC Clarify Position On Prometheum’s Plans For Ether

  Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

  According to a letter for SEC Chair Gary Gensler, leaving Ether in regulatory limbo between the SEC and CFTC could have “irreparable consequences for the digital asset markets.”

  

  Lawmakers with the United States House Financial Services Committee and House Agriculture Committee have expressed concerns about how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intends to handle Ether.

  In a March 26 letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, U.S. lawmakers, including House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry and Vice Chair French Hill, urged the commission to address crypto firm Prometheum’s intention to offer institutional custody services for Ether.

  According to lawmakers, the announcement is at odds with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) stance on recognizing ETH as a “non-security digital asset” under its purview.

  “[T]he agencies have an extensive public record identifying ETH as a non-security digital asset,” said the lawmakers.

  “There are multiple regulatory actions grounded in that position […] [Prometheum’s] action, if allowed to proceed, could have irreparable consequences for the digital asset markets.”

  #NEW: Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee and @HouseAgGOP sent a letter to @SECGov Chair Gensler urging his agency to clarify its position with respect to SPBD Prometheum’s custody of #ETH.

  Read more 🔗https://t.co/MGGB9NAvWi pic.twitter.com/1U8lqMw8Ao

  — Financial Services GOP (@FinancialCmte) March 26, 2024

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

  The SEC has recently made claims suggesting that it intends to classify ETH as a security.

  Some experts have suggested that this position may lead to the commission denying approval for spot Ether exchange-traded funds. The SEC has already approved investment vehicles tied to ETH futures for listing and trading on U.S. exchanges.

  In contrast, the CFTC has recognized many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether as commodities. The commission filed a civil enforcement action against KuCoin and two of its founders on March 26, claiming that ETH, BTC and Litecoin were commodities and placing the exchange’s actions “squarely within the CFTC’s authority.”

  The lawmakers added in the letter to Gensler:

  “[T]he SEC’s failure to propose a rule or provide comprehensive guidance that provides clear rules for the digital asset marketplace regarding asset classification has only exacerbated the uncertainty in the digital asset ecosystem.”

  Following Prometheum’s ETH custody announcement in February, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam reiterated the commission’s position on Ether at a House Financial Service Committee hearing, warning of a potential conflict with the SEC over digital asset rules. In November 2023, CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson suggested several possible paths forward for regulatory clarity on crypto: through the courts, company policies and legislation from Congress.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 20:40

• Home-Flipping Plummets As Profits Slump
  Home-Flipping Plummets As Profits Slump

  By Michael Tucker of the Mortgage Bankers Association

  Home flipping fell nearly 30% in 2023 compared to the year before, according to ATTOM.

  The ATTOM year-end 2023 U.S. Home Flipping Report said 308,922 single-family homes and condos in the United States were flipped last year, down 29.3% from 436,807 in 2022 and the largest annual drop since 2008.

  

  “In 2023, the landscape for home flipping across the U.S. became increasingly challenging,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said. “Whether the overall market has soared or seen just modest gains in recent years, investors have missed out on the action.”

  Barber added that the sharp decline in the number of home flips likely reflected a combination of a tight supply of homes for sale as well as dwindling returns. “Either way, it will take some significant reworking of the financials for home flipping fortunes to turn back around,” he said.

  The report also revealed that as the number of homes flipped by investors declined, so did flips as a portion of all home sales, from 8.6% in 2022 to 8.1 percent last year.

  In another sign of down times for the home-flipping industry, profits and profit margins also sank on quick “buy-renovate-and-resell” projects. Gross profits on typical home flips in 2023 dropped to $66,000 nationwide (the difference between the median sales price and the median amount originally paid by investors). That was down from $70,100 in 2022 and translated into just a 27.5 percent return on investment compared to the original acquisition price.

  The latest nationwide ROI (before accounting for mortgage interest, property taxes, renovation expenses and other holding costs) was down from 28.1 percent in 2022 and 35.7 percent in 2021, ATTOM said; the worst level since 2007.

  Investors saw their profit margins decrease for the sixth time in the past seven years as the median price of the homes they flipped dipped slightly faster than the median price they had paid to purchase properties – 4.4 percent versus 4 percent.

  Nationally, the percentage of flipped homes originally purchased by investors with financing increased in 2023 to 36.5%, up from 35.7% in 2022 and from 36.2% in 2021, ATTOM said. Meanwhile, 63.5 percent of homes flipped in 2023 were originally bought with cash only, down from 64.3 percent in 2022 and from 63.8 percent two years earlier.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 20:20

• Florida Bans Social Media For Minors Under 14
  Florida Bans Social Media For Minors Under 14

  Florida has just passed a new law prohibiting children under 14-years-old from having social media accounts regardless of parental consent.

  

  Under the law which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025, social media companies must close accounts they believe to be used by minors under 14 – and must cancel accounts at the request of parents or minors. All information from the accounts must then be deleted, the Wall Street Journal reports.

  Minors who are 14 or 15 will be able to obtain a social media account with parental consent. If a parent does not consent, accounts already belonging to teens within that age range must be deleted.

  “Being buried in those devices all day is not the best way to grow up—it’s not the best way to get a good education,” Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said on Monday during an event to celebrate the signing of the bill.

  The new law doesn’t name which platforms it applies to, however social media sites which rely on features such as notification alerts and autoplay videos are subject to it.

  Supporters of the law have pointed to recent studies linking social-media use among young adults to a higher risk of depression and mental-health challenges. It can also make them vulnerable to online bullying and predators. -WSJ

  “A child, in their brain development, doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies, and to see the harm and step away from it,” said Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R) at the same event. “And because of that, we have to step in for them.”

  In response to the law, TikTok says it has policies to protect teens, and will continue to work to keep the platform safe. Snapchat and X didn’t respond to a WSJ request for comment.

  Other states have seen similar legislation proposed, however the bills all stop short of Florida’s total ban. In Arkansas, a federal judge blocked an age verification law for social media users and parental consent for minors’ accounts.

  In response to the Arkansas law, social media trade association NetChoice, of which Facebook parent Meta, TikTok and Snap, sued the state to halt the law. It has brought similar legal challenges in California and Ohio.

  According to NetChoice VP and general counsel Carl Szabo, the Florida law “forces Floridians to hand over sensitive personal information to websites or lose their access to critical information channels,” adding “his infringes on Floridians’ First Amendment rights to share and access speech online.”

  “There are better ways to keep Floridians, their families and their data safe and secure online without violating their freedoms,” he added.

  Florida expects to be sued over the new law, however Speaker Renner says he’s confident it will withstand legal scrutiny.

  “We’re gonna beat them, and we’re never, ever gonna stop,” he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 20:00

• Gen Z Males Are Rejecting Feminist-Friendly Ideologies
  Gen Z Males Are Rejecting Feminist-Friendly Ideologies

  Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  In “All the Rebel Women: The Rise of the Fourth Wave of Feminism,“ the author, Kira Cochrane, suggested that this particular wave of feminism ”isn’t about making everyone around the table feel comfortable.”

  

  “It’s about being disruptive, challenging, and changing the terms of the debate,” Ms. Cochrane said.

  What debate is she referencing? One that largely revolves around men. More specifically, how toxic they have become. Not surprisingly, many men (and women) haven’t taken too kindly to this particular narrative. Young men are especially repulsed, and so they should be.

  Last year, a report titled “The State of American Men 2023: From Confusion and Crisis to Hope” found that more than half of young males believe that men have it harder today than women. The report further unveiled significant levels of contempt for modern-day feminism, especially among male members of Generation Z. Yes, some in the “wokest” generation in the history of mankind are actively rejecting a core ingredient of wokeness. And who can blame them? Feminism, in its most current form, specializes in the demonization of masculinity. It regularly equates men with trash.

  Some feminists would have us believe that men, especially straight, white men, are a danger to society, one that must be addressed and, in some cases, attacked.

  Common sense (remember when it was a little more common?) tells us that if you keep bashing, berating, and belittling an entire group of individuals—or, in this case, half the country’s population—a response is inevitable.

  A recent survey out of King’s College London clearly demonstrates this fact. On both sides of the Atlantic, it seems, millions of Gen Z men have had enough of feminist-friendly narratives.

  Interestingly, however, the survey revealed that older males, when compared to younger generations, have a greater inclination toward progressive and feminist perspectives. In short, Gen Z males are more inclined than older baby boomers to believe that feminism has had a negative impact on broader society. In the UK, for example, one out of every four males aged 16 to 29 believes that being a man is more challenging than being a woman.

  This data sharply contrast with the prevailing perception of men today in comparison to their “pale, stale, and male” predecessors. The research indicates that the general public tends to assume that it would be the oldest group of men who believe that women have already achieved sufficient equality. However, this assumption is clearly incorrect. Approximately 20 percent of Gen Z males believe that being a man will be significantly more difficult than being a woman in the next two decades, echoing the sentiments of young men in the United States. In contrast, this sentiment drops to only 9 percent for males older than the age of 60.

  As the survey points out, when considering the age group of 16 to 29, 46 percent of women in this category believe that feminism has had a more beneficial impact on society than harm. This percentage is 10 points higher than the proportion of young men who share the same perspective (36 percent). Moreover, the survey notes that “among this age group, one in six (16%) men say feminism has done more harm than good, compared with one in 11 (9%) women.”

  What is going on here? Why are so many Gen Z males—again, on both sides of the pond—rejecting feminist-friendly ideologies?

  According to the academics responsible for the surprising survey, it may have something to do with the rise of Andrew Tate, a controversial, American British influencer who, in recent times, has become popular. A fifth of the Gen Z men surveyed hold a favorable view of Mr. Tate, who has a huge following in both the UK and the United States.

  On a recent episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” social psychologist Jean Twenge discussed Mr. Tate, suggesting that his influence has had—and continues to have—an impact on young men. In particular, Ms. Twenge suggested that Mr. Tate’s influence has contributed to Gen Z males’ rejection of left-wing politics.

  However, CNN’s Van Jones was quick to push back, arguing that this particular form of rejection has less to do with the pull of Mr. Tate and considerably more to do with the push of the left; to be more specific, the left’s effort, be it conscious or otherwise, to push young men away. Mr. Maher agreed with Mr. Jones, saying that just being a man today is considered “a little suspect.”

  It’s important to note that being a man, in both the UK and the United States, was considered “a little suspect” long before Mr. Tate shot to fame. Sure, he was the most Googled man in the world in 2022, but prior to this, most people were not familiar with his philosophies and overall mindset. Even The Guardian, no fan of Mr. Tate, conceded that he should be viewed as a “symptom” of a much broader problem.

  Commenting on the abovementioned survey, professor Rosie Campbell, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, said:

  “This data shows it’s not just young men’s attitudes that stand out. For example, young women are much more likely than any other group to think ‘toxic masculinity’ is a helpful term, and are most pessimistic about the prospect of future progress on gender equality.”

  Let that percolate for a minute: Young women are “most pessimistic” about the future of gender equality and consider “toxic masculinity”—a truly heinous term—to be helpful.

  From Birmingham, Alabama, to Birmingham, England, name one thing men are allowed to do that women are not. If you find yourself scratching your head, struggling to think of an answer, that’s because there’s nothing to name. Gender equality already exists, but young women, many of whom are blinded by illogical ideologies, can’t separate the facts from fictitious narratives.

  Moreover, the term “toxic masculinity,” which was around a long time before Mr. Tate took the world by storm, is in no way constructive. On the contrary, it only serves to demonize an inescapable part of being a man. There was a time, not that long ago, when being a man and exhibiting masculine traits was something worth celebrating. However, in both the UK and the United States, those days appear to be long gone. To compound matters, the ideological divide between Gen Z men and women is fast becoming a gaping chasm.

  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, 03/26/2024 – 19:40

• Israel Unleashes Major Airstrikes On Syria & Deep Inside Lebanon
  Israel Unleashes Major Airstrikes On Syria & Deep Inside Lebanon

  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Tuesday another rare strike conducted deep into Lebanese territory. The strikes targeted “a military compound used by Hezbollah’s aerial unit” in the Baalbek District which is in the northeast of the country.

  This marks the deepest Israeli strike inside Lebanon since the war began in the wake of the Oct.7 Hamas terror attack, at more than 110km from Israel’s border.

  

  The extent of casualties or damage remains unclear, but it follows a similar February strike on the Bekaa Valley some 100km from the Israeli border, which killed at least two people. There are growing fears that if such strikes become more regular, it will signify a bigger regional war could be opening up.

  Hezbollah has lobbed several missiles against northern Israeli communities as well as the IDF base atop Mount Meron over the past days. The Mount Meron surveillance base is about 8km from the Lebanese border and has come under repeat attack over several months.

  In the overnight and early morning hours there were also large-scale strikes against areas of eastern Syria. While Israel frequently attacks Syria, some Syrian government-affiliated sources laid blame on the United States. According to regional outlet The Cradle: 

  Airstrikes targeted a number of areas in Syria’s eastern city of Deir Ezzor and its countryside on 26 March, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries. “At 1:49 AM, American aircraft carried out several simultaneous air strikes targeting a number of areas in the governorate and its countryside,” Syria’s government-affiliated National Defense Forces (NDF) said, according to Sputnik.

  The strikes targeted the Salhiya area in Al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border and residential areas in the Al-Mayadin and Al-Qusour areas in Deir Ezzor. 

  But Israeli media has identified the IDF air force as behind the eastern Syria attack, reportedly targeting ‘pro-Iran’ assets. According to details in The Times of Israel:

  The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning in eastern Syria, targeting Iranian assets and operatives involved in a recent plot to smuggle advanced arms to West Bank terrorists, The Times of Israel has learned.

  More than 15 people were reportedly killed in the strikes in the Deir Ezzor and al-Bukamal areas, close to Syria’s border with Iraq.

  The strikes targeted assets belonging to Iran’s Unit 4000, the Special Operations Division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Intelligence Organization, and the special operations unit of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria, known as Unit 18840, according to Israeli defense sources.

  Various international reports have cited different casualty figures, but what is clear is that there were a series of large airstrikes. Iranian media said a Revolutionary Guard member was killed in Syria overnight.

  Below: Israeli strikes in northeast Lebanon…

  غارة عنيفة على بوداي في #بعلبك pic.twitter.com/FM7WQptCze

  — kataeb.org (@kataeb_Ar) March 26, 2024

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

  According to The Associated Press, civilians were among the dead, including women, children, and a World Health Organization (WHO) official: 

  Dama Post, a pro-government media outlet in Syria, said the strikes targeted the provincial capital of Deir el-Zour that carries the same name, and the towns of Mayadeen and Boukamal. It said 20 people, including women and children, were among the dead.

  The World Health Organization said one of its team members, engineer Emad Shehab, was killed in one of the strikes that hit his building. It said Shehab, 42, served as a WHO focal point for water, sanitation, and hygiene in the province since 2022.

  Iran-linked insurgent attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria have mostly quieted down of late, compared to their frequency and weekly occurrence last year in the wake of Oct.7.

  In the meantime, any potential scenario where Israel were to move ground troops into southern Lebanon would likely spark a bigger war with Hezbollah, which could engulf all of Lebanon.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 19:20

• 'Serious Concerns' Raised About NY Judge's Trump Judgment
  ‘Serious Concerns’ Raised About NY Judge’s Trump Judgment

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

  After a New York court reduced former President Donald Trump’s bond to appeal his civil fraud case, several legal analysts weighed in on the decision.

  

  On Monday, a state appeals court agreed to hold off collection of the former president’s more than $454 million civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s assets while he appeals.

  Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, said that President Trump may have a strong case to challenge Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling in February that he must pay $455 million in his civil fraud case.

  “I think the $175 million reduction … shows that the appellate division has serious concerns about the validity of Judge Engoron’s decision,” Mr. Germain told Newsweek.

  While he believes the judgment was “seriously flawed,” the professor said that President Trump will have a difficult time overturning the judge’s “findings that his financial statement was grossly overstated.”

  “The standard for the appeals court to review factual findings is ‘clearly erroneous,’ which means that there was no evidence in the record to support the judge’s findings. Engoron was very careful to cite to the record for his factual findings, which were very solid,” Mr. Germain said.

  But the judge, he added, “made no attempt to determine what portion of the profit was solely due to the financial statement as opposed to other factors” before handing down his ruling.

  The former president “has some strong legal arguments to make on appeal,” Mr. Germain added. “Unfortunately for him, I think he’s so focused on denying that he did anything wrong that the strong legal arguments may be lost in his unwinnable arguments on the facts.”

  The former president has said he did nothing wrong, adding that he actually undervalued his net worth when communicating with banks and insurers at the center of the civil fraud lawsuit. He said that the case is politically motivated, and that both the New York attorney general and Judge Engoron are biased against him.

  Meanwhile, a constitutional scholar said that the bond for an appeal should be been reduced to basically nothing.

  “The Court of Appeals may have felt that they can’t prejudge the evidence, and so to reduce the bond further would have been heavy-handed,” George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News on Monday. “I actually think they could have reduced this bond to virtually nothing, because the amount set by [Judge Arthur] Engoron was absurd.”

  In a post on social media, Mr. Turley wrote that the New York appellate court may “restore a degree of objectivity and restraint missing on the trial level,” referring to the Engoron decision. “Both Engoron and [New York Attorney General Letitia] James would have gained greater credibility if they recognized the obvious unreasonableness of the original demand,” he continued.

  A former federal prosecutor now in private practice said that “judgments of this size are rare,” referring to the penalties imposed against President Trump. “What makes this one unusual is someone who is subject to an enormous amount of money and has to come up with it himself,” Joshua Naftalis said.

  President Trump hailed the ruling and said he would post a bond, securities, or cash to cover the $175 million sum in the civil case. Ms. James’s office, meanwhile, noted that the judgment still stands, even if collection is paused.

  Previously, the former president’s lawyers pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum, which grows daily because of interest. The Trump attorneys had earlier proposed a $100 million bond, but an appellate judge had said no late last month.

  Monday’s ruling came from a five-judge panel in the state’s intermediate appeals court, called the Appellate Division, where President Trump is fighting to overturn Judge Engoron’s Feb. 16 decision. Trump attorneys Alina Habba and Christopher Kise characterized Monday’s ruling as a key first step.

  “We won,” Ms. Habba told Fox News on Monday. “You know, no … we didn’t win. You know when we’ll win? When we get this all reversed, which is what’s gonna happen.”

  The Trump attorney added that she was “so proud” of the appeals court’s decision because it gave her “a little bit of faith” in the U.S. justice system.

  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 19:00

• Taiwan Conducts Drills Deploying US Patriot Systems In Face Of Chinese Intrusions
  Taiwan Conducts Drills Deploying US Patriot Systems In Face Of Chinese Intrusions

  The Taiwanese armed forces on Tuesday conducted highly provocative anti-aircraft defense exercises in the face of Chinese military “intrusions” which have been occurring on a weekly basis. 

  Importantly, the drills centered on deploying and operating US-made Patriot missiles and anti-aircraft artillery systems provided by Washington. 

  

  A military statement said the drills are a response to “incursions by Chinese Communist Party aircraft and ships into the sea and airspace around Taiwan” and added that “the air force will continue to increase the intensity of drills.”

  “The aim was to verify the command and control of joint air defense operations among the three branches of the military,” the armed forces described.

  Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has meanwhile ramped up defense spending, and attended a ceremony Tuesday for the handover of two domestically made warships at Suao port.

  “Over the past few years, we have steadily implemented defense autonomy with Taiwan-made warships being named, launched, and commissioned one after another at an increasingly rapid pace,” Tsai announced at the event.

  “These achievements repeatedly demonstrate Taiwan’s capacity for domestic shipbuilding and proves our determination to safeguard our democracy and freedom,” she added.

  In the United States, lawmakers are taking steps to prepare for a potential future invasion by China’s military of the self-ruled island backed by the US.

  “Fears of possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait are spurring state-level legislation aimed to identify and mitigate the potential local impact of hostilities,” Politico reported last weekend.

  “Since the beginning of the year, lawmakers in Arizona, Nebraska and Illinois have introduced versions of the Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act — bills that impose checklists of potential local vulnerabilities in supply chains and infrastructure security if Beijing eventually uses force to ‘reunify’ with Taiwan,” the report said.

  #Taiwan, M109A7 155 mm tracked self-propelled howitzers on the move and Patriot battery stations being set up. pic.twitter.com/KaovVd6m3X

  — Globe Sentinel (@GlobeSentinels) March 18, 2024

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

  The Chinese government, for its part, has long maintained that it desires the island to be reunited through peaceful, political means; however, at the same time frequent PLA military drills have projected the threat of force in regional waters.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 18:40

• The State Of The Media's Double Standard
  The State Of The Media’s Double Standard

  Authored by Frank Miele via RealClear Politics,

  I’m sure everyone has heard enough about President Biden’s recent State of the Union address, certainly enough to know that the mainstream media thought it was admirable of Biden to scream at the top of his lungs that Republicans are detestable worms.

  

  You also probably heard enough from the media to be certain that Sen. Katie Britt, who delivered the response to Biden, is a lying, detestable Republican worm. But as humorist Will Rogers noted, if all you know is what you read in the newspapers (or in updated form, what you see on cable news), then you are woefully misinformed.

  Take the media’s coverage of Biden’s extemporaneous remarks about the murder of Laken Riley that were prompted by a challenge from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

  First of all, Biden got Riley’s name wrong, twice calling her “Lincoln” Riley. That was embarrassing and drew attention to the cognitive issues Biden has exhibited throughout his first term. But somehow, the mainstream media glossed over that and quickly focused on an entirely manufactured “news” story that seemed intended to reassure Democrats that Biden wasn’t channeling Trump’s border rhetoric.

  As everyone knows by now, Biden referred to the man arrested for Riley’s murder as an “illegal,” which angered members of the radical left “Squad,” who insisted that Jose Antonio Ibarra should properly be referred to as “undocumented.” This was just a silly moment of political correctness, as both words mean the same thing: Ibarra had no immigration documents because he was in the country illegally.

  Yet the mainstream media went to great trouble to explain that Biden “regretted” using the word illegal. Chances are most of the Democrat-leaning reporters who cover the White House sympathized with the Squad and were happy to see Biden essentially apologizing for the word he used to describe the alleged murderer.

  Much more importantly, the media’s attention on the linguistic sideshow meant that virtually no news outlet covered Biden’s truly offensive reference to Laken Riley’s murder in the State of the Union. Here’s exactly what he said.

  BIDEN: Lincoln – Lincoln  Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.

  GREENE: By an illegal!

  BIDEN: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?

  Do you see what he did there in that last line? He minimizes and devalues the murder of Riley by suggesting that her life is not important when compared to the “many… thousands” of murders committed by legal immigrants or other Americans. This is the latest, albeit incredibly awkward, manifestation of a Democratic Party talking point: The immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. The social science on this is sketchy, and in any event, it begs the question of how many more violent crime victims exist because of the Democrats’ lenient criminal justice “reforms.”

  Leaving that aside, Biden’s rejoinder was offensive for another reason. We simply don’t dismiss the brutal murder of one person by proclaiming that it is statistically irrelevant. Each precious human life has untold value to God, as it should to presidents, and Laken Riley, a vibrant nursing student beloved by her family and friends, would still be alive if Biden and his political party had not made it easy for Ibarra to be in the country illegally.

  It was another story about the human toll of illegal immigration that caused outrage in the media about Britt’s response to the State of the Union.

  If you were to listen to the talking heads, Britt’s speech was the worst act of political suicide since Alexander Hamilton agreed to a duel with Aaron Burr. It was certainly one in a long line of responses that brought humiliation on a well-intended speaker. Britt’s performance was cringeworthy as she tried to emote rather than orate her response, and she was effectively reduced to a caricature in a brilliant performance by Scarlett Johansson on “Saturday Night Live.”

  If the media hacks had simply gone after Britt because of her awkward delivery of a speech that reads fine on paper, they would have met no opposition from me. But with their usual overreach and partisan slant, the finest minds in journalism instead attacked Britt for what they called her “misleading” anecdote of sexual abuse suffered by women who depend on the Mexican cartels to get them across the border.

  The story itself is quite short:

  “When I first took office… I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door, over and over again, for hours and hours on end. We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it.”

  When the media discovered the identity of the victim who spoke to Britt, they claimed that Britt had tried to make it seem like President Biden’s policies were responsible for the woman’s abuse. But if any reporter could pass a simple reading comprehension test, he or she would see that Britt talked to a full-grown woman who revealed what had happened to her when she was 12. Since Britt talked to her sometime after her own election in 2023, and assuming that the woman was of the bare minimum adult age of 18, that would mean her abuse would have occurred no later than 2017, four years before Joe Biden took office.

  In other words, there was no attempt by Britt to blame Biden for this woman’s plight. Instead, she was hoping to elicit heart-felt sympathy from her audience for the plight of young women who fall victim to sex trafficking as they make their way to the U.S. border.

  Who could disagree with her? Only Democrats and media personalities who hate Republicans and Donald Trump. The fact that Trump was supposedly eyeing Britt as a potential vice presidential pick probably made her an irresistible target.

  Now, to be clear, there was one implicit error in the story Britt told. The abuse that Britt recounted actually took place in Mexico, and Britt’s reference to a “third-world country” suggests she didn’t know that. If so, that’s on her. It should have been obvious that most, but not all, of the sex trafficking of women making their way north from Colombia takes place before they arrive in the United States. But that is no reason to try to deflect attention away from the truth of what Britt was saying about the dangers facing women who are enticed north by Biden’s open-border policy.

  Instead of condemning the cartels, however, the legacy media went after Britt. When she responded by explaining that her anecdote was accurate, and that the timeline proved she never intended to claim Biden was responsible for the woman’s rapes, the media was ready with its all-purpose continuation of the smear. As NBC reported it, “Sen. Katie Britt attempts to clean up her misleading State of the Union response.” But it wasn’t misleading at all, and she wasn’t attempting to “clean up” anything; she was attempting to educate the Fake News Media. An impossible task.

  So, if you want to know what the State of the Union is, you don’t have to look any further than the double standard the media used in reporting the speeches by Biden and Britt. As we enter the 2024 election season, we citizens must pledge to look beyond the biased headlines and treat the national media with the distrust they have richly earned. Remember, if all you know is what you read in the newspapers or saw on cable news, you are being played for a fool. Get the facts for yourself, and then make up your own mind.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 18:20

• Pump-Prices To Hit $4 A Gallon As "Real Sleeper Risk" For Oil Market Looms
  Pump-Prices To Hit $4 A Gallon As “Real Sleeper Risk” For Oil Market Looms

  US oil prices have recently jumped above the $80 a barrel mark – the highest level since late 2023, sending worrying signals to the Federal Reserve and overly anxious White House. 

  The surge in WTI has pushed wholesales gasoline prices up…

  

  And worse, pump prices are set to accelerate even higher in the coming months to an average of $4 a gallon, which would be the highest level since the summer of 2022, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from AAA Automobile Club. 

  

  A combination of issues is pressuring futures and pump prices higher, including the transition to summer-grade gasoline and strained domestic refineries, as well as concerns about shrinking global crude product supplies while Ukraine attacks Russian refineries. 

  As we explained in the note titled “Dominoes Falling As Biden Admin Deals With Twin Energy Crisis In Russia, Middle East,” traders have been spooked by refinery outages across Russia due to Ukranian drone attacks. In the Middle East, traders are increasingly worried that Iran-backed Houthis could be several steps away from targeting Saudi refineries.

  And now it should make a whole lot of sense why the Biden administration pleaded with Ukrainians to stop drone attacks, along with the White House pushing Vice President Kamala Harris out on ABC News on Sunday to warn Israel publicly not to launch a counteroffensive against Hamas in Rafah – because increased chaos on that side of the world would stoke higher crude prices – and bad timing for the administration, just ahead of the US presidential election in November. 

  Devin Gladden, a spokesperson for AAA, which tracks gasoline prices, warned higher pump prices will force the working poor to make “lifestyle changes and be a focus in November’s presidential election.” Higher pump prices will also make Americans realize how much Bidenomics has failed. 

  Higher pump prices will also complicate the Fed’s fight against the inflation monster and likely delay rate cuts this summer, which would undoubtedly upset markets. 

  This comes as the administration is trying to refill the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves after releasing a record amount to control last year’s summertime gasoline price surge. 

  

  Since the administration is busy refilling reserves, it has exhausted some of its war chest to control price spikes this spring and summer. 

  “If pump prices keep rising, SPR refills will stop automatically. While one cannot rule out another SPR release, the real sleeper risk is the Biden administration would revive threats to restrain US gasoline and diesel exports, especially if a storm disrupted refining capacity. The market, policy, and geopolitical implications of restricting product exports would dwarf those of the LNG pause. Supersize it and add fries,” Scott Modell, CEO at Rapidan Energy Advisors, wrote in a statement. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 03/26/2024 – 18:00