Nov 13

Today’s News 13th November 2023

  • Escobar: Another Snapshot Of Kiev's Military Collapse: But It Ain't Over Yet
    Escobar: Another Snapshot Of Kiev’s Military Collapse: But It Ain’t Over Yet

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    The spectacular “success” of Kiev’s counter-offensive, which echoed throughout the geopolitical galaxy, has predictably engendered what everyone with a brain was expecting: a dogfight…

    Enter the Zelensky-Zaluzhny Show – especially after the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) admitted on the record that the war has “reached a stalemate” – code for “we’re deeply in trouble”. He also referred to “positional defense” – code for “we’re gonna keep losing more and more territory.”

    The dogfight comes complete with Mafioso overtones, as in 39-year-old Zaluzhny assistant Gennady Chistyakov “accidentally” detonating a grenade received as a gift, seriously injuring his daughter and duly blowing himself up.

    This might be seen at face value as yet another wacky Pulp Fiction-style sketch involving the top dogs (with no Winston Wolf  to “solve problems”). But it does carry an ominous message to Zaluzhny: once again, Mafia-style, from now on he’d better beware of friends bearing gifts.

    As for the “counter-offensive”, the file, for all practical purposes, seems to be closed. There won’t be another one – because there are no more weapons, assets or troops to carry it, except the odd Ukrainian elderly citizens and unsuspecting housewives chased by the “security services” as they exit the supermarket.

    A moral-psychological debacle

    That brings us to yet another snapshot of what’s really happening on the frontlines.

    The attached document, fully verified for authenticity, is a mid-October report to the Commander of the 10th Army Corps of the AFU.

    The report states that the 116th separate mechanized brigade is “incapable of conducting offensive operations because of high losses and high numbers of soldiers that need psychological and medical assistance.”

    The 116th brigade has been deeply involved in military operations in the Zaporozhye region for 5 months already. For 3 months it had been part of the 10th Army Corps, “Tavriya”.

    The report details that the brigade’s losses are 94 soldiers dead; 1122 wounded; and 95 missing. That corresponds to 25% of the total number of personnel.

    When it comes to the moral-psychological front, at least 153 soldiers are deemed in need of immediate psychological rehabilitation.

    This brigade is a quite significant unit; what’s implied is that a moral-psychological debacle is now inbuilt as a System Error at the heart of the Ukrainian military. Consequences, short and middle term, will be dire.

    All that is happening while the flow of foreign mercenaries to the AFU is drying up. No wonder: enter the Perfect Storm of brigades being thoroughly decimated; unspeakable levels of corruption; and better career opportunities in the rekindled Forever War in Israel/Palestine.

    Civilians in Kharkov, for instance, confirm that foreign mercenaries speaking Polish or English are now “almost invisible”.

    None of the above means that things from now on will be a cakewalk for Russia. For instance, the Russian Army still has not been able to destroy the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Dnieper in Kherson.

    Further on down the road, it will be increasingly trickier to expel the Ukrainians from the eastern margin of the Dnieper.

    Russian military media, at the highest level, does its best to sharply focus on serious instances of ineptitude by the Russian Army. That’s their civic duty – and involves creating a groundswell of public opinion, forcing the Russian Army to correct its mistakes and most of all refrain from underestimating the enemy.

    After all, this is far from over – no matter the dogfight now raging in the corridors of power in Kiev.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 23:20

  • Novo Nordisk's Obesity Drug Cuts Risk Of Death By 18%, But Is All The Good News Already Priced In
    Novo Nordisk’s Obesity Drug Cuts Risk Of Death By 18%, But Is All The Good News Already Priced In

    There was good news for fans of weight loss drugs this weekend, when Novo Nordisk unveiled details from a closely watched study that supports the use of Wegovy, its blockbuster weight-loss drug, to cut the risk of death by 18% in a trial that the Danish pharmaceutical company hopes will convince more health systems and insurers to pay for the treatment.

    Novo Nordisk on Saturday said the heart protective benefits of its wildly popular Wegovy obesity treatment are due to more than weight loss alone, according to new data presented at a major medical meeting on Saturday. Early data from the Danish drugmaker’s Select trial released in August demonstrated that Wegovy, which has been shown to help patients lose an average of 15% of their weight, also reduced incidence of heart attack, stroke or death from heart disease by 20%.

    The full results from the study, presented at the American Heart Association annual scientific meeting in Philadelphia in front of a standing room only crowd and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest the drug has other beneficial effects beyond the known health benefits from losing weight.

    The heart risk difference between patients who received Wegovy, known chemically as semaglutide, and those on placebo began to appear almost immediately after starting treatment, researchers said.

    In the study of overweight and obese patients based on body mass index who had preexisting heart disease but not diabetes, Wegovy reduced the risk of non-fatal heart attack by 28%, non-fatal stroke by 7% and death from cardiovascular causes death by 15% compared to a placebo (though the numbers did not quite meet the bar for statistical significance).

    According to Novo, which of course is extremely incentivized to present the drug in the most favorable light so it can force insurance companies to cover the ~$1000/month drug, given that patients had not started losing weight when the cardiovascular benefits first appeared suggests the heart protection was not purely the result of weight loss. The trial also showed a 73% reduction in progression to diabetes and a 22% reduction of kidney disease, both of which significantly add to cost effectiveness of Wegovy treatment, write JPMorgan analysts including Richard Vosser in a note.

    Still, the result is hardly a shock: in August, initial data from the Select trial sent shares in Novo Nordisk up as much as 16%, as investors became excited that the results could win over any health systems and insurers reluctant to cover the new class of weight-loss drugs (Wegovy has a US list price of more than $1,300 a month). It begs the question: how much of the good news has already been priced in.

    Dr Chad Weldy, a cardiologist at Stanford University, said on the sidelines of the conference that it was important to note that the trial did not study how semaglutide might stop heart disease from happening and only looked at how to stop it from getting worse.

    Despite that, the size of the patient population covered by this trial should make doctors think about the sorts of patients who should be prescribed Wegovy based on the data.

    “Anyone who has had a heart attack or obstructive coronary disease and has a body mass index of more than 27 fits in with this study, which is a very large patient population,” he said, which of course makes sense: after all GLP-1 drugs, extremely expensive as they may be and requiring a $1000 outlay every month to keep the weigh loss results, do miracles in muting appetite and slashing excess weight.

    Dr Bruno Halpern, head of the obesity center at Hospital 9 de Julho in São Paulo, Brazil, also said at the conference that Wegovy should now be a frontline treatment for heart disease. 

    The study researchers said that while understanding of the mechanisms of the cardiovascular protection from semaglutide remain speculative, there was a consistent effect on associated risk factors that support the idea that multiple pathways are behind the drug’s clinical benefit.

    Ironically, the associated risk factors – which include inflammation, blood pressure and blood sugar control, all of which can impact heart health – can potentially be just as bad if not worse, however in the end of the day, it’s all about how the trial was structured.

    John Deanfield, one of the study’s authors and cardiology professor at University College London, said at the medical meeting that the trial data would spur a debate over where Wegovy fits into doctors’ treatments.

    “When do we start these drugs in our patients? How do we stop them? How much weight do we want them to lose to get the benefit?” he said.

    Patients on Wegovy experienced decreases in C-reactive proteins, an indication of inflammation, similar to those reported with cholesterol lowering statins, which are known to significantly lower heart risks, researchers reported.

    “The cardiovascular benefit (of Wegovy) is a combination of many factors, but I would call out glycemic (blood sugar) control, weight loss and inflammation,” Martin Lange, Novo Nordisk’s head of development, said in an interview.

    It was not all roses: in the 17,604-patient trial with a mean duration of 33 months, almost 1,500 of those taking Wegovy discontinued treatment due to adverse side effects, mostly gastrointestinal disorders like nausea and vomiting, compared to 718 patients in the placebo group, according to the study.

    Though the trial was not conducted to test weight loss, participants lost an average of nearly 10% of their total body weight. Novo said patients in the heart study were not required to track diet and exercise as they are in obesity trials.

    The study showed Wegovy to be safe and well-tolerated in line with previous semaglutide trials, Novo said. It was unclear whether the results could be applied to all GLP1-class drugs or were specific to semaglutide, Barclays analyst Emily Field said in an interview.

    Lange said he expected the company’s application to have Wegovy’s label updated to include the heart benefits to be approved in the U.S. in the first half of next year and in the EU in the second half. Drug regulators can update the information on medicine labels to include new data or reflect new indications for use after initial approval.

    U.S. and UK drug regulators approved Eli Lilly’s rival weight-loss treatment on Wednesday, which had previously been approved and marketed as Mounjaro for diabetes.

    Yet what should have been a strong week for GLP-1 and health loss drugs, as well as the healthcare sector in general, was anything but. The Healthcare sector was hammered in a tumultuous week, with underperformance leading the sector back to YTD lows in terms of relative performance vs. the market (XLV vs. SPY). At the sector level, the tail end of the 3Q earnings season has continued to skew towards near-term uncertainty + persisting headwinds into ’24 – with particular focus around updates from the Life Sciences Tools and Medtech companies through the week. Updates from biopharma were more mixed, with several notable setbacks (VTYX, AMLX, NBIX, etc) partly balanced by BMRN (news of activism) and underscored by LLY’s highly anticipated obesity approval for their GLP-1.

    Meanwhile, a violent sell-off in Large Biopharma on Thursday am, that quickly spread to other subsectors (XLV’s worst 1D performance YTD) as well as Novo Nordisk itself, drove a scramble by investors to identify the driver of the weakness…  without a clear smoking gun beyond the culmination of recent negative news cycle and potential angst ahead of the SELECT trial, whose favorable outcome was greatly anticipated, as it was the catalyst that initially sparked the latest frenzy around this drug class in early August.

    As Goldman concludes, debates are high ahead of this update – with potential for far reaching implications + stock moves this coming Monday – where there continues to be focus on the GLP-1 At-Risk cohort.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 22:45

  • High Stakes And A Simple Choice: "I'm 94 Years Old & Saddened By What I See Happening To America"
    High Stakes And A Simple Choice: “I’m 94 Years Old & Saddened By What I See Happening To America”

    Authored by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, via RealClear Wire,

    I am 94 years old and like many of you, I am exhausted by politics and saddened by what I see happening to America. I had hoped it was time for me to move to the sidelines and let younger generations continue the fight to preserve America’s founding freedoms and values. But, like so many of us, I realized that I could not let myself walk away; the stakes are just too high.

    We cannot let the America we see today be what we leave to our children and grandchildren. Many of our once-great cities have devolved into lawlessness with random violent attacks on innocent people, rampant looting, and large-scale homeless encampments. There are rarely consequences for the wrongdoers because George Soros-elected prosecutors across America refuse to prosecute them.

    Moreover, our southern border is unprotected, and millions of people we know nothing about pour into our nation to receive care and benefits that we cannot afford to provide to our struggling military veterans. Worse, many of the border crossers may be gang members who commit violent crimes here. Schoolchildren across America cannot read, write, or do basic math, while our educational leaders tell us that they know better than parents how to raise our children. Working men and women are struggling to provide for their families and must raid their retirement funds just to feed, clothe, and take care of their children. These are just a few of the problems America is facing after three years of bad government policies. They cannot be our legacy.

    This should not be a partisan issue. This should be an issue for all Americans – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – that I hope to reach with this op-ed. You enjoy the freedoms and values on which the nation was founded. Sadly, I see these freedoms and values being eroded today as government gets bigger and weaponized against its political opponents.

    I wrote this op-ed because of my love for America, not for any financial gain or advantage. I have been retired for 30 years and spend my time engaged in philanthropic causes, with which I have committed to share 90% of my net worth. I was born here and can give testimony about The American Dream. I lost my job and was broke when I was 48 years old. A dear friend of mine suggested that my misfortune presented a great opportunity to build a small business based upon an idea I had shared with him. Only in America, the land of opportunity, could being without a job and broke be a great opportunity. In 1978, my partners and I built four hardware stores, and this small business grew and is known as The Home Depot. We could only have done this in America because of America’s system of free enterprise and pro-jobs growth government policies. The state of America today, especially record inflation, government over-regulation, and the problems of the last three years, would prevent my partners and I from succeeding as we have.

    Part of our legacy must be passing on to future generations of Americans our founding freedoms and values, including The American Dream. We must change the current trajectory of the nation and solve the problems created in the last three years. We must also reject calls from some politicians to replace our free market system with big government socialism. Most of them seem to have never had a job outside of government. All they know is making government bigger and more intrusive in the lives of its citizens.       

    I wrote above that I wanted to sit on the sidelines of politics, but the stakes were too high for me just to walk away. The stakes are America’s path forward. Do we want to continue the perilous trajectory we are now on? I do not because it would be disastrous for all Americans except the political elite.

    For Democrats, the choice is simple. If you feel that you are better off now than you were three years ago, you should vote for Joe Biden or whoever is the Democrat candidate. For Republicans, the choice is also simple.  Let’s face it: Donald Trump is going to win the nomination. You should be doing all you can to ensure his winning the general election.

    I understand the frustration of some of my Republican friends who do not like or are offended by things Donald Trump does and says. I, too, have been frustrated at times, but we cannot let his brash style be the reason we walk away from his otherwise excellent stewardship of the United States during his first term in office. Now is the time for unity to save The American Dream for future generations. 

    For these reasons, I endorse Donald J. Trump as the nominee of the Republican Party and as our next President. I endorse him not only because he has the best chance of winning the general election but because he is the best person to take on and dismantle the administrative state that is strangling America. The new war in the Middle East will present great challenges for the free world for some time, especially in keeping other terrorist groups or nations out of the conflict. This will require a president with the judgment, strength, decisiveness, and courage that Donald Trump displayed in his first term when he ordered the strike that killed the Iranian terrorist Gen. Qasem Soleimani and dissuaded Russia from invading Ukraine. Many, including myself, believe that Hamas would not have unleashed its barbarism and cruelty on Israel if Donald Trump was our president today. The reason is America’s enemies respect and, more importantly, fear Donald Trump’s judgment, strength, decisiveness, and courage. It is critical that America’s next leader have these attributes in the face of Hamas murdering innocent babies, old people, including Holocaust survivors, entire families; burning alive innocent people; raping women and young girls; and other unspeakable acts.

    I urge my fellow Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to put their love for America above all else. I urge the Republican National Committee to end the Republican debates that only benefit ad makers and political consultants. They are unproductive and embarrassing.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 22:10

  • Four L.A. Sheriff's Department Employees Commit Suicide In A 24 Hour Period
    Four L.A. Sheriff’s Department Employees Commit Suicide In A 24 Hour Period

    Could there be controversy brewing underneath the surface at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department?

    Sadly, this is the question any reasonable person is forced to ask themselves after four current and former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department employees committed suicide over a 24 hour span, according to a new report from the LA Times.

    Sheriff Robert Luna urged his deputies to check on the health of their co-workers and friends, stating: “We are stunned to learn of these deaths, and it has sent shock waves of emotions throughout the department as we try and cope with the loss of not just one, but four beloved active and retired members of our department family.”

    “During trying times like these it’s important for personnel regardless of rank or position to check on the well-being of other colleagues and friends,” he added.

    He also claimed the department was “urgently exploring avenues to reduce work stress factors to support our employees’ work and personal lives.”

    Department sources, preferring anonymity due to the ongoing probe, indicated no connection or foul play in the recent deaths, including that of former and current employees, with three suicides occurring in a day.

    Cmdr. Darren Harris, notable for his 25-year media presence and a key department spokesperson, was among the deceased, found in his Santa Clarita home from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. Harris’ career included roles in media relations, Transit Services Bureau, and leading the Santa Clarita station. His death, while not officially confirmed, was disclosed by sources to The Times.

    The LA Times also reported that on Monday, retired sergeant Greg Hovland was found dead at his Quartz Hill home. This was followed by another employee’s death in Stevenson Ranch after sunset, and a fourth suicide that occurred Tuesday morning at a Pomona hospital.

    These incidents highlight the growing concern of law enforcement suicides in Los Angeles and nationally, where studies show officers face higher suicide risks than the general population, often linked to job stress and public scrutiny.

     The department is offering counseling and support through its Psychological Services Bureau and Peer Support Program, as stated by Luna. Additionally, four other Sheriff’s Department employees have died by suicide this year, confirmed by spokesperson Nicole Nishida.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 21:35

  • Rare Government Support Seeks To Contain China Debt Risks
    Rare Government Support Seeks To Contain China Debt Risks

    By Charlie Zhu and Helen Sun, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and strategists

    1. Fresh signs of official support for debt-laden property firms emerged, triggering a relief rally in developers’ dollar bonds. China Vanke, a major developer recently rattled by repayment worries, received unusually strong support from officials in its hometown of Shenzhen last Monday.

    Then came a report by local media Cailian on a meeting among the central bank, other regulators and top builders including Vanke, Longfor, and Gemdale. The first two builders’ dollar notes jumped on the news.

    Market confidence in developer bonds now comes from government support – similar to those of local government financing vehicles, Ming Ming, chief economist at Citic Securities, wrote in a note. Although it takes time for the property sector to recover, vulture investors may already see value in some securities, he added.

    In a contrasting example, Country Garden Holdings’ shares plunged nearly 10% Thursday after Ping An Insurance Group denied a Reuters report that authorities asked the insurer to buy the embattled developer. Ping An itself also suffered a $5.5 billion stock selloff, indicating only the state, rather than any private-sector firm, has the capacity to bail out a company of Country Garden’s size.

    2. The People’s Bank of China also has debt-laden regions on its mind. Governor Pan Gongsheng pledged to provide emergency funding to heavily indebted local governments as needed, showing a sense of urgency on preventing repayment risks at regional authorities from derailing a patchy economic recovery.

    In another sign that Beijing is tightening scrutiny of the issue, the Ministry of Finance listed eight cases of irregularities committed by local governments to build up hidden debt. The inclusion of financial institutions in the penalties issued by the ministry shows debt control will be a more comprehensive effort involving both creditors and debtors, Yang Yewei, analyst at Guosheng Securities, wrote in a note.

    Out of some 1.3 trillion yuan ($172 billion) of refinancing bonds sold by provincial authorities over the past month or so, indebted regions including Guizhou, Yunnan, and Inner Mongolia ranked as the top issuers, according to data compiled by GF Securities.

    3. Global investors turned more optimistic about Chinese assets. JPMorgan’s chief Asia & China equity strategist Wendy Liu said the bank sees increasing likelihood of a technical rebound in the country’s stock market toward the end of the year, citing improvement in risk factors from geopolitics to long-term structural growth.

    Franklin Templeton Investments President Jenny Johnson said it’s time to “wade back into China” as Chinese assets are trading cheaply. Meantime, Citadel founder Ken Griffin said global investors have to “be watching and investing” in China to tap into innovation and growth in the region.

    US-China relations though may still be a challenge. In a sign of how rocky the bilateral ties can be, Beijing accused Washington of discrediting China’s business environment, just when China booked more than 1 million tons of US soybeans in a gesture of goodwill ahead of this week’s summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 21:00

  • Australian Ports Hit By "Nationally Significant Cyber Incident" As Containers Pile Up
    Australian Ports Hit By “Nationally Significant Cyber Incident” As Containers Pile Up

    Australian Federal Police are investigating a cybersecurity incident that has paralyzed Australia’s second-largest port operator, which manages container terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Fremantle. 

    DP World Australia is responsible for 40% of Australia’s maritime freight and shuttered operations on Friday after a cybersecurity incident. 

    “The company, in collaboration with cybersecurity experts, has worked tirelessly, making significant progress in re-establishing landside freight operations at its ports,” DP World Australia said in a statement. 

    Bloomberg reported Sunday that DP World Australia has made “significant progress” after the cybersecurity incident. Still, the port operator’s main systems are down, preventing trucks from picking up or dropping off containers. However, vessels can still load and unload containers at the terminals. 

    On Saturday, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil posted on X that the “cyber incident at DP World is serious and ongoing.” 

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    On Sunday, National Cyber Security Coordinator, Air Marshal Darren Goldie, said the port operator is closely working with the government to resolve a “nationally significant cyber incident.” 

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    “DP World today advised the Australian Government that the time frame for interruptions to continue is likely to be a number of days, rather than weeks,” Goldie said.

    Here’s more from the official:

    Today (Sunday 12 November 2023), I again convened the National Coordination Mechanism to bring together government agencies and the maritime and logistics sectors as part of the response to the incident. This followed earlier technical and Ministerial briefings with the company.

    DP World’s IT system remains disconnected from the internet, significantly impacting their operations in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle. Our priority remains assisting DP World to restore their systems, which will allow cargo operations to recommence.

    DP World today advised the Australian Government that the timeframe for interruptions to continue is likely to be a number of days, rather than weeks.

    They also advised that despite the disruption, they are able to access sensitive freight at the ports if necessary – for example, in a medical emergency.

    We are continuing to develop our understanding of the flow on impacts to Australia’s logistics system.

    The National Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts and the Office of Supply Chain Resilience in the Department of Industry, Science and Resources will work with DP World to ensure that government and industry stakeholders have appropriate situational awareness necessary to support the management of any disruption to Australia’s supply chains.

    While I understand there is interest in determining who may be responsible for the cyber incident, our primary focus at this time remains on resolving the incident and supporting DP World to restore their operations.

    The Australian Federal Police is continuing to investigate the incident.

    Ports Australia wrote in a statement that the disruption is only at DP World Australia terminals:

    “Australia’s ports and other terminals remain operational. We understand the importance of accurate reporting in maintaining public confidence and preventing unnecessary concern.” 

    This comes days after Chinese bank ICBC was hit with a cyberattack that reportedly affected US Treasury liquidity during a 30-year auction. And a string of cyber breaches at major ports in recent years. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 20:25

  • Morgan Stanley's 2024 Outlook: Slowing Economy, Policy Easing And Challenging Set-Up For Markets
    Morgan Stanley’s 2024 Outlook: Slowing Economy, Policy Easing And Challenging Set-Up For Markets

    By Vishwanath Tirupattur, global head of Quantitative Research at Morgan Stanley

    Later today, we will publish our year-ahead outlook. Personally, it is a milestone – it is the 20th year that I have had the privilege of being part of this annual crystal ball-gazing at Morgan Stanley Research. For those of us steeped in the daily grind of the markets, stepping back and imagining how the economies and markets evolve over the course of the year ahead is a challenging endeavor, and one we take seriously. We strive to achieve cohesion and consistency in our outlooks across economies and markets through a highly collaborative and deliberative exercise involving our economics and strategy teams globally.

    Our economists led by Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley’s chief global economist, expect below-trend growth in developed markets (DM) and a mixed growth picture evolving in emerging markets (EM). They see restrictive monetary policy of the last two years continuing to exert pressure on the global economic cycle over 2024. Positing that while global inflation has peaked, returning to target levels will take a period of below-par growth, they expect to see global growth slowing with most DM economies avoiding recession while taming inflation. They acknowledge that while recessions remain a risk everywhere, any recession in our baseline scenario (such as in the UK) should be shallow as inflation is falling with full employment, so real incomes hold up, leaving consumption resilient, despite more volatile investment spending.

    The risk of a debt-deflation trap remains in place for China, resulting in a subpar improvement in both growth and inflation which weighs on headline growth in EM.

    While growth remains robust in select EM economies such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines, it won’t be sufficient to offset the drag from China.

    After nearly two years of aggressive monetary policy, our economists expect policy rates across most DMs, with the notable exception of Japan, to remain broadly on hold in 1H24 and decline only gradually as inflation cools towards target levels.

    Thus, despite the start of easing. policy rates in DMs remain restrictive even at the end of 2024. Japan continues to play to a different tune, inching towards policy normalization from the other end of the policy spectrum. Our economists expect the BoJ to remove both the Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP) as well as Yield Curve Control (YCC) in January 2024 and hike once in July 2024.

    For markets, 2024 presents a challenging set-up. Many markets have already priced a smooth macro transition, a soft landing characterized by moderating growth and inflation and eventually easier policy.

    Thus, justifying current valuations across many asset classes requires the macro outlook to stick the landing perfectly. In that sense, there is little room for error. Unlike the last two years when we had a strong preference for RoW over US, we expect that US assets will find 2024 easier, and EM markets less so. In currencies, we expect that USD strength endures through 1Q, as growth and rate divergence continue and USD’s defensive characteristics remain alluring. JPY outperforms on the back of the BoJ exiting YCC and NIRP.

    A slowing economy and policy easing set the stage for yields to be lower in the US, Europe, the UK and the dollar bloc, and yield curves to steepen. We think that this is a good set-up for ‘income investing’. For yield-focused investors seeking 6%+ yields, we see a wide range of opportunities across high-quality fixed income – DM government bonds, IG credit, agency MBS and senior tranches of securitized credit.

    Given that there is little room for error, we lean towards a defensive posture, particularly in equities. Japan is our most preferred region while EM is our least preferred, dragged down by Asia growth. For US equities, we continue to recommend a defensive growth and late-cycle cyclicals barbell and look for a durable earnings recovery to emerge during 2024 even as we expect the earnings recession to continue in the short term. Meanwhile, we expect European equity earnings to trough in 1Q, but any recovery is likely to be L-shaped.

    2023 has been a challenging year for markets and 2024 won’t be easy either, but we expect the nature of the challenge to be different.

    You will get the full story in our global outlooks coming out later today and more detailed asset class-specific outlooks that follow. Stay tuned.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 19:50

  • Drastically Different Narratives Emerge Centered On Shifa Hospital's Mounting Deaths
    Drastically Different Narratives Emerge Centered On Shifa Hospital’s Mounting Deaths

    This weekend has seen the most intense fighting in Gaza City which has centered on al-Shifa hospital and its vicinity, which is the Strip’s largest, which has for days been totally surrounded by Israeli forces, and lacking food and water.

    The hospital is “totally surrounded and bombardments are going on nearby,” its director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, announced in a late Saturday statement. Israel has claimed that Hamas uses bunkers beneath the hospital as a command center. However, al-Shifa’s head of surgery, Dr Marwan Abusada, has told regional news sources that civilians are trapped and patients are dying.

    Patients & internally displaced people at Al-Shifa hospital, via APF

    “Shooting and bombardment are everywhere you hear it at every second around the al-Shifa Hospital. No one can get out. No one can come in. People who tried evacuate the hospital, they were shot at in the streets. Some got killed, some injured,” he described of the desperate situation. Some Israeli officials and media have alleged that it is in fact Hamas snipers doing the shooting, though without evidence.

    Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila has at the same time said Israel’s military “are not evacuating people from hospitals; instead they are forcibly evicting the wounded onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death.”

    This was in response to the IDF announcing it would help facilitate the safe passage of babies and other wounded from the hospital. But the IDF has asserted repeatedly it is Hamas that is using civilians at the hospital as ‘human shields’ and that Hamas also hijacked inbound fuel which was meant for hospital generators. 

    The Wall Street Journal on Sunday also quoted doctors who presented a scenario of mass suffering and death unfolding:

    Doctors described an increasingly desperate situation at hospitals in northern Gaza, including the biggest one, Al-Shifa Hospital, where they said dozens of dead bodies have been left in the open and decomposing and nearly 40 prematurely born babies are without the incubators they need.

    “If we do not stop this bloodshed immediately with a ceasefire or at the bare minimum a medical evacuation of patients these hospitals will become a morgue,” Doctors Without Borders, the international healthcare charity, said Sunday.

    Competing and contrasting narratives have emerged concerning who is to blame for deaths at Shifa hospital…

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    Israel’s Foreign Ministry has said the compounding misery is being orchestrated by Hamas…

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    Meanwhile, also on Sunday fighting along the Israeli-Lebanon border is worsening following the latest wave of Hezbollah rockets, some of which reportedly scored direct hits, leaving significant casualties. 

    “At least six civilians were wounded, one critically, in an anti-tank guided missile attack by the Hezbollah terror group from Lebanon on Sunday, the military and medics said,” the Times of Israel reports.

    Hezbollah has been facing pressure from both its supporters in the region and Palestinian armed factions to ‘do more’ and escalate its attacks on northern Israel.

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    However, many of the IDF soldiers were reported as only “lightly wounded” and were evaluated at a local hospital. There are reports that Israel’s military is preparing more devastating retaliatory attacks on southern Lebanon.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 19:15

  • Trump Lawyers To Mount Counterattack After Weeks Of Bruising Cross-Examination In NY Civil Case
    Trump Lawyers To Mount Counterattack After Weeks Of Bruising Cross-Examination In NY Civil Case

    Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The media and public should brace themselves for the most heated phase of the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump when courtroom proceedings resume on Monday—if past interactions between the defense and the judge and government lawyers are any indication.

    Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with attorneys Christopher Kise and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Nov. 6, 2023. (Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images)

    On Nov. 13, the defense will begin to make its case on behalf of the 45th president and 2024 candidate, as well as his two sons and daughter, who are no longer defendants in the case yet faced relentless and acrimonious cross-examination on the witness stand over the last two weeks.

    President Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. is expected to be the first to testify for the defense.

    Trump lawyer Christopher Kise and Judge Arthur Engoron feuded throughout the cross-examination of President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump. The defense attorney has objected constantly that questions posed were irrelevant to the legal issues at hand or that no one could reasonably expect the people on the stand to recall the details of documents, records, meetings, and conversations from as far back as 2012.

    As if to add further contentiousness to the proceedings, New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office on Friday sent a letter to Judge Engoron seeking to block testimony from four expert witnesses set to take the stand during the defense phase next week. Their testimony would address the accuracy of valuations contained in statements of financial condition submitted to Deutsche Bank and other firms for the purpose of securing favorable terms for loans and insurance. In the view of the attorney general’s office, such testimony is beside the point given that the judge has already ruled that Trump is guilty of fraud.

    Nor has the pro-Trump side been inactive during the run-up to the next phase of the trial. On Friday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) sent a lengthy letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, spelling out a litany of complaints about how Judge Engoron has conducted himself and his alleged bias against the respondents in the lawsuit.

    (Left) New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron. (Dave Sanders/Pool Photo via AP) / (Right) House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    “This judge’s bizarre behavior has no place in our judicial system, where Judge Engoron is not honoring the defendant’s rights to due process and a fair trial. These serious concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the defendant is the leading candidate for President of the United States, and it appears the judicial system is being politicized to affect the outcome of the campaign,” Ms. Stefanik writes.

    She then goes on to cite the judge’s reference to the former president as “just a bad guy” deserving of prosecution by the attorney general, and his blunt statement to President Trump that “we are not here to listen to what you have to say.”

    Judge Engoron also told President Trump’s attorney Mr. Kise, “I am not here to hear what he has to say, now sit down!” and said, when Mr. Kise floated the idea of requesting a directed verdict, “You better not, Chris.”

    The letter also characterizes the judge and members of his staff as “partisan Democrat donors” who, in violation of the New York Code of Judicial Conduct, have given lavishly to the party opposing President Trump.

    Mr. Stefanik’s letter concludes, “Judge Engoron’s lawlessness sends an ominous and illegal warning to New York business owners: If New York judges don’t like your politics, they will destroy your business, the livelihood of your employees, and you personally. This Commission cannot let this continue.”

    A Defense Lawyer’s Concerns

    Though Ms. Stefanik is not part of the Trump defense team in the current proceedings, her letter summarizes many of the objections that Mr. Kise has repeatedly raised over the last few weeks. Mr. Kise took exception to the frequent passing of notes between the judge and a law clerk, suggesting that the judge often made rulings favoring the plaintiffs upon reading the notes, whose contents were not disclosed to the rest of the court.

    “The rulings are frequently if not inordinately against us on every issue,” said Mr. Kise. Later on in the proceedings, he said he hoped that the defense would receive the same latitude that the judge has granted to the plaintiffs when the defense finally gets its turn the week of Nov. 13.

    Judge Engoron insisted that he had every right to send and receive as many notes as he pleased, and the validity of such courtroom procedure was not for Mr. Kise to adjudicate. At another point in the proceedings, the judge fired back at Mr. Kise, saying he vehemently objected to the suggestion that the judge held a bias in favor of the plaintiffs and was not acting in accordance with generally accepted rules and standards of courtroom conduct and decorum.

    Near the end of the Nov. 2 hearing, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer ridiculed the idea that bias was at work and the grounds on which Mr. Kise alleged such bias.

    “The notion that bias can be inferred by the number of notes passed between a judge and a clerk is one I have never heard of, and is frivolous,” Mr. Amer said.

    Regardless of whether the concerns of Mr. Kise and Ms. Stefanik have any basis, the proceedings that get underway in Manhattan civil court at 10:00 a.m. on Monday are likely to rise—or descend—to a level of acrimony with few parallels in any lawsuit involving a former U.S. head of state or current presidential aspirant.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 18:40

  • "You Do This, Dumb B**ch!": Maryland Man Flips Out And Goes Berzerk At McDonald's Drive Thru Window
    “You Do This, Dumb B**ch!”: Maryland Man Flips Out And Goes Berzerk At McDonald’s Drive Thru Window

    A man in White Marsh, Maryland went berzerk at a McDonald’s last week, throwing drinks as workers and demanding that they turn over food to him. And of course, it was all captured on a viral Tik Tok video, The New York Post reported last week.  

    Well, at least somewhere in a server room in China, the government cybersecurity experts getting paid to review all of the U.S.’s Tik Tok footage for national security secrets got to have a laugh. 

    According to The New York Post, an unidentified man, donned in a beanie, blue polo, and sunglasses, aggressively opens the drive-thru window of a McDonald’s in White Marsh, Maryland, about 16 miles from Baltimore. He confronts an employee, harshly telling them: “You do this! You do this, dumb b—h!”

    In his rage, he snatches a serving of fries and a small beverage from the counter typically used for assembling drive-thru orders and hurls them at a staff member. Then, he took a large soda and tossed it into the eatery, causing people off-screen to react with gasps and screams. It remains unclear if anyone was injured in the incident.

    Furiously, he yells “Shut it down right now!” while attempting to dismantle the soda fountain. “Give me some food!” he demands, gesturing towards the interior of the McDonald’s, apparently targeting one of the workers.

    “I own all this stuff!” he then yells, looking at the cash register. In a fit of rage, the man wrenches the cash register from its mount, causing a cascade of registers and other equipment to topple. Frustrated, he shakes the rack, demanding “some damn real food.”

    He then aggressively insists on being served “some f—ing food,” to which a visible staff member assures him that his meal is being prepared. A woman’s voice in the background of the video, which has attracted over 69,000 views since its posting, confirms, “He’s cooking your order right now.”

    Demanding fries, he points through the window, threatening, “Give me that bag of fries right there,” and repeats his demand with an added threat towards an employee.

    The man was charged that day, according to ABC. 

    You can watch the entire wonderful exchange here:

    https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 18:05

  • Trump's Veterans Day Message Was Quite Different From Biden's
    Trump’s Veterans Day Message Was Quite Different From Biden’s

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both released differing messages on Nov. 11, Veteran’s Day.

    “Today, we honor the story of our veterans – the story of our nation at its best,” President Biden wrote on X.

    “On Veterans Day, let’s recommit to fulfilling our one sacred obligation as a nation: to prepare those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home.”

    In a Veterans Day speech at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, President Biden made reference to “those who have always, always kept the light of liberty shining bright across the world,” while making reference to his late son, Beau, who was deployed to Iraq about 15 years ago.

    “We come together today to once again honor the generations of Americans who stood on the front lines of freedom … to once again bear witness to the great deeds of a noble few who risked everything, everything, to give us a better future,” President Biden also said.

    During the event, president was joined by first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff. Several members of his cabinet also joined.

    On Saturday, President Biden announced that military veterans who were exposed to toxins could be able to enroll in no-cost health care starting next year.

    President Trump marked Veterans Day with a message on his Truth Social social media platform:

    “To our heroic veterans, I am grateful for your service to our country and honored to wish you a Happy Veterans Day.”

    He added that there is “no greater act of selfless service than defending America’s God-given freedoms and liberty.”

    Hours later, he wrote a message on the platform noting that in “honor of our great veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

    They will “do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American dream,” added President Trump, who was later seen at a UFC fight in New York on Saturday.

    “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within,” the former president also wrote.

    “Despite the hatred and anger of the radical left lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will make America great again!”

    Two GOP presidential candidates issued Veterans Day messages to underscore their military ties.

    “Proud of my veteran Michael Haley and the many men and women who have served to defend our freedoms,” former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley wrote on X, along with a photo of her husband Michael, a National Guard officer.

    And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a former Judge Advocate General (JAG), sent this thanks to “all who have worn the cloth of our country.”

    He added, “As a veteran myself, I am honored by the unwavering support we receive. I will always have the backs of our vets.”

    Nov. 11, once known as Armistice Day, is the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the first celebration that used the term Veterans Day occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947.

    World War II veteran Raymond Weeks had set up a “National Veterans Day,” which included a parade and other events to honor veterans. It has held on Nov. 11.

    “In 1954, after the return of service personnel from both World War II and the Korean War, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill rededicating Nov. 11 as Veterans Day, encouraging Americans to commit themselves to the cause of peace and to honor America’s veterans for their courage, honor, patriotism and sacrifice,” according to the National World War I Museum.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 17:30

  • "Antisemitism Has No Place Here" – Harvard President Condemns "From The River To The Sea" Phrase After 1600 Jewish Alum Pull Donations
    “Antisemitism Has No Place Here” – Harvard President Condemns “From The River To The Sea” Phrase After 1600 Jewish Alum Pull Donations

    Following enormous backlash against the University over its initial statement about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel – with critics condemning Harvard President Claudine Gay’s statement for failing to explicitly denounce Hamas and lack of response to a controversial joint letter by Harvard student groups in support of Palestine that called Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence – Harvard has just announced that it will work with its newly established antisemitism advisory group to implement antisemitism education and training for affiliates.

    “I affirm our commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization, and our commitment to meeting antisemitism head-on, with the determination it demands,” Gay wrote.

    “Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Gay added. “We are committed to doing the hard work to address this scourge.”

    Harvard President Claudine Gay announced plans to implement training around antisemitism in a Thursday email.

    Additionally, in her email, Gay explicitly condemned the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” – a pro-Palestine slogan that prominent alumni have called “eliminationist” and antisemitic.

    “Our community must understand that phrases such as ‘from the river to the sea’ bear specific historical meanings that to a great many people imply the eradication of Jews from Israel and engender both pain and existential fears within our Jewish community,” Gay wrote.

    “I condemn this phrase and any similarly hurtful phrases.”

    The Crimson reports that Gay’s decision to single out the phrase “from the river to the sea” – which is frequently chanted by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and other pro-Palestine student groups – almost immediately received backlash from some Harvard affiliates.

    Kirsten A. Weld, a professor of History at Harvard, criticized Gay’s decision to denounce a specific phrase used by student activists.

    “Can’t recall any prior instance of a contested phrase/idea receiving official condemnation like this, or having one singular ‘specific historical meaning’ imputed to it, in my 11 years on this campus,” Weld wrote in a post on X.

    Gay, standing next to Harvard Chabad President Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, views an Shabbat table installation in the Yard symbolizing the hundreds of hostages held by Hamas.

    Gay also confirmed that the FBI and HUPD are investigating a video taken during the Oct. 18 pro-Palestine “die-in” protest at Harvard Business School depicting several protesters confronting a man and escorting him away after he filmed protester’s faces.

    The protesters shouted “shame” after the man, who other media outlets later identified as an Israeli student.

    What could have caused such a sudden and considerable ‘flip’ in Gay’s perspective (or silence) on the jew-hatred being seen at Harvard – and across many so-called ‘Ivy League’ schools? Doesn’t she realize the world is binary – oppressor vs oppressed, victimizer vs victims?

    We are sure it is simply a realization that principles matter (and terrorism is bad), and has nothing at all to do with the fact that 1600 wealthy jewish alumni have withdrawn their donations from the once-prestigious learning academy.

    As CNN reports, high-profile billionaire alumni like Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman and former Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner have already said that if Harvard doesn’t take steps to fix the problem they could face a donor exodus, but now the largest group yet of alumni – most of whom do not have billionaire status – are threatening to withdraw their donations.

    “We never thought that, at Harvard College, we would have to argue the point that terrorism against civilians demands immediate and unequivocal condemnation,” wrote members of the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association (HCJAA) in an open letter to President Claudine Gay and Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana.

    “We never thought we would have to argue for recognition of our own humanity.”

    Philanthropy is the single largest contributor to revenue at Harvard, accounting for 45% of the university’s $5.8 billion in income last year. Philanthropic gifts accounted for 9% of the university’s operating budget last year and 36% of its $51 billion endowment amassed over decades.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 16:55

  • Los Angeles County Approves New 'Office Of Food Equity'
    Los Angeles County Approves New ‘Office Of Food Equity’

    Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

    The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a plan this week to create a new Office of Food Equity to address what they call a growing problem of food insecurity in the region.

    The measure, authored by Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath, will build on the county’s Food Equity Roundtable, created in 2021 to bring together food companies with private and public charity groups. The coalition was funded by the Annenberg, the California Community, and the Weingart foundations.

    According to Ms. Hahn, the new office will allow the county to improve the county’s food system.

    “By creating the first-ever LA County Office of Food Equity, we can build on the work we already started with our partners, modernize our food system, and work toward a future where everyone in LA County can get the healthy food they need,” she said in a statement Nov. 7.

    The roundtable, a two-year pilot program, integrates the county’s solutions for chronic food insecurity based on the principle that “just and equitable access to healthy and nutritious food is a human right.”

    In a December 2022 report, the program compiled a list of recommendations to improve food access—such as addressing structural racism, ageism, and overall inequity—and identified populations who organizers say are disproportionately more vulnerable to food insecurity, including immigrant and transgender communities.

    California residents living in poverty or who have lost jobs are already eligible for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides monthly funds to buy food. In 2022, more than 4.6 million California residents—or about 1 in 8 people—received SNAP benefits, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute.

    Volunteers at Laguna Niguel Presbyterian work with San Clemente-based Family Assistance Ministries in handing out food donations to a line of cars in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Dec. 23, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The state received nearly $14.5 billion in such benefits in 2022—about 142 percent more than in 2019.

    However, food insecurity was much higher last year in Los Angeles County compared to the rest of the United States, according to the latest county and federal statistics.

    In Los Angeles County, about 24 percent of households—nearly 1 in 4—were food insecure as of July 2022, statistics show.

    “We know the need has only grown, particularly for communities of color who lack access to fresh food,” Ms. Horvath said in the Nov. 7 statement. “The Office of Food Equity will build on this successful public-private partnership model to continue to provide nutritious food to residents who are counting on us.”

    Federal statistics show the number of households in the U.S. that were food insecure grew substantially in 2022 to 12.8 percent, or 17 million households. That meant 3.5 million more households were lacking food compared to the year before, when 10.2 percent reported food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Food insecurity in the U.S. declined in 2018, decreasing for the first time to 2007 levels, the USDA reported. Only 11 percent of U.S. households were food insecure in 2018, a decline from 11.8 in 2017, according to the agency.

    Cinny Kennard, executive director of the Annenberg Foundation, said she hoped the new office would ensure all people get the food they need.

    “This motion approved by the Board of Supervisors will ensure the new office of Food Equity is staffed and supported so that we can together begin to work to get all people much needed quality, affordable, and healthy food,” she said in the statement.

    Ms. Kennard is also a former media executive and co-chair of the food roundtable.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 16:20

  • Palestinians 'Disappointed' Hezbollah Hasn't Escalated A Northern War On Israel
    Palestinians ‘Disappointed’ Hezbollah Hasn’t Escalated A Northern War On Israel

    On Saturday Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his second speech since the Gaza War began, and there was little new that signaled he’s ready to escalate; instead, it was mostly a reiteration of ‘red lines’ and more threats of possible future action.

    He did emphasize that the war against Israel will be long and that “victory” would “take years” to achieve, after Hezbollah has already lost at least 63 of its fighters. He did pledge that “This front will remain active,” in reference to southern Lebanon. 

    In response, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his troops who are deployed to the northern border, “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a war that might happen.” The two sides have exchanged daily rocket and mortar fire, but there’s yet to be the kind of all-out battle that many have been fearing.

    “It is making mistakes and … those who will pay the price are first and foremost Lebanon’s citizens. What we are doing in Gaza we can do in Beirut,” Gallant said additionally.

    But many Palestinians were hoping that Nasrallah would have declared war by now, and they are said to be “disappointed” this hasn’t happened. This is true also of Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon, some of which were interviewed by Al Jazeera: 

    His message fell short for many Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp that sprawls out across two Beirut neighborhoods.

    “I wanted him to open up the war completely,” said Abdallah, 25, one of the Palestinians who gathered anxiously at a sidewalk cafe in Sabra and Shatila to watch the speech.

    And others echoed the same:

    “Hezbollah is fighting and they’re trying, but we want them to make more happen,” said Abdallah.

    Some Palestinians in Lebanon believe that Hezbollah should take the fight to Israel first.

    But feelings are much more mixed among Lebanese themselves, who remember much of the country being bombed in 2006, including Beirut’s international airport. But unlike the situation in 2006, Lebanon’s economy is currently in tailspin, amid other worsening societal woes. 

    There are fears that a full Hezbollah assault would drag the entire country into war with Israel, and it remains that the Lebanese Army doesn’t have much of an air force or proper anti-air defenses to speak of if Israel chooses to bomb the whole country “back to the stone age” – as Israeli leaders past and present have frequently vowed.

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

    So far both Hezbollah and the IDF have exercised some degree of restraint in order to keep the exchanges of fire “limited” – despite casualties on either side the border. The IDF has meanwhile been forced to divert a significant amount of troops, tanks and other armor to the north in order to deal with the Hezbollah threat.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 15:45

  • WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA's Shadow
    WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA’s Shadow

    Consider the source (and the timing)…

    No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.”

    The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations.

    Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that ‘Russia did it’ was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further ‘aid’ to be sent to Ukraine, to ‘protect interests’.

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    Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the “coordinator” of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

    Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation.

    “Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream,” Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities.

    It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests.

    Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again “according to the people familiar with his role,” but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, “according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out.”

    More problematically, Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelensky’s public denials regarding Ukraine’s involvement.

    “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by the Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.

    “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.

    Interestingly, WaPo reports that Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.

    This WaPo report comes at a crucial time in the geopolitical chess-game, as the desire for more spending in what appears to be a lost cause in Ukraine is fading fast among Western populations (most notably US), and perhaps offers President Biden an ‘excuse’ to reduce aid in light of this ‘shocking development’ – which, of course, Washington has vehemently denied any involvement in (and denounced as a “reckless act”.

    But the twists and turns do not stop there as the backdrop to this unfolding drama includes Seymour Hersh’s explosive allegations regarding the CIA and the US Navy’s covert activities.

    Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

    Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

    Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist – who broke such well-known stories as the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib scandal and has long been known for impeccable insider sources – has previously reported on the deep entanglement of US intelligence in various global hotspots, hinting strongly at the complex interplay between Ukrainian ambitions and broader Western strategic objectives.

    The broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored.

    The US and NATO have been deeply involved in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, but the extent of their involvement in covert operations remains a subject of intense debate and speculation. The Nord Stream bombing, if indeed orchestrated by a faction within the Ukrainian military, could be seen as an extension of this proxy conflict, where Ukraine serves as a frontline in a larger strategic contest between Russia and the West, with CIA pulling the strings (just as Hersh concludes).

    In an interview with WaPo in June of this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA had never asked him directly about any attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions, in September 2022, he received a phone call from then-U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley.

    “He asked me, ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ I said, ‘No’. A lot of operations are planned, a lot of operations are going on, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”

    Some of those who described Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests.

    So, why now? Suddenly various ‘sources’ come forward to offer a scapegoat for this “reckless act”?

    A distraction from potential confirmation of Washington’s involvement? … A potential release valve on the ‘blame Russia’ narrative enabling ‘peace’ conversations to take place? … An opportune excuse to curb ‘aid’ (pending an investigation)given the involvement of Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military officer (and Zelensky’s denial) prompting questions of discord within the Ukrainian chain of command?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 15:25

  • The House 'Concentrates The Mind' Of Hunter Biden With A Game-Changing Subpoena
    The House ‘Concentrates The Mind’ Of Hunter Biden With A Game-Changing Subpoena

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in the Messenger on the issuance of House subpoenas to the Biden family, including Hunter Biden. The move dramatically changes the profile of the investigation and the perils for the Biden family. After these subpoenas were issued, the House also subpoenaed an array of Biden associates connected to his alleged influence peddling or his art sales. After following the transfer of millions in foreign money, the Committee is drawing closer to the epicenter of the Biden family.

    Here is the column:

    The great English writer Samuel Johnson once told a friend, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

    The quote came to mind after reading the response of Abbe Lowell, legal counsel for Hunter Biden, to the issuance of subpoenas for Hunter and other family members by the House Oversight Committee. Lowell said that “Hunter is eager to have the opportunity, in a public forum” — but premised that on the condition that it be “the right time” for Hunter to speak. He also dismissed the committee investigation as a “political stunt.”

    It appears that further concentration is warranted.

    A congressional subpoena is really not an invitation for a sit-down at a convenient time.

    Hunter has spent years relying on denial and delay to fend off inquiries. With this subpoena, he will now have to choose between cooperation or contempt … on the committee’s schedule.

    The issuance of subpoenas to Hunter, his uncle, James Biden, and Biden family associate Rob Walker, changes the entire threat — and the range of options — for the Bidens. Attorney General Merrick Garland moved quickly and aggressively to prosecute Trump associates such as Steve Bannon who failed to appear or cooperate with Congress. The public will demand the same vigorous prosecution in the face of any similar contempt by Biden associates.

    Moreover, Hunter has tried a wide array of approaches to these allegations of influence peddling, from a plea for sympathy to threats of litigation. Too many in the media have been willing enablers of these shifting claims, including figures like Jimmy Kimmel who conducted a softball interview that portrayed Hunter as a hero rather than an alleged influence peddler.

    That may now change. If Hunter lies to congressional investigators, he can be charged with a federal crime. While the Justice Department allowed the statutes of limitations to run on various felonies, Hunter would be faced with a new set of charges with years for criminal charges to be brought by prosecutors.

    The situation is equally serious for the president’s brother, James, who has long been accused by House Republicans of influence peddling. Most recently, House investigators disclosed that, in 2018, James Biden received two loans totaling $600,000 from Americore Health, which they described as “a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator.” The company has been referenced in past reports of alleged influence peddling by James Biden.

    According to the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, it made the loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’” to new overseas investors. On the day he received the second loan transfer, James Biden allegedly sent a check for the same amount — $200,000 — to Joe Biden as a “loan reimbursement.”

    The House committee also reports finding a $40,000 check from James Biden and his wife to Joe Biden. Again, it was marked as a “loan reimbursement.”

    Congressional interviews can be perilous, but they are far more so when your client’s interview will cover years of transactions and statements. It presents a target-rich environment for investigators and ample opportunities for witnesses to make misleading or false statements.

    Hunter and his uncle may soon have company. In addition to a subpoena for Biden family associate Rob Walker, the House committee has requested voluntary transcripted interviews with Sara Biden, Hallie Biden, Elizabeth Secundy, Melissa Cohen and onetime Hunter business associate Tony Bobulinski.

    Figures like Bobulinski are likely to cooperate. He already has accused President Biden of lying about his lack of knowledge of foreign dealings, including giving detailed accounts of meeting with Joe Biden in a hotel.

    However, committees often first request voluntary interviews before issuing subpoenas. As with Hunter and James Biden, the committee has ample grounds to demand these interviews as part of both its impeachment inquiry and its oversight authority.

    In anticipation, perhaps, Hunter is reviving his addiction defense, even claiming that the investigations into his conduct are a blow against anyone who is fighting addiction. It is a curious effort since his counsel recently claimed that federal gun charges are invalid because his client had a period of sobriety just in time to sign the allegedly false gun application. That is the type of fluid, conflicted narrative that can produce criminal charges in congressional investigations.

    Samuel Johnson’s observation is particularly poignant in this case, given the subject. It was a reference to William Dodd, an Anglican clergyman, accused of being a spendthrift who became indebted due to his extravagant lifestyle. He forged a document to secure a “loan” to help clear his debts. Johnson tried unsuccessfully to keep him from the gallows, but he wrote a sermon before his death, titled, “The Convict’s Address to his unhappy Brethren.” Johnson was widely believed to have been the true author and defended his friend by saying that the hanging brought out the best of him.

    It remains to be seen if these subpoenas will bring out the best or worst of Hunter Biden. Thus far, he has received every break from federal prosecutors, from expired statutes of limitations to reported tip-offs on investigators’ interviews. That will now change. Either Hunter will concentrate his mind, or congressional investigators will do it for him.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 15:10

  • San Francisco: Clean For Xi, Not For Thee
    San Francisco: Clean For Xi, Not For Thee

    Now wait just a damn minute…

    For decades, and with increasing severity, residents of San Francisco have been forced to navigate through shit-covered streets, drug dens and criminal elements, all while the city feigned the inability to do anything about it (despite employing 6-figure ‘poop patrollers’ to regularly pressure-wash the sidewalks).

    Now, with the announcement that the world’s top commie, Chinese President Xi Jinping, will meet with President Joe Biden in The Golden City, and San Francisco was miraculously able to clean itself up, seemingly overnight.

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    Needless to say, people are asking questions, as not only does San Francisco clearly have the capability to clean up its streets, it waited to do so until the president of China came to town.

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    Some locals say the homeless have just been ‘herded’ to a different part of town.

    Others noted that San Francisco is treating a foreign leader better than their own citizens. 

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    Again, WTF!?

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 14:35

  • The "Safety" Dance
    The “Safety” Dance

    By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

    On Wednesday, November 8th, Academy Asset Management (an affiliate of Academy Securities) celebrated the VETZ Veteran Impact ETF and Veterans Day at the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the closing bell. Safety was a big topic of conversation last week, and was highlighted during the geopolitical roundtable that Academy held at the NYSE. Issues covered included:

    • Geopolitical and physical safety
    • Investment safety
    • Cyber security (or safety to fit within our theme)
    • “Safe” assets
    • Technological, economic, and trade “safety”

    It doesn’t hurt that bringing up “The Safety Dance” brings back some good memories of a road trip to Montreal where we got to see Bootsauce live (a local up-and-upcoming band at the time). We all need some good things to reflect on when “safety” and “security” are top of mind.

    It was nice that markets cooperated with the Bottom Line from last weekend’s What a Fire (some “consolidation” with a bias towards owning the “everything rally”).

    We also got to discuss a variety of subjects (including “safety”) on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday (starts at around the 1:42:45 mark). Apparently, based on a lot of feedback, it was an interesting interview and worth watching. That feedback is at least partially supported by the fact that Bloomberg made a quick clip out of the Pain Trade portion of the interview and they used our line from the piece titled “Analysts Who Cried Recession” in the headline of a written report. Bloomberg also aired a replay of the energy discussion we had.

    However, let’s get back to the issue of “safety.”

    Geopolitical and Physical Safety

    The battles between Israel and Hamas have intensified. As our Geopolitical Intelligence Group (“GIG”) has repeated over and over, it will be very difficult for Israel to eradicate Hamas as a threat. The complex tunnel network makes the urban fighting even more difficult than what the U.S. experienced in Fallujah. Setting up operations and command & control centers in and around civilian facilities (like schools and hospitals, which is prohibited by the Geneva Convention) makes the fighting more challenging.

    On the “bright” side of things (to the extent that there is a bright side), so far there has been no escalation by other groups or countries in the region. That threat does exist, and will remain high while the fighting continues. This is a very tricky situation, but it has (so far) not escalated to the point of being a major global economic issue. However, I am hearing chatter about supply chain issues. The supply chain issues are centered around goods produced by Israel. There is also concern around the ability to ship things through the region (e.g. the Suez Canal) because the risk of escalation or even “accidents” is greatly increased.

    Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” is all but over, and it seems like Russia may be turning the tide. The likelihood of the “stalemate” continuing seems high (though presumably, the Russians will attempt another winter offensive once the ground freezes). Support for weapons deliveries is now far from universal. However, while the quality and types of weapons being delivered are superior to what was delivered early in the war, many members of the GIG question whether it is enough to allow Ukraine to push Russian forces back across their border. Nothing good is happening in the war which, paradoxically, may be a good thing as it could push both sides to the table (though that is not likely until the spring). It is still unclear to me if this would result in much of an immediate impact to the global economy or even the inflationary pressures in Europe (Ride of the Valkyries).

    “Safety” in Markets

    As stocks seemed to defy gravity (or at least higher bond yields) on Friday to finish the day and the week up (1.3% to 2.4%, depending on the index you track), many are looking at “hedges.” That is in the “normal” realm of discussion topics. What is abnormal is this background buzz about whether Treasuries are “safe” assets.

    The 10-year auction did well, but the 30-year auction struggled. That had absolutely nothing to do with the Fed. Yes, Powell spoke hawkish, but what else was he going to do or say? It has everything to do with:

    • Higher inflation expectations. The concepts of geopolitical inflation, ESG inflation, and supply chain inflation are now widely held views. We continue to expect 3% to 5% inflation over the next 3 to 5 years from these various forces. However, we don’t think that the Fed will react aggressively to persistent inflation near 3%, precisely because of where it’s coming from. It would be good to see better messaging out of D.C. regarding why this sort of inflation (which goes hand in hand with creating a safer and more secure economy) is not only necessary, but good for us longer-term!
    • Lack of control, discipline, and responsibility out of D.C. We discussed this in U.S. Credit on the back of some actions by the NRSROs (often referred to as rating agencies). Now, we are all watching the nation’s cost of borrowing rise rapidly as the combination of rising yields and more total debt becomes problematic. Some are using words other than “problematic” to describe the situation, but that is premature. Yes, we are on a bad trajectory, but both supply and the average coupon paid take time to reset significantly higher and too much is already priced in.

    Treasuries are still “safe,” but in no way as “safe” as they were a year or two ago. Why would we even bother discussing the difference between “safe” and “still safe, but not as safe as before?” That is probably a good question, but I also wanted to point out that certain mathematicians have varying degrees of “infinite.” How can something that is infinite be bigger or smaller than something else that is infinite? Well, it can be, and I think that logic (although it hurts my head) is why it is appropriate to think about what is “safe.”

    • I’m leaning towards being overweight floating rate assets. SOFR (for all intents and purposes) is set by the government/Fed. Sure it can spike for a day or two, but there are tools and policy support steps in place to keep it stable. The same cannot be said for longer-dated bonds. Longer-dated bonds, especially in this algo driven “faux” liquidity (Voldemort) environment, are susceptible to large moves. The risk of stops being triggered is real. Bond investors typically lose far more money from forced selling than they do from defaults. I think that being overweight floating debt (or short-term debt) could put you in a position to capture some “weird” days in bonds, where we get a large move in bond yields (3 or more standard deviations).
    • Corporates (and Munis) versus government debt. Municipalities typically must operate with a balanced budget. In addition, corporations have governance. I really like the front end (5-years and in, with some floaters) of high-quality IG (A or better, I wanted to say BBB or better, but figured that I’d get too much push back) as spreads will do well as some choose corporates over government debt.
    • Crypto. There, I said it! I’m not even sure that I really believe it, though it is coming up more often in discussions about “what is safe.” Clearly Bitcoin has surged recently and is back above $37,000. Other parts of the market have also done well. Certainly, hopes of a “spot” ETF have fueled those gains. Geopolitical unrest across the globe is likely helping as well, but I suspect that part of this rise is driven by investors looking for something “safe.” I’m not there yet (in terms of thinking that crypto is “safe”), but clearly others are and at least from a trading perspective, this theme could have legs as others think about what is “safe” or not.
    • Stocks. In a world where we don’t “trust” the “safe” asset, maybe something that tends to benefit from government spending is “safer.” The one flaw here is that the debt that is increasing due to higher borrowing costs only really helps the savers, so I’m not sure how well that translates into corporate earnings or multiples that investors will pay.

    Applying degrees of safety to government debt seems awkward, but we are there and not turning back any time soon.

    Cyber Safety

    We will be publishing some new “X Reports” (cyber, AI, and space focused) in the coming weeks, but two things really stuck out at the cyber/AI panel from Wednesday.

    • Quantum computing. The potential obsolescence of existing encryption.
    • How dangerous is the cyber world. Somehow the conversation on Wednesday turned to “number of attacks.” While some of the specific numbers are classified, the panelists seemed comfortable trying to point out that however high “we” (the audience) thought the numbers were, the real number was significantly higher. One example that was brought up, if I understood correctly, is that the NSA has a list of known malicious websites to which it helps block inadvertent access. This list is apparently in the billions! I started thinking about various letter and number combinations, and a billion seems like a lot. To put this in perspective, 1 million seconds is a bit less than 12 days. A billion seconds is over 31 years!

    Very little about the cyber panel was comforting. In addition, this week a ransomware attack on a foreign financial institution caused some disruption in the U.S. Treasury market. However, the fact that companies and countries are acutely aware of the risks (and are working to stop them) is good. Also, we don’t hear much about the “successes” because that is the nature of cyber “warfare.”

    Economic Safety

    One thing that I could see happening is that the U.S. could reach some sort of “accord” with China in the coming weeks or months.

    With so many “hot spots” across the globe, we could look to reduce tensions with China. Maybe we could back off on tariffs? We could also make some changes to what technology is prohibited from being traded.

    I suspect that any such deal would cause us some longer-term problems as it would considerably help the “Made by China” story (which is gaining traction) and increase the risk of China gaining access to technology that we are trying to prevent them from accessing. Of note, the latest phones in China use chips that are thinner than the U.S. expected them to have at this point.

    In the near-term, this kind of news would likely spark a major rally in risk assets.

    Again, it seems convoluted that something that I don’t like long-term would help in the short-term. However, it does seem like the U.S. currently holds the “weaker hand” in trade negotiations with China (despite the obvious evidence of their economy slowing).

    Bottom Line

    Add some equity hedges and favor the “everything rally.” If nothing else, let’s not forget that:

    “We can dance if we want to
    We can leave your friends behind
    Because your friends don’t dance
    And if they don’t dance
    Well, they’re no friends of mine.”

    I write this knowing that I am a horrible dancer but wanted to end on a positive note because while we need to worry about “safety,” we also need to enjoy life!

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 14:00

  • Russia Begins Evacuating Some 600 Citizens From Gaza Strip
    Russia Begins Evacuating Some 600 Citizens From Gaza Strip

    Russia has announced it has begun evacuating its citizens who have been trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip belatedly now that there has been more access through the Rafah Crossing. “The Emergency Situations Ministry together with Russian diplomats have organized the evacuation of civilians from the Gaza Strip,” a statement posted to Telegram indicated.

    “Over the past week, the operational group of the Emergency Situations Ministry of Russia has been working to coordinate the procedure and routes for the evacuation of Russian citizens trapped in the area of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” it continued.

    Starting last week, two Russian Il-76 transport planes have been parked in Cairo on standby in order to evacuate Russians from the Gaza Strip, state-run TASS has confirmed.

    Russian Emergencies Ministry, via AFP

    Russian diplomats cited in state media earlier this month estimated there are almost 600 Russian citizens seeking to evacuate Gaza. They’ve been prevented from leaving until now, as it has been the countries of the US, Israel, Egypt and Qatar involved in discussions overseeing evacuations through Rafah.

    Already a reported 60 Russian nationals have entered Egypt as of this weekend – this after over 80 were given Israel’s approval to leave, per RIA Novosti news agency. They are being sent to Cairo to be assessed by Russian emergency crews.

    The United States has so far evacuated hundreds of its dual citizens through Rafah, as many other countries have for weeks been scrambling to get theirs out too.

    The crossing has been subject to frequent, unannounced closures – and its vicinity even at times pummeled by Israeli airstrikes. Egypt is concerned over seeing a massive Palestinian refugee influx into its country. There’s been some limited numbers of medical evacuees.

    According to The Wall Street Journal, “Fewer than 50 people, including foreign passport holders, Egyptians and five wounded Palestinians, had entered Egypt on Friday before the crossings were halted” – after in total, “More than 2,000 people have crossed the border at Rafah since limited evacuations from Gaza to Egypt began on Nov. 1. The evacuations have been suspended a few times due to strikes.”

    Due to Washington’s closeness with Israel, there’s a widespread perception that the US has been given priority in terms of safely getting its hundreds of passport holders out of the war-ravaged Strip first.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/12/2023 – 13:25

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Nov 12

Today’s News 12th November 2023

  • Is Abortion, Not Trump, The GOP's Albatross?
    Is Abortion, Not Trump, The GOP’s Albatross?

    Authored by Matthew Boose via American Greatness,

    Republicans should restrict abortion wherever and whenever it is prudent to do so…

    How many times do voters have to send the message before Republicans get the picture?

    America loves abortion. Is that cavalier? Unfortunately, it’s the truth. Decades of “me, me, me” culture have taken their toll. We are in the end stages of democracy, here, and there may be no putting the genie back in the bottle.

    Nothing is ever free. Because of Dobbs, abortions are much harder to get in a number of states. The right made a bargain to save lives, and the cost is pain at the polls.

    Tuesday’s election was a wipeout for conservatives. Everyone is quick to blame Donald Trump, but the real loser was Ron DeSantis – although it’s hard to say what he had left to lose.

    DeSantis, and the pro-life movement in general, hammered Trump weeks ago for urging Republicans to moderate on abortion. They called Trump a sell-out. But Trump is unfortunately correct. No serious political junkie thinks Trump is going to lose Ohio next year. And guess what? Ohio just voted to enshrine abortion into law, and it wasn’t particularly close. In a time when the smell of pot pervades every public space imaginable, Ohio also legalized recreational marijuana. It was twofer for “Fetterman nation.”

    Trump is the only Republican with the sense and the courage to say what many conservatives do not want to hear: their moral agenda is unpopular. This is especially true in the Rust Belt states that Trump flipped in 2016, like Pennsylvania. Democrats won a Supreme Court seat there on Tuesday night by, once again, championing “choice,” much as they did successfully in Wisconsin months ago.

    Trump’s Republican critics are already trying to blame him for the election’s disappointing results. In reality, Trump has never been more electable.The New York Times just released a poll that has Trump dominating Biden in swing states, despite the unprecedented and unscrupulous lawfare campaign unleashed on Trump by the Democrats. The “blue wall” that Trump toppled in 2016, since patched up by Biden (with a little help from ballot shenanigans), is vulnerable once more.

    Democrats are actually scared for the first time in three years that they will lose the White House. They’re not confident in Biden, at all. Nothing would calm their nerves so much as Republicans nominating an uptight socially conservative ideologue in 2024.

    Biden wants to run on abortion. It’s his party’s saving grace – the perverse absolution for all the destruction they have wrought.

    Republicans have a winning agenda on every other issue – the economy, crime, and especially immigration, Trump’s signature issue. Everyone can see now that Trump was right about the border, especially those taking advantage of Biden’s abdication by pouring across. An unprecedented invasion is swelling at the gates, and even blue state voters have had enough.

    In Suffolk County, New York, Ed Romaine won the race for county executive in a landslide – solidifying the GOP’s gains from last year in the Empire State. Romaine is the first Republican to hold the office in 20 years. Of course, in New York, crime and immigration are much more salient issues than abortion.

    Immigration is the reason we are in this quandary with abortion to begin with. Decades of demographic replacement have rigged democracy in the favor of one party. Democrats now have a built-in advantage in every single election, and pretty soon they will win them all. This is the biggest issue facing the country, not abortion. America cannot survive another four years of the invasion. The Republican party certainly can’t.

    Republicans should restrict abortion wherever and whenever it is prudent to do so. But, as the saying goes, “politics is the art of the possible.” This reasoning strikes many conservatives as devilish, but we live in a fallen world. Republicans can either continue on their self-destructive course, or they can compromise with reality, take Trump’s advice, and fight to live another day.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 23:20

  • Certain COVID-19 Vaccines Linked To Elevated Risk Of Guillain-Barré Syndrome
    Certain COVID-19 Vaccines Linked To Elevated Risk Of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

    Authored by Ellen Wan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As the vaccination rate continues to rise, an increasing number of side effects are being reported. Research indicates that COVID-19 viral vector-based vaccines increase the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) by three to four times compared to mRNA-based vaccines.

    Research indicates that COVID-19 viral vector-based vaccines increase the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome by three to four times compared to mRNA-based vaccines. (Fotolia)

    The Link Between Vaccines and Guillain-Barré Syndrome Risk 

    Increasing evidence suggests an association between COVID-19 vaccines and Guillain-Barré Syndrome. One study revealed an increase in GBS cases within 42 days of receiving the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The researchers suggest a potential link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the increased risk of GBS.

    In March, a prospective surveillance study published in Scientific Reports indicated that out of 38,828,691 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, between February 2021 and March 2022, 105,409 adverse events were reported, including 55 cases of GBS.

    After assessing the risk factors for GBS following COVID-19 vaccination, it was found that viral vector-based vaccines were linked to a three-to-fourfold higher risk of GBS compared to mRNA-based vaccines.

    In terms of age and gender, the incidence of GBS was higher in individuals aged 60 and older compared to younger age groups, and it was more common in men than women.

    Based on a vaccine mechanism evaluation, the incidence rate of GBS for viral vector-based vaccines was 4.49 cases per million doses, higher than mRNA-based vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) which had an incidence rate of 0.80 cases per million doses.

    The researchers are urging health care providers to closely monitor individuals following COVID-19 vaccination, especially men who received their first dose of viral vector-based vaccines.

    Onset of GBS Following COVID-19 Vaccination 

    In 2021, the British Medical Journal published a case study in which a 48-year-old man from Malta experienced facial paralysis on the left side of his face 10 days after receiving the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. He was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy grade III and received treatment with prednisolone, an oral corticosteroid, as well as eye drops and eye care.

    The patient had pre-existing blood lipid abnormalities before vaccination, but no other relevant medical history or history of infections.

    The patient also experienced intense and excruciating pain in the central area of the back, with conventional pain relievers proving ineffective. Over the next 24 hours, the patient’s facial paralysis symptoms progressively worsened, and similar symptoms appeared on the right side of the face.

    Three days later, the patient developed grade V facial nerve paralysis on both sides of the face, and the severe back pain persisted. However, neurological examinations did not reveal any defects. The patient underwent a lumbar puncture, which revealed elevated protein levels (1,264 milligrams per liter) and an excess of lymphocytes beyond normal values, leading to a diagnosis of GBS. Subsequently, the patient was discharged after an improvement in facial paralysis symptoms.

    However, in less than 24 hours, the patient returned to the emergency department with symptoms including lower limb weakness, absent reflexes, foot drop, moderate weakness in the hands, and pain sensations when wearing gloves or long socks. The doctor administered intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) at a dosage of 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, which continued for five days, along with oral prednisolone.

    Subsequently, the patient’s condition rapidly improved, with significant recovery in muscle strength and limb paralysis, and complete disappearance of the facial paralysis symptom. After undergoing intensive physical rehabilitation therapy, the patient regained the ability to function independently. A follow-up examination two months later revealed only mild weakness in both hand muscles.

    Researchers believe that among the various side effects of different vaccines, neurological complications may be one of the most severe, thus causing the greatest concern.

    GBS affects multiple peripheral nerves in the body (polyneuropathy). Peripheral neuropathy can also affect the nerves controlling functions of the heart and circulation system (cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy).

    Symptoms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

    According to National Health Service in the UK, Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a rare and severe neurological disorder caused by an immune system dysfunction, with an extremely low incidence rate.

    Under normal circumstances, the immune system attacks any pathogens that make their way into the body. When the immune system malfunctions, it can mistakenly attack and damage the nerves.

    The symptoms of GBS typically begin in the hands and feet before spreading to the arms and legs. Common symptoms include numbness, pins and needles, muscle weakness, pain, as well as balance and coordination problems. These symptoms may worsen over the next few days or weeks and then gradually improve. In severe cases, GBS can lead to difficulties in walking, breathing, or swallowing. Occasionally, it can be life-threatening, and some individuals may experience long-term complications. If you experience any symptoms of GBS, it is crucial to seek immediate medical attention.

    According to the latest records released by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program of the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare on Aug. 10, a total of 150 GBS cases related to adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination have been reviewed. Among them, a 56-year-old Mr. Tsai from Taipei experienced numbness in all four limbs, breathing difficulties, and unsteady walking after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. Additionally, two individuals who received the Moderna vaccine reported symptoms, including numbness and weakness in their upper and lower limbs, thigh pain, and more. All of them sought medical attention, and neurological tests confirmed Guillain-Barré Syndrome in all three cases. The Ministry of Health and Welfare offered compensation of TWD 450,000 (nearly $14 million), TWD 70,000 ($2,166), and TWD 250,000 (nearly $8000), respectively.

    Treatment of GBS

    According to the National Institutes of Health, there are currently two commonly used treatment methods to interrupt immune-related nerve damage: plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy. Both treatment options show no significant difference in effectiveness if started within two weeks of GBS symptoms onset.

    1. Plasma exchange: This procedure involves extracting some of the patient’s blood through a catheter, treating it to remove blood cells, and then reintroducing it into the body. Plasma contains antibodies, and plasma exchange helps remove harmful antibodies that damage the nerves.

    2. Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy: Immunoglobulins are proteins naturally produced by the immune system to target invading organisms. This therapy can lessen the immune system’s attack on the nervous system and shorten recovery time.

    According to Taiwan’s Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, it is recommended to closely monitor fluctuations in heart rate and blood pressure, as well as regularly assess the degree of respiratory muscle weakness. This is crucial because the condition can progress to respiratory failure or lead to life-threatening arrhythmias, necessitating intubation or pacemaker implantation to maintain cardiopulmonary function. Additionally, pain management and early rehabilitation exercises can help alleviate symptoms and restore muscle strength.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 22:10

  • Dear Greta…
    Dear Greta…

    According to the Global Carbon Atlas, the world’s top polluters are China, India, and the U.S., which accounted for 52% of the world’s CO₂ in 2021.

    Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Bruno Venditti use that data in the graphic below to explore which countries contribute the most to CO₂ emissions.

    The largest polluters are also the biggest in terms of population, which means, in terms of CO₂ emissions per capita (metric tons), the U.S. is relatively high at 15.32, while China and India rank lower at 7.44 and 1.89, respectively.

    Historically, the U.S. has been the largest carbon emitter, releasing 422 billion metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This is equivalent to almost a quarter of all CO₂ produced from fossil fuels and industrial activities.

    Given their massive populations and the fact that countries typically increase their emissions as they become more developed, China and India may continue to grow their shares even further.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that India’s share of global emissions could rise to 10% by 2030.

    All of these major contributors of carbon to the atmosphere have set goals to reduce emissions over the next decades.

    While the U.S. targets net-zero emissions by 2050, China aims for carbon neutrality by 2060 and India recently set a target of 2070.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 21:35

  • Raided Pro-Life Activist Sues DOJ For 'Malicious Prosecution,' Emotional Distress
    Raided Pro-Life Activist Sues DOJ For ‘Malicious Prosecution,’ Emotional Distress

    Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Pro-life activist Mark Houck and his wife are suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its treatment of their family during his harrowing arrest at gunpoint.

    Mark Houck with his seven children, (L–R) Joshua, Therese, Mark Jr., Imelda, Ava, Kathryn, and Augustine, at their home in Kintnersville, Pa., on March 17, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    The Houcks filed their lawsuits on Nov. 6, seeking damages for assault, false arrest, abuse of process, malicious and retaliatory prosecution, and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

    Mr. Houck, a Catholic and a father of seven, was arrested at his home in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, early on Sept. 23, 2022, when his family awoke to find a group of heavily armed FBI agents at their front door.

    The arrest stemmed from an October 2021 altercation between Mr. Houck and an elderly Planned Parenthood clinic escort—an incident in which local authorities chose not to bring charges.

    More than a year later, however, the DOJ charged Mr. Houck with twice violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law that prohibits violent and threatening conduct intended to interfere with an individual’s right to “seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”

    A jury acquitted Mr. Houck of those charges in January. But according to the complaints—filed by the Graves Garrett law firm—he and his family members continue to suffer “severe emotional distress” brought on by his arrest and the fight for his freedom.

    “These government agents intentionally sought to assault Mr. Houck and deprive him of his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force to arrest him on non-violent charges when he had not threatened law enforcement, did not own a gun, and had offered to turn himself in to authorities if indicted,” one of the complaints notes.

    During the raid, agents reportedly pointed their weapons at the activist’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, and their children—an act that the lawsuits allege was meant to inflict emotional distress.

    Mr. Houck’s complaint also charged that the indictment against him was riddled with factual errors and false statements that could only have been adopted by a grand jury if the DOJ had presented the facts in a malicious way or concealed critical and material information.

    Restitution

    According to the lawsuits, the emotional trauma of the raid took such a toll on the Houck children that they all suffer from anxiety and sleep problems. Some of them have also developed deep-seated fears of police, unannounced visitors, and losing their parents.

    “Mr. Houck finds it important to be strong for them,” one complaint states. “But carrying his own emotional burden alongside the grief and fear of his wife and seven children has taken an enormous toll on Mr. Houck.”

    For Mrs. Houck, the lawsuits claim that the toll of the ordeal hasn’t only manifested in mental and emotional distress but also resulted in three miscarriages.

    “Doctors attribute the loss of the babies to the stress of these events and have told the Houcks that they are now infertile as a result. Mr. and Mrs. Houck suffer immense grief and pain from these losses of life and this diagnosis,” the suit states.

    Other injuries that the lawsuits list include loss of income and business opportunities following Mr. Houck’s high-profile arrest.

    In total, the Houcks are seeking $4.35 million in collective damages.

    “This is more than just a lawsuit; it’s a resounding declaration that the era of targeting individuals for their pro-life stance is over,” said Shawn Carney, president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, which is also representing the Houcks.

    Mr. Carney said that his organization—for which Mr. Houck has volunteered—has always cooperated with federal law enforcement, but in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, that dynamic “shifted dramatically.”

    “Mark Houck’s home was besieged at gunpoint—an appalling show of force that was completely unwarranted,” he said. “The local authorities saw no crime, yet the DOJ sought to make an example of him.

    “We stand up now to safeguard the rights of all Americans who advocate for life. This is a fight for our most essential freedoms, and we are fully equipped and ready to see it through to victory.”

    The lawsuits follow Mr. Houck’s announcement in August that he’s running for Congress.

    “I know firsthand what it’s like to be attacked by the federal government. I know firsthand how the enemy of the state can be created by virtue of your faith. And I want to protect the 1st District of Pennsylvania and all families in the 1st District from that ever happening to them,” Mr. Houck told Catholic News Agency at the time.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 21:00

  • "Absolute Torture": Jan. 6 Inmates Put Renewed Spotlight On Use Of Solitary Confinement
    “Absolute Torture”: Jan. 6 Inmates Put Renewed Spotlight On Use Of Solitary Confinement

    Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    John Strand, who received a 32-month federal prison sentence for serving as the security detail for the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is being held in long-term solitary confinement for doing a media interview, Dr. Simone Gold says.

    Mr. Strand, 40, of Naples, Florida, testified on June 13 at a U.S. House field hearing on Jan. 6 issues shortly after being sentenced for convictions on five criminal counts, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanors. He has appealed the convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

    “He was in two weeks, let out for five or six days, and then today will be nine more weeks,” Dr. Gold said in a Nov. 9 interview with The Epoch Times. “It’s unbelievable. Absolute torture.”

    Jan. 6 inmate John Strand—shown during the November 2022 filming of an Epoch Times documentary—has been held in solitary confinement for nine weeks. (Paulio Shakespeare/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Strand apparently violated prison rules for doing a broadcast interview with Real America’s Voice host Grant Stinchfield. Dr. Gold said Mr. Strand did not realize he needed permission before speaking with the media from behind bars.

    “They also are not giving him his mail. They are not allowing legal [counsel] visits,” Dr. Gold said. “This is just what they do.”

    Another Jan. 6 inmate, InfoWars host Jonathon Owen Shroyer, is also in solitary confinement after his recent activity on social media.

    Dr. Gold—an emergency medicine specialist from Los Angeles who founded America’s Frontline Doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic—was sentenced in June 2022 to 60 days in jail under a plea deal on one Jan. 6 count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, a misdemeanor.

    She and Mr. Strand were indicted together in February 2021. She was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to speak at a permit-approved event on medical freedom and COVID-19.

    Her case was unusual because, according to Dr. Gold, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had asked her on a date when they were students at Stanford Law School in the early 1990s. She turned him down—something she said influenced the judge’s sentencing decision in her case. Judge Cooper denied Dr. Gold’s assertion—and also denied motions from her and Mr. Strand demanding he recuse himself from their cases.

    Retaliation?

    Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) questioned U.S. Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters about Mr. Strand and Mr. Shroyer during a Nov. 7 hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance.

    “Does the Bureau of Prisons retaliate against people for constitutionally protected speech?” Mr. Gaetz asked Ms. Peters.

    U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) questions Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters at the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance hearing on Nov. 7, 2023. (House of Representatives/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

    “I have been very clear that retaliation will not be stood for on my watch,” Ms. Peters replied. “I’m confident that message has been delivered, and if anyone has engaged in retaliation, we will hold them accountable.”

    In a message posted on Nov. 7 to his social media account on X, Mr. Strand said he has been a victim of “abusive retaliation.”

    “I took an interview while incarcerated to explain the inhumane conditions of J6 prisoners like myself, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons retaliated by putting me in solitary confinement,” Mr. Strand was quoted as saying.

    Social media use is also believed to be the reason that InfoWars host Shroyer, 34, of Austin, Texas, was put into solitary confinement twice at the Federal Correctional Institution Oakdale in Louisiana.

    Infowars host Owen Shroyer arrives at the Texas State Capitol building on April 18, 2020, in Austin, Texas. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images)

    Mr. Shroyer is serving a 60-day sentence under a plea agreement on one misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

    The Strand and Shroyer cases have again thrown the spotlight on the alleged use of solitary confinement to further target Jan. 6 pretrial detainees and those serving sentences.

    According to U.S. Bureau of Prisons data, 10,842 of the 144,084 inmates in BOP custody are kept in special housing units, which can be protective custody or for misconduct, criminal behavior, or if they are transferring in or out of the prison. Thirty-one inmates have been held in protective custody for more than 30 days.

    Defense attorney Joseph D. McBride, who has represented more than a dozen Jan. 6 defendants, condemned the use of solitary confinement.

    “Solitary confinement is an inherently evil practice that should be banned absent a limited set of circumstances,” Mr. McBride told The Epoch Times. “It is being used to degrade, abuse, torture, and psychologically break January 6 prisoners.”

    Mr. McBride accused the Biden administration of actively encouraging the abuse of Jan. 6 defendants to send a message that political dissent won’t be tolerated. Affluent Republicans who are in a position to help, Mr. McBride said, “do not care at all about the suffering of these men.”

    In August 2021, Mr. McBride issued a report (pdf) that documented abuses against Jan. 6 pretrial detainees held at the District of Columbia jail.

    “January Sixers are routinely denied the right to confer with their counsel, as well as obtain and maintain their legal paperwork,” McBride wrote in the report, which was addressed to Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.

    “They are also being beaten, sleep deprived, denied medical care, regular shower access, haircuts, shaves, and held in solitary confinement for long periods of time,” Mr. McBride wrote. “This is unprecedented, unconstitutional, un-American, offensive to all standards of common decency, illegal, and wrong.”

    U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), with colleagues Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) (left), speaks at a press conference addressing the treatment of the Jan. 6 detainees at the D.C. jail in Washington on Dec. 7, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

    Four months after Mr. McBride issued his document, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) issued a report, “Unusually Cruel,” (pdf) based largely on a site visit to the D.C. jail complex.

    Ms. Greene and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) were given a more than three-hour tour of the facility on Nov. 4, 2021. This was after Ms. Greene, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Gohmert, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were twice denied access to the buildings to visit Jan. 6 detainees.

    “The walls of the rooms had residue of human feces, bodily fluids, blood, dirt, and mold,” the report said. “The community showers were recently scrubbed of black mold—some of which remained.

    “The interior walls of the common area were also freshly painted,” the report said. “According to the inmates, the U.S. Marshals had recently visited the area just days before, which caused a flurry of activity by guards to clean up the January 6 area while the U.S. Marshals were inspecting another area.”

    Mr. Gaetz said he plans to take up Ms. Peters’s offer to arrange site visits at FCI Miami and FCI Oakdale.

    “I would like to go with you,” Ms. Greene posted Nov. 7 on X. “There are many reports coming out about human rights abuses against J6 defendants.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 19:50

  • Dems Suffer Flashbacks As 2016 'Spoiler' Jill Stein Announces White House Run
    Dems Suffer Flashbacks As 2016 ‘Spoiler’ Jill Stein Announces White House Run

    Democrats across the country are pacing their living rooms with clenched jaws and fists, as the woman they hold responsible for tipping the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump has announced she’s jumping into the 2024 race.  

    Jill Stein, who previously ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2016 and 2012, announced her bid on Thursday. “With the war machine swallowing trillions of dollars as working people struggle to survive and the climate crisis accelerates, it’s time to offer voters a viable alternative to the bought-off politicians who have thrown them under the bus,” said Stein. “The ruling parties that got us into this mess aren’t getting us out.”

    In a video promoting her latest Green Party candidacy, Stein took shots at both major parties, but many of her most pointed barbs were illustrated with headlines about the Democratic Party’s actions —  including references to “throwing competitors off the ballot, suppressing the base” and “rigging their primaries.”   

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    Stein is reviled by Democrats who think she took enough votes from Hillary Clinton in 2016 to allow Trump to win key battleground states and thus the election. Stein’s vote-counts in both Michigan and Wisconsin were larger than Trump’s margins of victory. 

    In 2019, when the Russia Collusion hoax still had legs, Clinton went so far as to accuse Stein of working directly for Moscow. Discussing the 2020 field, Clinton first said the Russians were grooming Tulsi Gabbard. She continued, “That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset. Yes, she’s a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate.”

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    In that same wacky spirit, following Stein’s announcement, many are rushing to social media to post a photo that’s supposed to be some sort of gasp-inducing, smoking-gun evidence of Stein’s status as a Russian agent. 

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

    Stein’s campaign issued a statement disputing the photo’s implications:

    “Jill Stein was invited to a 2015 media conference in Russia, which she attended at her own expense to spread a message of peace and diplomacy. At the Moscow conference, Dr. Stein gave a speech in which she criticized the excessive militarism of both Vladimir Putin and U.S. leaders.

    At the dinner, she was seated with diplomats and office holders from various countries, including Michael Flynn, who had most recently served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama. Putin sat at the table for a few minutes, during which he spoke only with his Russian-speaking companions. Dr. Stein publicized her experiences at the time via a press release and social media posts. The Senate Intelligence Committee later investigated the trip and found no wrongdoing whatsoever.” 

    Against the backdrop of the proxy war in Ukraine and blank-check backing of Israel’s ruthless destruction of Gaza, Stein is certain to capture at least some progressive voters outraged with the Biden administration. However, as with 2016, the debate about Stein’s potential spoiler status rests on the extent to which those voters might simply stay home if Stein weren’t in the race — as opposed to making the effort to vote for the warmongering Biden. 

    Stein’s announcement coincided with another blow to Democrats: On Thursday, centrist West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2024, virtually guaranteeing the seat will flip to the Republican Party. Manchin also dropped strong hints that he’ll pursue a third-party White House run via the No Labels organization.  

    Manchin and Stein are the latest in a wave of late-to-the-2024-party, wild-card entrants:

    • This summer, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced that he was abandoning the rigged Democratic Party nomination process — which includes refusing to host debates — to run as an independent. A recent Quinnipiac poll found Kennedy leading among independents. His candidacy briefly had high appeal for many libertarians and progressives, before Kennedy startled them with a series of intensely pro-Israel statements that shattered his anti-war credentials. 
    • In October, Democratic Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips announced he was challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination. Phillips has voted in lockstep with the Biden agenda. The mega-millionaire Phillips’ campaign appears to be a call option on a scenario in which the clearly-declining Biden is finally deemed physically and/or mentally incapable of running again. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 19:15

  • It Really Doesn't Matter Who Created Bitcoin, Or Why…
    It Really Doesn’t Matter Who Created Bitcoin, Or Why…

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    Even if it was the NSA, the CCP, or the WEF…

    Rumours have abounded that Bitcoin was created by the NSA (or the CIA, or the CCP or WEFsters)  going back at least as far as 2010, or so.

    They resurfaced over the past week when  Dr Mercola interviewed Catherine Austin Fitts. Since then I’ve had numerous readers forward me some choice quotes of their talk  (the transcript is here), and highlighting Fitts’ suspicion that Bitcoin was created non-altruistically by the NSA.

    In it, there is a reference to Nic Carter’s theory about the NSA having created Bitcoin:

    “The common understanding is that Nakamoto is the ultimate altruist and abandoned his 1 million Bitcoin for the benefit of humanity. Nic Carter is a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency community, and he doesn’t buy that story and is convinced that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for creating Bitcoin. He believes Bitcoin was written by NSA cryptographers as a monetary bioweapon.“

    Mercola references this Cointelegraph article where Nic Carter clearly lays out that his NSA-origin theory for Bitcoin is “the lab leak” scenario:

    “I call it the ‘Bitcoin lab leak hypothesis.’ I think it was a shuttered internal R&D project, which one researcher thought was too good to lay fallow on the shelf and chose to secretly release.”

    Very much in line with the Promethean mythos behind the Satoshi Nakamoto legend that resonates so deeply throughout the community – and if true, might explain just why, the he/she/they/them that is Satoshi – left those 1 million BTC exactly where they sit today. Nobody would want to suffer the fate of Prometheus, doomed to spend eternity chained to a rock, having his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

    Yet the discussion between Fitts and Mercola, as well as many others who suspect something nefarious behind Bitcoin’s mysterious creation, seem to be deriving the wrong conclusion from Carter’s theory – or dismissing it in favour of an intentional, deliberate creation, and presumably, what that would mean (as per Fitts),

    “It depends on how their rollout of complete control works … As long as they have the ability to assert complete control and shut [crypto] down or marginalize it, it’s easy for [Mr. Global] to assert control. Until then, they can continue to pull money out of precious metals and real and hard assets by encouraging retail to go into crypto.”

    The assumption being: whoever created Bitcoin, controls Bitcoin.

    The reality is:

    Bitcoin is beyond anyone’s control

    And the reason, quite simply, is because Bitcoin is open source software.
    What does “open source” mean and why does it matter to Bitcoin?
    Contrast with something closed source and proprietary, like Microsoft Windows – or the entire Microsoft operating system stack, open source means that the instructions that comprise the computer program itself are published to the world openly in their uncompiled source code form.

    Further, anybody running the software does so by downloading the open source copy of the code, compiling it locally and then running it.

    What this means is that even if the NSA, or the CCP or the WEF secretly created and released Bitcoin intending it as a Trojan horse for digital slavery (like CBDCs will be), then we would all be able to literally see it in the source code, which is right here – and nobody would run it.

    • There wouldn’t any Bitcoin devs maintaining the codebase (or if there was, they’d simply remove the malware)

    • Nobody would be trading energy, or cash, for Bitcoin generated from compromised code, and

    • Bitcoin miners would certainly not be spending hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in order to build out massive server farms to run NSA malware.

    In other words, there would be zero market momentum behind the phenomenon known as “Bitcoin” that is sweeping the world.

    Some others might concede that Bitcoin is an open source movement, with no hidden trojans or malware – but that it’s really One Big Psy-Op  to acclimatize us plebs to a cashless society using digital money.

    The people who believe this might even tweet about it from their smart phone while sitting in a cafe sipping a latte that they just bought via ApplePay or tapping their chipped credit card (like that Mastercard that already cuts off your spending when your carbon footprint quota is exceeded).

    You don’t need Bitcoin to brainwash people to accept a cashless society or even the coming CBDCs – huge swaths of the population are going to line up for that – and in my mind it will result in a kind of Monetary Apartheid.

    Bitcoin is emergence, CBDCs are totalitarian.

    The people who think Bitcoin is some kind of meat tenderizer to soften the public’s mind up for CBDCs have simply not been paying enough attention to:

    1. The difference between Bitcoin and CBDCs, and

    2. The difference between Bitcoin and other cryptos

    It all comes down to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, the miners (Proof-of-Work) and self-custody of one’s own private keys vs centralized banking, centralized cryptos, faux-decentralized shitcoins and the like.

    We even see this manifesting in legal policy in the US, as Bitcoin is the only digital asset being treated as a commodity while everything else is looking at being designated a security (even Ethereum, especially since that unforced error of switching to Proof-of-Stake).

    Where people mistakenly think that Bitcoin is paving the way to usher in CBDCs, Bitcoin is actually the  anti-CBDC. It is the CBDC’s Kryptonite. An emerging monetary system as a response to the over-centralization of what I liked to call Late Stage Globalism, but lately I have become enamoured with George Gilder’s term: Emergency Socialism.

    I’ll re-iterate a quote from my recent review of Ferdinand Lips classic, Gold Wars, about where monetary systems actually come from:

    By 1900, approximately fifty countries were on a gold standard. including all industrialized nations. The interesting fact is that the modern gold standard was not planned at an international conference, nor was it invented by some genius. It came by itself, naturally and based on experience. 

    The United Kingdom went on a gold standard against the intention of its government. Only much later did laws turn an operative gold standard into an officially sanctioned gold standard.

    The same thing is happening today, with Bitcoin (yes, really).

    Hyper-Bitcoinization vs Notgeld

    In the early days of my involvement with the space, I too, dismissed claims that the global monetary system was destined for “Hyper-Bitcoinization” – I just didn’t think it would ever happen because central bankers would simply never allow it.

    Instead, I viewed Bitcoin as a kind of “Notgeld” – a German term that emerged during the Weimar Hyper-inflation that translated to “Emergency Money”. In those days towns would print their own scrip. In later hyper-inflations, other things would emerge as “notgeld” – in Zimbabwe it was prepaid phone cards and gas coupons. Every hyperinflation had one. I thought Bitcoin was an emergent, global notgeld, but I never thought it would become anything “official”.

    Then, two things happened that flipped me into the Hyper-Bitcoinization camp:

    The first was when the ruling Liberal/Socialist coalition government of Canada weaponized the banking system against the #FreedomConvoy protestors, probably the one single act that orange pilled the most citizens globally since the Cyprus bail-in of 2013.

    The other was when the US government seized the foreign reserves of two other governments. It doesn’t matter that those governments were Russia and The Taliban, doing so probably orange-pilled more than a few nation states.

    What I also realized since then, namely watching the globalists attempt – and fail – to impose a permanent technocracy under Covid, was that what ultimately happens isn’t up to the central banks, and it’s not even up to the governments. It’s up to market forces – despite all the central planning and authoritarianism marshalled against it.

    That won’t prevent them from trying, however. Which is where CBDCs come in.

    Money backed by debt, becomes social credit backed by carbon quotas

    In the latest issue of the premium newsletter (while analyzing an Agustín Carstens speech to the BIS working group on CBDCs)  I said:

    Right now, what we call “the fiat world” uses debt for money. That’s no longer sustainable, so what we think will happen in the future is an attempt to switch what we loosely identify as “money”, from something backed by debt, to social credit scores, backed by carbon emissions.

    When that comes, Bitcoin will not be some sort of gateway drug to CBDCs because there are fundamental incompatibilities, and there are other cryptos out there far more suited to the task – like Ethereum and Ripple, and who actually want to the global base layer for Central Bank Digital Currencies (after all, it’s not called WEFereum for nothing…)

    So where we are headed – is a global economy where the world is either going to have to adopt a non-state, decentralized digital bearer asset or international trade flows will inexorably grind to halt as trust deteriorates right along with every fiat currency going.

    And a social credit system where the majority of the population (everybody who has any reliance on The State for their economic sustenance) has their lives gamified via their smart phones and their carbon footprints rationed in the name of climate justice.

    Marbled throughout this world (for as long as such a system will last, because ultimately, it can’t) there will be “network states” and enclaves of those who hold their wealth and earn their income outside the social credit/CBDC system.

    In my next post, I’ll tackle the inevitable arguments that “governments will never allow people to escape the coming CBDC system” and show why, at the end of the day, they have no choice. It’s already beyond their control.

    *  *  *

    My forthcoming ebook The CBDC Survival Guide will give you the tools and the knowledge to navigate coming era of Monetary Apartheid. Bombthrower subscribers will get free when it drops, sign up today.

    Follow me on Nostr, or Twitter.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 18:40

  • WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA's Shadow
    WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA’s Shadow

    Consider the source (and the timing)…

    No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.”

    The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations.

    Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that ‘Russia did it’ was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further ‘aid’ to be sent to Ukraine, to ‘protect interests’.

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    Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the “coordinator” of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

    Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation.

    “Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream,” Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities.

    It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests.

    Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again “according to the people familiar with his role,” but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, “according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out.”

    More problematically, Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelensky’s public denials regarding Ukraine’s involvement.

    “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by the Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.

    “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.

    Interestingly, WaPo reports that Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.

    This WaPo report comes at a crucial time in the geopolitical chess-game, as the desire for more spending in what appears to be a lost cause in Ukraine is fading fast among Western populations (most notably US), and perhaps offers President Biden an ‘excuse’ to reduce aid in light of this ‘shocking development’ – which, of course, Washington has vehemently denied any involvement in (and denounced as a “reckless act”.

    But the twists and turns do not stop there as the backdrop to this unfolding drama includes Seymour Hersh’s explosive allegations regarding the CIA and the US Navy’s covert activities.

    Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

    Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

    Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist – who broke such well-known stories as the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib scandal and has long been known for impeccable insider sources – has previously reported on the deep entanglement of US intelligence in various global hotspots, hinting strongly at the complex interplay between Ukrainian ambitions and broader Western strategic objectives.

    The broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored.

    The US and NATO have been deeply involved in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, but the extent of their involvement in covert operations remains a subject of intense debate and speculation. The Nord Stream bombing, if indeed orchestrated by a faction within the Ukrainian military, could be seen as an extension of this proxy conflict, where Ukraine serves as a frontline in a larger strategic contest between Russia and the West, with CIA pulling the strings (just as Hersh concludes).

    In an interview with WaPo in June of this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA had never asked him directly about any attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions, in September 2022, he received a phone call from then-U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley.

    “He asked me, ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ I said, ‘No’. A lot of operations are planned, a lot of operations are going on, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”

    Some of those who described Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests.

    So, why now? Suddenly various ‘sources’ come forward to offer a scapegoat for this “reckless act”?

    A distraction from potential confirmation of Washington’s involvement? … A potential release valve on the ‘blame Russia’ narrative enabling ‘peace’ conversations to take place? … An opportune excuse to curb ‘aid’ (pending an investigation)given the involvement of Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military officer (and Zelensky’s denial) prompting questions of discord within the Ukrainian chain of command?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 18:05

  • On "River City One" And Coming Home From War
    On “River City One” And Coming Home From War

    Authored by Erica Moshtahedian via RealClearPolitics.com,

    For those of us who came of age in the aftermath of September 11 and the wars that followed, a new book “River City One” by first-time author John Waters provides a reprieve from glamorized, military-style leadership guides like “Extreme Ownership” or “Make Your Bed,” or adrenaline-filled memoirs like Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s “American Sniper.”

    This is a penetration into the mind of a veteran returned to the world that we share with him.

    A Naval Academy graduate and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Waters is now an attorney in Omaha, his hometown. “River City One” is a novel, not a memoir, albeit a palpably autobiographical account. (In the interest of disclosure, after leaving military service as a U.S. Marine Corps captain, Waters was co-editor of RealClearDefense; Carl Cannon, executive editor of RealClearMedia, wrote the foreword to this book).

    The story’s protagonist, war hero John Walker, shares with the reader an inner dialogue influenced by his drug-like withdrawal from the adrenaline and purpose of battle into the mundaneness of everyday life. He is an imperfect protagonist. Walker shares more with the self-doubting characters found in the novels from Lost Generation authors than the depictions of modern war heroes likely to be adapted by Hollywood.

    In Walker, we are introduced to a character who, like Ford Madox Ford’s character Christopher Tietjens in “Parade’s End,” is not immediately likable and somewhat aloof. Unlike Tietjens, Walker doesn’t inform us of his life philosophy. Instead, we know only of his opinions through his critique of others. Clients, colleagues, fellow veterans, and family are not spared. He regularly dismisses the accomplishments of others as having little meaning. He thinks of civilians who want to ask him questions about his service as “turned on” by war stories. He asserts that his family occupies a separate world apart from him, as if he is unimportant to their well-being. We come to understand that his opinions are partial truths, informed by shame, used to justify his avoidance of family intimacy.

    Even as a civilian, Walker has remained fit enough to drop and rhythmically knock out pushups. He must be sufficiently handsome and masculine to coast at his job as a lawyer, putting less effort into his work and appearance than his colleagues. Had Walker’s physicality been defined up front and the character described as having a more amiable disposition, he would register as a heartthrob, like Milan Kundera’s Tomas in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Instead, the author avoids allowing his protagonist either to be put on a pedestal or seen as a cad, ensuring that his dalliance with an aging, auburn-haired singer named Ruth is not regarded as part of a pattern. Instead, it registers as an act of despair, a final gasp for life.

    We instead relate to Walker by accepting that his internal dialogue (like our own) can be wildly detached from what he says or does or how others perceive him. He is thus simultaneously unlikable and sympathetic. Who among us has only benevolent thoughts? As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Walker’s private criticism of others reflects more than passing internal commentary but rather his inability to find purpose. His inner dialogue transforms into the cause of the unfolding drama. Ultimately, his fixations lead to an existential crisis.

    Unlike “Parade’s End,” Waters’s novel features no evil force or character challenging the protagonist. Walker’s wife epitomizes the modern supportive partner, even as Walker goads her by sharing his interest in meeting Ruth, the exotic and alluring opera singer, who is introduced halfway through the novel. Moreover, despite his lack of ambition in his peacetime profession, his colleagues and superiors do their best to include, mentor, and elevate him.

    Walker does not want for opportunity. The schism between his self-image and how others perceive him is internal. Ironically, Ruth doesn’t suffer this same internal conflict. She is an archetype of a sophisticated and attractive woman who, in the abstract, could “understand” him. At any moment, Walker could choose to make his life about the future and move on from the past. He could decide to reconnect with his wife and son.

    “River City One” is a stimulating read because it addresses how such a fractured sense of self can lead to all-consuming nihilistic thoughts.

    Walker may be handsome, educated, employed, and loved – but he is unable to reciprocate in relationships or to recognize PTSD in himself and the deep shame he feels from the loss of a friend during the war.

    Does his predicament represent the quiet despair and numbness that thousands of our veterans feel when they return to their own River Cities?

    Waters illustrates that a downward spiral can occur inside a man’s head, even if life appears to move forward.

    Walker supplies a subtle reminder – especially to those of us with friends, family, or peers who are combat veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq – that one never knows what is going on in someone else’s head. Neither talent nor opportunity spares veterans from the loss of purpose they may experience when returning home from war.

    Many American families wish that they knew how to get someone in this position to snap out of it. “River City One” does not offer a remedy but simply a glimpse inside the mind of someone whose life and self-image were shattered by war. The novel’s lesson broadly applies to veterans and civilians alike: our lives are the sum of our choices. At every stage, we can choose to embrace family and make better decisions for ourselves and the people who care for us. The author leaves open the possibility of redemption for his protagonist. There is always hope. Perhaps Waters is a “Make Your Bed” guy, after all.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 17:30

  • Bill Maher's Pissed Off At 'Progressive' Pandering Using "Victims Or Victimizers" Reductivism
    Bill Maher’s Pissed Off At ‘Progressive’ Pandering Using “Victims Or Victimizers” Reductivism

    In his characteristic blunt and provocative style, Bill Maher recently tackled the apparently contentious topic of Western civilization and its role in shaping modern values, during a segment on his HBO show “Real Time.”

    He passive aggressively challenges the increasingly negative narrative surrounding Western culture, particularly among progressives and academics, arguing that Western civilization has been instrumental in developing liberal values:

    “Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that liberals are supposed to adore.”

    His position – as he has repeatedly done over the past few years – is a stark contrast to the current trend, from so-called progressives, of demonizing Western history and achievements including “Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women’s rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech.”

    Focusing on Israel, Maher highlighted it as an exemplar of Western values in the Middle East, suggesting that the world could benefit from more nations embracing the Western ideals that Israel represents. Sure to stir the blood of every pandering political activist, Maher calmly stated that:

    “…since one can find all these concepts in today’s Israel and virtually nowhere else in the Middle East, if anything, the world would be a better place if it had more Israels.”

    Maher swiftly moves on to destroy the current socio-political movements that often view Western civilization solely through the lens of oppression and colonialism, lamenting that the oversimplified categorization of nations and cultures as either “victims or victimizers”, arguing that this viewpoint ignores the positive impact of Western ideals, “so Israel is lumped in as the toxic fruit of the victimizing West.”

    Challenging this binary and idiot-level reductivist narrative prevalent in today’s mainstream media and ‘protests’, Maher exclaims:

    “The irony being that all marginalized people live better today because of Western ideals, not in spite of them.”

    Going further back in time, Maher points out that Western Enlightenment ideals have profoundly influenced global human rights and governance, mentioning figures like Thoreau, Rousseau, and Locke, and challenges the notion that Western history is predominantly negative with a controversial example:

    “The cop who murdered George Floyd got 21 years for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, an idea we got directly from John Locke, who no one in college would ever study anymore because he’s so old, and so White, and so dead.“

    Finally, given the increasing refusal to recognize Western historical figures and their contributions, Maher calls for a more balanced view of Western civilization, criticizing the tendency to overlook its contributions while magnifying its flaws. He questioned the double standards in historical assessments, asking, “Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done?”

    We suspect his calls for a more nuanced understanding of Western history, that acknowledges both its achievements and failures, will fall on deaf ears. And as he concludes, it appears he thinks so too…

    “America only ever overcorrects, and so we’re at this place now where the words ‘Western Civ’ became kind of a shorthand for ‘White people ruined everything’…”

    But, he pauses amid the crowd’s cheers and applause, “they didn’t ruin everything…”

    “Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done? You think only White people colonized?”

    Watch the full monologue below on X (since we would not be surprised if such blasphemy has been removed from other ‘less free’ social media platforms):

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:55

  • Good Samaritan Arrested After Stopping NYC Subway Assault By Firing Warning Shots
    Good Samaritan Arrested After Stopping NYC Subway Assault By Firing Warning Shots

    A man with no criminal history who saved a woman from being attacked by a homeless man has been arrested and charged by the Manhattan DA with criminal possession of a firearm and reckless endangerment because he fired a warning shot, stopping the assault.

    According to eyewitness accounts and security footage, John Rote, 43, drew a pistol and began firing shots after witnessing a man trying to steal a woman’s purse.

    The suspect in the attempted robbery, Matthew Roesch, 49, was also arrested. Roesch was running scheme by which he would hold an emergency gate open to let riders avoid paying fees, and asked for money in return. Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, Roesch tried to grab a 40-year-old woman’s purse who refused to pay him, before Rote scared him off with his gun.

    This incident raises questions about the adequacy of law enforcement in New York’s transit system. With crime rates on the rise and insufficient policing across major cities in America, ordinary citizens like Rote feel compelled to take matters into their own hands.

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    Officials, who aren’t protecting vulnerable citizens, are pissed.

    “I’ve looked at the video,” said New York City Transit President Richard Davey at a news conference Wednesday. “It’s, I would say unusual. He sort of looks very calm, pulls out a gun, fires two shots, calmly puts the gun back in the bag and walks away.”

    “The point is, that’s not what we need from anybody in this system,” Davey continued.

    Mr. Rote is originally from West Virginia and has ties out of state, but no criminal history, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

    “Thank goodness nobody was hurt here—but what happened was outrageous, reckless, and unacceptable,” Mr. Davey said in a statement released after Rote was arrested. -AP

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    The incident comes months after a Marine Corps veteran was arrested for putting a deranged homeless man in a chokehold on a New York City subway, which led to the man’s death.

    Daniel Penny, the marine, says he didn’t intend to take Jordan Neely’s life, but he had to protect the frightened passengers after Neely threatened to kill people on the train.

    “The man stumbled on, he appeared to be on drugs, the doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it down at the people sitting next to me at my left,” Penny said in the video.

    “I was listening to music at the time, and I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he continued.

    “The three main threats that he repeated over and over was ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.’”

    Penny, who stands at 6 feet 2 inches tall, said he was intimidated by Neely, who was bigger than him and was shouting in the subway riders’ faces.

    “There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared. We’re actually taught, one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he said.

    “I was scared for myself, but I looked around, I saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”

    *  *  *

    “For evil to succeed, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:35

  • Your $2 Bill Could Be Worth Thousands Of Times More: Here's How To Check
    Your $2 Bill Could Be Worth Thousands Of Times More: Here’s How To Check

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

    A $2 bill you have lying around could be worth hundreds—or even thousands—of times more than its face value.

    A $2 bill is seen in a file photo. (US Bureau of Engraving and Printing)

    The U.S. Currency Auctions’ Pricing guide shows that a $2 bill, which features the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, could be worth up to $4,500, depending on certain factors. Compared with other bills, the $2 currency is considered more rare, although they’re still being produced.

    “Americans don’t spend $2 bills, because they think they are markedly scarce. However, the numbers tell us a different story,” Dustin Johnston, vice president of Heritage Auctions, told MarketWatch on Wednesday, noting that some bills could be worth up to $20,000 at auction.

    The auction official issued a caveat: “Just in the last five years, they’ve printed 100 million $2 bills. The fact that they don’t circulate and are kept as mementos is a little bit odd. Very few of them have numismatic or collector value.”

    And Art Pinto, the manager of Legacy Coins and Curiosities in Florida, told Fox 13 that there are several contributing factors that help determine the potential value of a $2 bill. He noted that newer bills have a green seal on them and are likely just worth their face value, but if the bill includes a red seal, it likely is worth more.

    “If you’re looking for a high dollar $2 bill, it would be pre-1900, and it would have to be in a very high-graded condition,” said Mr. Pinto.

    Mr. Johnston told MarketWatch that other than the date, people look for serial numbers and the condition of the bill.

    “What we look at is fancy serial numbers,” he said. “A serial number ‘1’ for a 1976 $2 bill would be worth $20,000 or more. But a majority of those people holding 1976 $2 bills, they are only worth face value. There are very few that actually exceed face value.”

    He added that “beyond the fancy serial numbers, most of the value is going to be in the large size notes [from] 1918 and prior,” adding that 1918 bills “are very common.”

    “They typically start at $80 to $100 and go up from there,” Mr. Johnston added. “The more recent ones, the 1920s and beyond, well over 99 percent are going to be worth marginally over face value.”

    According to Heritage Auctions, a $2 currency note that was minted in 2003 sold online for $2,400 in July 2022. The same bill sold for $4,000 at a separate auction later that year.

    A $2 bill known as a “Rainbow Note,” dating back to 1869, is expected to sell for at least $12,000, says a listing on the auction company’s website. One of those same notes is also currently listed on eBay for $7,990.

    The $2 bill has been in U.S. circulation since 1862, and six different types have been created since then, according to the Department of Treasury’s website. But the currency been mostly unpopular over its history.

    “For most of their history, $2 notes have been unpopular, being viewed as unlucky or simply awkward to use in cash exchanges,” the Bureau of Engraving and Printing says, which added that President Jefferson did not start appearing on the bill’s face until 1869. Before that, first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton appeared on the currency.

    As of 2017, there were about 1.2 billion $2 bills in circulation, according to the U.S. Currency Education Program.

    However, Mr. Johnston said that holding onto most recently made $2 bills likely won’t pan out. “Holding onto the common ones for another 30 years, they are common now, they are going to probably stay common,” he told MarketWatch. “You’re almost better off spending them now, or depositing them in the bank vs. holding onto them.”

    Several years ago, a extremely rare $1,000 bill sold for $1.2 million at an auction. The 1891 bill features the face of William L. Marcy, who served as the governor of New York and was a secretary under President James K. Polk in the mid-nineteenth century.

    The most expensive U.S. coin that was ever auctioned is the 1933 Double Eagle gold coin, which was sold for $18 million in 2021.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 16:20

  • The Biden-Du Pont Nexus: From A Prestigious Golf Club To A Controversial Child Rape Plea Deal
    The Biden-Du Pont Nexus: From A Prestigious Golf Club To A Controversial Child Rape Plea Deal

    As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.

    That year, Biden, known for his “Middle-Class Joe” image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state’s most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.

    At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo

    Biden’s connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.

    Yet, Biden’s entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an “unused” ticket from a company owned by the club’s founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI’s probe, which included photographing Biden’s personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It’s unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.

    The entrance to Fieldstone Golf Club in Greenville, Del. (Rachel Wisniewski for The Washington Post)

    In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: “These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions.”

    Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware’s elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state’s upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.

    For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.

    “It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo

    Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story – writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.

    “DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future,” Biden wrote.

    Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.

    Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.

    Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.

    In 1974, Biden spent $185,000 to buy what he called a “gorgeous … enormous” mansion built six decades earlier by a du Pont family member in Greenville, Del. The home, which he named “the Station,” served as a base for Biden’s unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign; he sold it for $1.2 million in 1996 and then bought a four-acre lakefront property in Greenville. -WaPo

    Former du Pont mansion previously owned by the Bidens

    The Biden-du Pont connection, reinforced by this membership, raises questions about potential influences and reciprocal favors within these elite circles.

    In particular, it seems appropriate to revisit a controversial 2009 plea deal offered by then-Attorney General Beau Biden to a du Pont heir accused of raping his own daughter when she was a toddler. Richards was originally charged with two counts of second-degree rape, which carried a minimum of 20 years behind bars. Instead, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to fourth-degree rape, which carries no minimum prison time.

    Convicted rapist and du Pont heir Robert H. Richards IV (L), Beau Biden

    The deal was offered to du Pont heir Robert H. Richards IV, who had confessed to the fourth-degree rape of his 3-year-old daughter. He was spared prison time, a decision that sparked public outrage and scrutiny. Beau Biden defended the decision in 2014, citing the case’s weaknesses and potential for loss at trial, but these justifications were met with skepticism, given the family’s history with the du Ponts.

    The plea bargain’s leniency towards a figure from a wealthy and powerful family contrasts sharply with the typically harsher sentences meted out to less privileged offenders. This disparity points to a potential bias within the judicial system, influenced by socio-economic status and connections.

    The link between the Bidens and the du Ponts, established years earlier through Joe Biden’s golf club membership, suggests a narrative of mutual benefits and unwritten understandings among Delaware’s elite. While there’s no evidence of a link, the timing and context of these relationships paint a picture of intersecting interests and shared spaces between powerful families.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 15:45

  • Revelations From Special Counsel David Weiss' Testimony On Hunter Biden Investigation
    Revelations From Special Counsel David Weiss’ Testimony On Hunter Biden Investigation

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

    Ever since explosive whistleblower testimony detailing DOJ efforts to sabotage the Hunter Biden investigation was released this summer, the US Attorney (and now Special Counsel) in charge of that investigation – David Weiss – has been under siege.

    Beset with allegations of misconduct by those who had been part of his investigative team, and self-inflicted mistakes such as allowing the statute of limitations on tax crimes to pass, Weiss (who was appointed Special Counsel in August) provided closed-door testimony this week before the House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Jim Jordan.

    It was a rare opportunity to obtain testimony from a Special Counsel – they typically only testify after their reports have been completed. And while he refused to answer specifics concerning Hunter’s plea deal, the status of his investigation, and why he allowed the statute of limitations to pass on some of Hunter’s tax crimes, Weiss’s testimony does provide important context regarding what has transpired since his investigation began.

    For background, Weiss has investigated Hunter Biden for approximately five years. According to the testimony of whistleblower Gary Shapley, a highly-credentialed IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent, this investigation “has been handled differently than any investigation I’ve ever been a part of for the past 14 years of my IRS service.” Agent Shapley explained:

    “Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples.”

    As we noted back in June, the preferential treatment included: denials of normal investigative steps like looking into Hunter Biden’s communications; tipping off the Biden Transition Team that Hunter Biden would be interviewed; and refusing search warrants of Joe Biden’s home, though the Assistant US Attorney (Lesley Wolf) helping with the case admitted it was “likely” there would be evidence.

    One of the biggest revelations from the whistleblowers was that Weiss, who was the Delaware US Attorney at the time, was denied authority to file charges against Hunter Biden in DC or California.

    During his testimony, Weiss was able to provide some context on how that transpired.

    In February of 2022, Weiss reached out to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer “because we were looking to bring certain portions of our investigation to either D.C. or L.A.” In that call, Weiss raised the idea of being granted “Special Attorney” authority, which would have allowed him to bring the charges in those venues.

    This requested wasn’t granted by Main Justice. Instead, Weinsheimer told Weiss to reach out to DC (and California) to see if they “would be interested in joining or otherwise participating in the investigation.”

    Weiss then reached out to the US Attorneys for DC and the Central District of California (LA) regarding the potential to prosecute Hunter Biden for 2014-2015 tax crimes. These are the years where, according to the testimony of IRS whistleblower Shapley, Hunter Biden undertook a scheme to not report his foreign income from Burisma and “to evade his taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon.”

    The US Attorney for DC denied his request: “I received word from my staff that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia had decided not to join the case as a partner or co-counsel moving forward.” (A remarkable declination from DC, considering their zealous prosecutions of January 6 protesters.)

    The Central District of California also declined to help pursue the charges.

    These denials are important because they were made by political appointees of President Biden. Main Justice, by ordering Weiss to go through this process, put Weiss in a position that he probably didn’t like – that he would have to pursue charges that were denied by other US Attorneys. (Weiss probably imagined the condemnations from the media.)

    This left Weiss with a decision: whether to file the DC and California tax charges against Hunter Biden on his own. Weiss would testify that after the DC denial, Main Justice informed him that he had the authority under the “Special Attorney” regulations “to bring whatever charges you deem appropriate.”

    Weiss, however, let the statute of limitations expire on Hunter Biden’s 2014 and 2015 tax crimes. Why Weiss decided not to go forward with these charges remains a mystery, especially considering that the DOJ Tax Division (and AUSA Wolf) recommended Biden be prosecuted for these years (see below for reference). Weiss declined to explain his non-prosecution decision, stating he could address this in his report.

    Read the rest here – including:

    • Weiss’s response as to whether it was “fair” that Hunter could avoid paying taxes on his Burisma income
    • Weiss’s defense of AUSA Lesley Wolf, who was accused of covering for the Bidens
    • Weiss’ thoughts on the future of his investigation as Special Counsel

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 15:10

  • IRS Unveils New Tax Bracket Income Limits For 2024
    IRS Unveils New Tax Bracket Income Limits For 2024

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

    The Internal Revenue Service has announced its annual tax inflation adjustments for 2024, including new income limits for seven tax brackets.

    The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has disclosed the annual inflation adjustments affecting over 60 tax provisions for the upcoming 2024 tax year, including an increase in the standard deduction and new income limits for seven tax brackets.

    The federal agency said in a Nov. 9 announcement that a string of new annual inflation adjustments will impact the 2024 tax year, potentially bringing a boost to your paycheck.

    The IRS adjusts tax rates each year to take into account the higher cost of living and with price pressures remaining abnormally elevated, many inflation-weary Americans are hoping for some relief at tax time.

    Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington on June 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Standard Deductions

    The standard deduction, which is typically used by people who don’t itemize their taxes, raises the amount of income people can earn before they have to hand some of it over to the government through taxes.

    Under the IRS’s newly announced annual inflation adjustments, the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly in 2024 is $29,200, up $1,500, or 5.4 percent from the prior year. This year’s increase is smaller than last year’s (which was $1,800, or 7 percent greater) because the pace of inflation has slowed somewhat from last year’s eye-watering levels.

    For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $14,600 for 2024, up $750. For heads of households, the standard deduction will be $21,900 for the tax year 2024, up $1,100 from 2023, marking a 5.4 percent increase (less than last year’s 7.4 percent bump).

    A 1040 form used by U.S. taxpayers to file an annual income tax return in a file photo. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    Tax Bracket Changes

    While the tax rates in percentage terms remain unchanged for the tax year 2024, the income limits at which they kick in have been changed.

    The top marginal rate, or the highest tax rate based on income, remains at 37 percent for individual single taxpayers with incomes greater than $609,350, or $731,200 for married couples filing jointly.

    The lowest rate is 10 percent, and applies to single individuals with incomes of $11,600 or less and married couples earning $23,200 or less.

    The other rates are:

    • 35 percent for incomes over $243,725 (or $487,450 for married couples filing jointly),
    • 32 percent for incomes over $191,950 (or $383,900 for married couples filing jointly),
    • 24 percent for incomes over $100,525 (or $201,050 for married couples filing jointly),
    • 22 percent for incomes over $47,150 (or $94,300 for married couples filing jointly),
    • 12 percent for incomes over $11,600 ($23,200 for married couples filing jointly).

    Overall, the income limits for the seven tax brackets have been raised by 5.4 percent for the 2024 tax year compared to last year.

    Alternative Minimum Tax

    For single filers, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemption amount has been raised to $85,700 for the 2024 tax year, up from $81,300 for the prior year.

    This is the threshold level at which taxpayers become subject to the AMT, a separate tax scheme with its own set of rules and rates meant to ensure that higher-income individuals and corporations pay a minimum amount of tax regardless of deductions or credits.

    For married couples filing jointly, the AMT exemption amount has been raised to $133,300 for the 2024 tax year.

    The AMT exemption amount for tax year 2024 starts to phase out at $609,350 for single filers and at $1,218,700 for married couples filing jointly.

    Earned Income Tax Credit

    The IRS has raised the maximum amount for households who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to $7,830 for the tax year 2024 for individuals who have at least three qualifying children. In the tax year 2023, or the current tax year, this was $7,430.

    Last year, the average claimed EITC amount was more than $2,000, but around 20 percent of those entitled to the credit didn’t claim it, according to the IRS.

    People particularly prone to overlooking the tax credit include those living in nontraditional homes (such as a grandparent raising a grandchild), those whose earnings declined or whose marital or parental status changed, people living in rural areas, veterans, the self-employed, and those with earnings below the tax return filing requirement.

    Since navigating EITC eligibility can be tricky due to its complexity, the IRS has a tool called the EITC Assistant that people can use to check if they qualify and how much they can expect to get.

    Flexible Spending Arrangements

    For the 2024 tax year, the dollar limitation for employee salary reductions for flexible spending arrangement contributions increases to $3,200, up from the current tax year’s threshold of $3,050.

    The flexible spending account, also known as a flexible spending arrangement, allows workers to contribute a portion of their regular earnings, up to a limit set by the IRS, into an account that can be used to pay for certain health care costs.

    The funds taken from the account are not subject to income and payroll taxes, and so they offer certain tax advantages.

    Other Notable Adjustments

    In tax year 2024, other notable changes include higher Medical Savings Account (MSA) deductibles and out-of-pocket expense limits.

    For self-only coverage, the deductible range is $2,800 to $4,150, and the maximum out-of-pocket expense is $5,550. Family coverage deductibles range from $5,550 to $8,350, with an out-of-pocket limit of $10,200.

    The foreign earned income exclusion increases to $126,500, and estates of decedents in 2024 have a basic exclusion amount of $13,610,000. The annual gift exclusion rises to $18,000, and the maximum adoption credit is $16,810.

    Certain provisions remain unchanged: the personal exemption stays at zero, there’s no itemized deduction limitation, and the Lifetime Learning Credit phases out for incomes over $80,000 ($160,000 for joint returns) for all tax years starting from Dec. 31, 2020.

    An employee counts US dollar currency as a customer pays cash for an Apple iPhone 15 series phone for sale at The Grove Apple retail store on release day in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sept. 22, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon /AFP via Getty Images)

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 14:00

  • San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week
    San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week

    Progressive city leadership in crime-ridden San Francisco has undertaken a massive effort to improve the city’s image, which has been tarnished with shit-covered streets, homelessness, and open-air drug markets. These measures have been implemented as a temporary solution ahead of the global trade summit that will flood the city with world leaders and corporate executives beginning today. 

    The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is San Francisco’s largest international event since world leaders gathered in the town in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations. A lot has changed in the metro area in 78 years, including radical leftists in City Hall that have pushed failed ‘defund the police’ policies that have transformed parts of the region into an out-of-control, crime-infested hellhole. 

    The New York Post confirmed the wonderful folks in City Hall began pushing “drug addicts, dealers, and homeless” from the downtown area to other parts of the city, an effort that some believe is to conceal their failed policies from the international community during APEC. 

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    Residents and business owners told The Post that Mayor London Breed’s attempts to “herd” the homeless and drug addicts to an opposite side of the city during the summit are only a “Band-Aid” amid the worst crime crisis the city has ever seen.  

    Sources said the cleanup of homeless people and drug addicts is concentrated across seven intersections in the Tenderloin and South of Market, or SoMa, neighborhoods. These areas have been known to be covered in shit and fentanyl and heroin needles, as well as various tent cities housing the homeless. 

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    “They started clearing the tents earlier this week and there is definitely a lot more police presence,” SoMa resident and community activist Ricci Lee Wynne said. 

    “They’ve cleared out the tents that were near the Moscone Center on Howard Street, which tells me the city had the capability to do this all along — instead they just do the bare minimum,” Wynne said. 

    He added, “Once APEC is gone, police presence will start to simmer down again, the tents will return. And it will slowly flare up again. What we need is a permanent solution.”

    The summit, which runs through next Friday, will feature a highly anticipated meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday. 

    So, all along, radical Democrats in City Hall had the capability to enforce law and order but chose not to only until world leaders and corporate execs showed up to a summit. This is the biggest red flag yet for residents that leftists do not have the best interest of the majority of voters and are likely serving a fringe minority of elites.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 13:25

  • Taibbi: According To Pundits, "Ignorance" Makes Americans Give "Wrong" Answers To Economic Confidence Poll
    Taibbi: According To Pundits, “Ignorance” Makes Americans Give “Wrong” Answers To Economic Confidence Poll

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

    Paul Krugman of the New York Times on America’s “belief” problem when it comes to the economy:

    Biden is not, in fact, presiding over a bad economy. On the contrary, the economic news has been remarkably good, and history helps explain why. Nonetheless, many Americans tell pollsters that the economy is bad. Why? I don’t think we really know… Many voters have demonstrably false views about the current economy — believing, in particular, that unemployment, which is near a 50-year low, is actually near a 50-year high.

    The Guardian editorial Krugman linked to explains: Americans continue to believe the economy sucks, even though they’ve been told over and over it doesn’t! Why won’t they listen?

    Commenting on their own exclusive poll, the Guardian wrote:

    The results illustrate a dramatic political split on economic views — with Republicans far more pessimistic than Democrats. But unhappiness about the economy is widespread.

    Two-thirds of respondents (68%) reported it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month (Republicans: 69%, Democrats: 68%).

    Noting Joe Biden’s achievements include a “landmark $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill” and legislative actions “predicted to create 1.5m jobs per year for the next decade,” the Guardian complained:

    That message may be hard to sell given the widespread disbelief of and ignorance about the health of the US economy highlighted by the poll.

    As well as being wrong about the unemployment data, respondents were unaware of, or chose to mischaracterize, other major economic data points.

    I can’t remember an instance of newspapers polling Americans about their feelings, then telling them their answers are not only wrong, but ignorant! The Guardian takes the additional hilarious step of blasting respondents for making it harder to “sell” the story the economy is doing well.

    Krugman, last seen citing the sqme unemployment stat and insisting those who complain about the economy are Republicans bent on “giving Vladimir Putin victory,” now says the problem is “psychological,” because people want to think higher incomes are personal reward rather than monetary side-effect.

    Subscribers to Racket News can read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 12:50

  • Iceland Declares Emergency As 'Quake Swarms' Signal Potential Volcanic Eruption
    Iceland Declares Emergency As ‘Quake Swarms’ Signal Potential Volcanic Eruption

    Authorities in Iceland declared an emergency and issued an evacuation order for thousands of people in a popular tourist town in the country’s southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula after quake swarms intensified in the last 48 hours – sparking fears that the next big volcanic eruption could be imminent. 

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    On Friday night, Iceland’s National Police Commissioner declared a state of emergency for civil defense. Residents in Grindavík were ordered to leave after a magma tunnel formed under the area. 

    “We want to reiterate that residents MUST evacuate their homes and leave the town. But we also want to reiterate that this is not an emergency evacuation, there is plenty of time to prepare, secure things and drive out of town calmly,” the agency said.

    The Icelandic Meteorological Office’s latest update warned:

    “The seismic activity has moved south towards Grindavík. Based on how the seismic activity has evolved since 6 PM today, along with results from GPS measurements, there is a likelihood that a magma intrusion has extended beneath Grindavík.” 

    It said: 

    “At this stage, it is not possible to determine exactly whether and where magma might reach the surface. There are indications that a considerable amount of magma is moving in an area extending from Sundhnjúkagígum in the north towards Grindavík. The amount of magma involved is significantly more than what was observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the eruptions at Fagradalsfjall.”

    Magma coming to the surface produced the first seismic activity on Oct. 25, and since then, 22,000 quakes have been reported.

    In the last 48 hours, seismic activity has intensified with over 1,500 quakes. 

    Officials have elevated the volcanic warning system to “orange,” which means heightened unrest with an increased likelihood of eruption. 

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    The US Embassy in Iceland also issued a volcano alert, warning about the increased signs of volcanic activity. 

    “If an eruption occurs, follow the instructions of Icelandic authorities. Volcanic hazards may include lava, toxic gases, and heavy smoke from fires ignited by lava,” the embassy said.

    In 2010, nearly all flights in Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean were halted for a week as ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sparked one of the most significant air traffic disruptions in peacetime until the Covid virus pandemic in 2020. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 12:15

  • Bump Stock Case Could Nullify Other Biden Admin Gun Control Rules
    Bump Stock Case Could Nullify Other Biden Admin Gun Control Rules

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    After years in litigation, a Trump-era gun control rule is finally headed to the Supreme Court.

    The case in question is Cargill v. Garland. In January of 2023, the 5th Circuit decided that bump stocks were not, in fact, machine guns, as they do not meet the definition of ‘machine gun’ as stated by federal law.

    Gun Owners everywhere are saying: “Exactly!”

    For those unfamiliar, a bump stock is a device that uses the recoil of a firearm to “bump” the trigger. This causes a semi-automatic firearm to shoot faster. While the ATF now considers this device to be a “machine gun” under federal law, it’s worth noting that bump fire can be achieved with belt loops and pants pockets. 

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    The 5th Circuit ruled against US Attorney General Merrick Garland and blocked the ATF’s bump stock rule, which had been in place since 2019. 

    Before that decision, GOA had a nearly identical case in the 6th Circuit, GOA v. Garland. But the Supreme Court declined to hear our case when we petitioned them. 

    But because our case and Cargill’s case are so similar, we’ve created what’s known as a circuit split, which is when two federal courts issue opposite decisions. The circuit split has made it extremely difficult for the Supreme Court to ignore this case. 

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    And maybe the most important detail is that both cases were filed not on Second Amendment grounds but instead on the fact that ATF exceeded its powers by creating law out of thin air with this “regulation.”  

    The Supreme Court has an opportunity in this case not just to reign in the rogue bureaucrats at the ATF, but also to put limits on how executive agencies issue regulations. This case could affect many of Biden’s more recent gun control regulations, which were issued in the same manner as the Trump-era bump stock ban.

    To this day, ATF has gone unchecked by the Supreme Court for this behavior. Even the House of Representatives attempted to smack down the recent ATF pistol brace rule by passing H.J. Res 44. This attempt ultimately failed in the Senate, but only by one vote, and is a massive boon to our current lawsuit against Biden’s pistol brace ban. 

    When we fight in the courts, we rely on the grievances of our members who we represent. This is why notice and comment periods are so important. Each ATF rule, by law, must go through the notice and comment period. ATF must consider each comment when regulating, so our members need to make their voices heard.

    If you didn’t already know, we’re actually in a notice and comment period right now. Biden is currently directing his Department of Justice and the ATF to “bring the United States as close to universal background checks as possible without the passage of new legislation.” 

    We’re calling on all our members to comment on this new rule. We all know that universal background checks are the first step towards a national gun registry.

    We can’t allow this to happen. 

    Please click here to comment on the ATF’s new Universal Background Check rule and help us defeat it! 

    *    *    * 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/11/2023 – 11:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 11

Today’s News 11th November 2023

  • What It Feels Like To Survive An IED Blast
    What It Feels Like To Survive An IED Blast

    Authored John J. Waters via RealClearWire.com, (emphasis ours)

    The following is an excerpt from River City One: A Novel (Knox Press; November 7, 2023).

    I’m laughing now because I can still see him. He’s got his helmet on, the chinstrap dangling and tobacco spit coming off his lip. I tell you the right side of his face was blown up like a puffer fish. He kept himself grungy, so unclean that you’d think not even the bad guys would touch him. Maybe that’s why I liked him being nearby, because I thought it would keep me safe or something.

    I was walking fourth in line that day and one place ahead of West, who was smack in the middle. “You’re in my world today, Sir—you know the drill.” He was the guy everybody wanted in charge of the patrol, so I did as he said.

    We set off single file, like a group of schoolchildren walking across the playground, one right after another. It had rained the night before so the ground was thick with mud. It felt like I was walking through peanut butter, every step sucking at the bottoms of my boots. The point man had the metal detector stuck out in front of him, waving it back and forth like a flashlight in the dark. We only walked where the metal detector allowed us, each man planting his foot into the footprint of the man in front of him and that was how it worked: one footprint at a time, hoping the ground wouldn’t give out from underneath.

    I can’t remember what I was thinking about before it happened. The weight of my pack, maybe, how it felt like carrying a limp body on my shoulders, that’s how heavy the gear felt. I wasn’t thinking about fighting. I was uncomfortable but not afraid. “Keep up, Sir. Speed is the name of this game,” was the last thing West said.

    We crested the hill and were approaching the plateau.

    Halfway to the center, there was a flash of white light, then heat, a wave of fire that burned the hair off the back of my neck. I felt something kick the side of my head and then, all of a sudden, I’m sitting on the ground. I feel the force of the blast on every part of my body, like a punch to the head and ribs at the same time. One second passes. My first thought is, “I’m dead.” Another second passes. I hear rocks and debris, clumps of mud splattering onto the ground around me. The air is reddish brown, a fog, like I’m inside a filthy cloud, picking wet mud out of the inside of my nose and spitting it from my mouth. More seconds pass. My conscious self slams back inside my head and I realize for the first time that I’m alive. I have memory. I remember I was walking, that I’m with my team and we’re near the end but we’ve been hit by something. More time passes. My ears are ringing and I notice that my head hurts, like I haven’t had a cup of coffee for the first time in months, and the ache is enough to make me stretch my forehead and close my eyes. A doctor told me later that the blast from twenty pounds of explosives shattered my eardrum, but for now, I’m just drifting in and out of focus. I hear voices, the sounds coming from a tunnel, inside a shaft. They’re getting louder as the sound expands, but still I’m staring into the fog and seeing nothing until I turn to see what’s going on behind me.

    “I’m good!” I scream at the outline of a figure, sweeping my hands over my legs and in front of my face, then my chest. “I’m okay,” I whisper to myself. I made it. I look behind me and finally see the image of someone emerging through the fog. “Hey, buddy. I made it,” I call out. He’s quiet, just sitting there. His back is stiff and perfectly upright, like he’s just chilling, and I think to myself, “Hell of a time to sit around, isn’t it?” He’s holding something in his hands—a helmet turned upside down like a bowl with a bootlace hanging out of it, and it’s odd. I push myself to my feet so that I can stand above him and then I understand. West isn’t sitting. His upper body is planted in the mud, like he’s sprouting up out of the dirt, right up from his ass, and there’s something black and red tucked inside the boot he’s cradling in his helmet. I keep staring at the boot in his hands.

    “My mind flips back to something I heard. “Sir, my orthotics don’t fit these issue boots, so I’m gonna need to buy a special pair. Check out this sweet-ass pair of boots.” The only dude in the platoon with boots that looked like Air Jordans. It’s his left foot he’s holding in that helmet, the tan leather is a dark red color, but otherwise in perfect condition. The toe box and throat of the boot are plump. The laces are tied.

    He couldn’t have been more than five feet away. I dream about it sometimes at night, reaching for his tourniquet off the front right shoulder of his plate carrier, fingers dancing across the stub of his right thigh before I rip my own tourniquet off my plate carrier, fastening it across what little is left of his left leg, doing what I can to stop the bleeding. I do it right every time in my dream, but it didn’t happen like that. Seconds passed and I didn’t move. More seconds passed and I couldn’t move. Eventually, the lead man in the column is there in front of me, giving the aid I’d plotted out in my head but hadn’t been able to deliver.

    Have you ever had that dream where you’re playing a basketball game and you steal the ball? There’s nothing but open court between me and the basket. Not a single defender stands in my way. Sometimes my legs are rubber, other nights they’re wood. He bled out on the helicopter, arteries sliced just as clean as cut grass is what the medic told us, said it was a “victim-operated IED.”

    Victim-operated, like West had decided to kill himself when he stepped on the pressure plate, when he stepped into my footprints.

    We both stepped on the plate. Only West was able to operate the bomb that killed him.

    John J. Waters graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. He served in the Marine Corps on deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He lives with his family in Nebraska, where he was born.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 23:40

  • 55 Global Nations Do Not 'Recognize' Palestine, 29 Don't Recognize Israel
    55 Global Nations Do Not 'Recognize' Palestine, 29 Don't Recognize Israel

    The recent conflict between Hamas and Israel has brought the Gaza Strip, and the partially recognized State of Palestine, prominently into the focus of the global news cycle.

    In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti uses Wikipedia data to map the countries that currently recognize Palestine as a state and those that don’t.

    55 Countries Do Not Recognize Palestine

    On November 15, 1988, the State of Palestine was officially proclaimed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) coalition. The state claimed sovereignty of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

    As of November 2023, 138 of the 193 UN members (72%) recognize the State of Palestine.

    Here are the 55 countries that don’t recognize Palestine:

    State Recognizes Palestine?
    🇦🇩 Andorra No
    🇦🇲 Armenia No
    🇦🇺 Australia No, informal relations
    🇦🇹 Austria No, informal relations
    🇧🇸 Bahamas No
    🇧🇧 Barbados No
    🇧🇪 Belgium No, informal relations
    🇨🇲 Cameroon No, informal relations
    🇨🇦 Canada No, informal relations
    🇭🇷 Croatia No, informal relations
    🇩🇰 Denmark No, informal relations
    🇪🇷 Eritrea No, informal relations
    🇪🇪 Estonia No, informal relations
    🇫🇲 Federated States of Micronesia No
    🇫🇯 Fiji No
    🇫🇮 Finland No, informal relations
    🇫🇷 France No, informal relations
    🇩🇪 Germany No, informal relations
    🇬🇷 Greece No, informal relations
    🇮🇪 Ireland No, informal relations
    🇮🇱 Israel No, informal relations
    🇮🇹 Italy No, informal relations
    🇯🇲 Jamaica No
    🇯🇵 Japan No, informal relations
    🇰🇮 Kiribati No
    🇱🇻 Latvia No, informal relations
    🇱🇮 Liechtenstein No
    🇱🇹 Lithuania No, informal relations
    🇱🇺 Luxembourg No, informal relations
    🇲🇭 Marshall Islands No
    🇲🇽 Mexico No, informal relations
    🇲🇩 Moldova No, informal relations
    🇲🇨 Monaco No
    🇲🇲 Myanmar No
    🇳🇷 Nauru No
    🇳🇱 Netherlands No, informal relations
    🇳🇿 New Zealand No, informal relations
    🇲🇰 North Macedonia No
    🇳🇴 Norway No, informal relations
    🇵🇼 Palau No
    🇵🇦 Panama No
    🇵🇹 Portugal No, informal relations
    🇼🇸 Samoa No
    🇸🇲 San Marino No
    🇸🇬 Singapore No
    🇸🇮 Slovenia No, informal relations
    🇸🇧 Solomon Islands No
    🇰🇷 South Korea No, informal relations
    🇪🇸 Spain No, informal relations
    🇨🇭 Switzerland No, informal relations
    🇹🇴 Tonga No
    🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago No
    🇹🇻 Tuvalu No
    🇬🇧 United Kingdom No, informal relations
    🇺🇸 United States No, informal relations

    Many of the world’s Western countries, including the entire G7, do not recognize Palestine. Instead, many maintain informal diplomatic relations.

    In contrast, emerging major economies like those within BRICS and other G20 nations, including Argentina, Indonesia, Türkiye, and Saudi Arabia, officially recognize the state.

    In 2012, the State of Palestine was also upgraded by the UN to become a non-member observer state, a status shared only by the Holy See of Vatican City.

    Hamas and the Gaza Strip

    Officially, the United Nations recognizes the PLO as the governing entity in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, both of which fell under Israeli control following the 1967 Six-Day War.

    After the Oslo Accords were signed by Israel and the PLO in the mid 1990s, the PLO gained control over the Gaza Strip and 40% of the West Bank through the newly-created Palestinian Authority administration.

    However, following a 2007 military conflict between rival Palestinian factions Fatah (the majority party of the PLO) and Hamas (a militant political party separate from the PLO), the Gaza Strip has been governed by Hamas.

    *  *  *

    The recognition of Israel’s sovereignty has remained a dynamic and intricate issue since its establishment in 1948.

    In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti uses Wikipedia data to map the countries that currently recognize Israel as a state and those that don’t.

    29 Countries Do Not Recognize Israel

    As of November 2023, 164 of the 193 UN members recognize Israel as a state, including all G7 countries. Even the State of Palestine recognized Israel as part of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

    Here are the 29 countries that don’t recognize Israel:

    State Recognized Israel?
    🇦🇫 Afghanistan Never
    🇩🇿 Algeria Never
    🇧🇩 Bangladesh Never
    🇧🇴 Bolivia Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇧🇳 Brunei Never
    🇰🇲 Comoros Never
    🇨🇺 Cuba Withdrew
    🇩🇯 Djibouti Never
    🇮🇩 Indonesia Never
    🇮🇷 Iran Withdrew
    🇮🇶 Iraq Never
    🇰🇼 Kuwait Never
    🇱🇧 Lebanon Never
    🇱🇾 Libya Never
    🇲🇾 Malaysia Never
    🇲🇻 Maldives Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇲🇱 Mali Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇲🇷 Mauritania Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇳🇪 Niger Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇰🇵 North Korea Never
    🇴🇲 Oman Never
    🇵🇰 Pakistan Never
    🇶🇦 Qatar Never
    🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Never
    🇸🇴 Somalia Never
    🇸🇾 Syria Never
    🇹🇳 Tunisia Never
    🇻🇪 Venezuela Suspended/Cut Relations
    🇾🇪 Yemen Never

    With the exception of four countries—Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela—the countries that do not recognize Israel are predominantly Muslim.

    Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria have never recognized Israel and technically remain in a state of war with the country. Iran also doesn’t recognize Israel, but actually had relations with the country in the past before severing all ties following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

    Likewise, Cuba recognized Israel in 1949, but reversed its position in 1973 and actively supported Egypt and Syria against it during that year’s Yom Kippur War.

    On the other hand, some Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE, have gradually normalized with the country.

    Effects of the Israel-Hamas War

    Relations between Israel and other countries are often strained when it engages in military conflicts, especially in the Gaza Strip.

    In some cases those relations have broken completely. Venezuela broke all diplomatic ties with Israel during the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. More recently, Bolivia cut official ties with Israel over the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.

    As of November 2023, 85% of UN members recognized Israel as a country, compared to 72% for the State of Palestine.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 23:20

  • ATF Director Says Assault Weapons Ban Now On His "Wish List"
    ATF Director Says Assault Weapons Ban Now On His "Wish List"

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    Looks like Biden’s ATF director has drastically changed his views from his Senate confirmation hearing.

    During a recent interview with Caroline Light, the Director of Undergraduate studies in Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University, ATF Director Steve Dettelbach was asked about his gun control “Wish list.”

    Steven Dettelbach (right) with historian Caroline Light (left). Source: Harvard 

    According to Harvard Magazine, ATF Director Dettelbach answered that he’d like to revive the federal prohibition on “assault weapons,” which expired in 2004. 

    The so-called “assault weapons” that Dettelbach refers to are commonly owned modern sporting rifles that 1 in 20 Americans own.

    This is a drastic change from Dettelbach’s nomination hearing, where he promised to be a fair regulator and only use the tools that Congress gave him.

    These words earned him his nominations from holdouts like Senator Angus King of Maine and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

    Senator King was credited with torpedoing the previous ATF director nominee, David Chipman.

    Chipman, a former ATF agent and veteran of the gun-control lobby, was withdrawn after his views on firearms confirmed that he would be antagonistic towards the firearms industry as a regulator.

    Dettelbach was seen as a law enforcement candidate, with a background as a United States Attorney who promised to “never let politics in any way influence my action as ATF director.”

    It is clear that Director Dettelbach has become a gun-control advocate in the vein of David Chipman. In fact, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, no ATF director has ever advocated for an assault weapon ban until now.

    This is unsurprising, as the Biden administration recently announced an office of gun violence prevention — its sole purpose being to cozy up the gun control lobby with a direct link to ATF. Look no further than the Office of Gun Violence Prevention’s Deputy Director, Rob Wilcox.

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    Wilcox was the Senior Director of Federal Affairs for Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control organization Everytown for Gun Safety before working directly for the White House in their newly created office.

    Interesting as well in Dettelbach’s interview was his attempt to characterize a GOA-backed overturning of an egregious gun control policy by the Department of Veterans Affairs as somehow related to the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.

    Dettelbach suggested that the GOA-backed policy lowered barriers to gun ownership for those found to be mentally incompetent. This is the furthest thing from the truth.

    In reality, the provision reversed a sinister policy by the VA, which added veterans to the list of prohibited persons in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) if they used a fiduciary to manage their finances. Over 250,000 veterans were disarmed because of this policy.

    ATF is currently working to implement Universal Registration Checks by executive fiat (another item on Dettelbach’s wish list), and the rule is now up for comment. Click here to let ATF know that you oppose this rule by leaving a public comment.

    Gun Owners of America proudly stands in opposition to ATF and Director Dettelbach in the defense of law-abiding gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.

    *  *  * 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 23:00

  • Not Married, No Kids: The Rise Of China's 'Single' Culture
    Not Married, No Kids: The Rise Of China's 'Single' Culture

    While Singles‘ Day was originally conceived as a celebration of people who are not in a relationship, Statista’s Felix Richter points out that the growing popularity of a lifestyle that prioritizes personal independence and self-discovery over traditional societal expectations has not come without side effects.

    One such side effect has been a steep decline in marriage rates across the country.

    Young adults in particular are increasingly likely to delay or forgo marriage altogether, breaking away from the longstanding societal pressure to marry early. While 47 percent of newly married people in China were 24 or younger in 2005, that number dropped to just 15 percent in 2022, with nearly 50 percent of newlyweds older than 30, compared to less than 20 percent in 2005. The reasons behind this shift are multifaceted, encompassing factors such as changing gender roles, increased educational and career opportunities for women and a desire for personal fulfillment outside the confines of a traditional family structure. As our chart shows, the marriage rate in China dropped to a historic low of 4.8 new marriages per 1,000 people in 2022, down from more than double that a decade earlier.

    Accompanying the decline in marriages has been the concerning trend of a falling birth rate in China, which also fell to a new low in 2022, resulting in the country’s first population decline in over 60 years. The choice to remain single or delay marriage often translates into delayed parenthood or even a decision to remain childless. Economic considerations, career aspirations and the high cost of raising children in urban areas further contribute to this decline. The Chinese government’s efforts to encourage childbirth, such as the relaxation of the one-child policy, have yet to yield a substantial reversal of the declining birth rate.

    Infographic: Not Married, No Kids | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    So while the rise of the single culture in China is emblematic of evolving social attitudes and individual aspirations, it also raises questions about the long-term demographic and economic implications for the nation. As the number of single individuals continues to rise, policymakers are grappling with the need to adapt to this changing landscape, addressing challenges such as an aging population and potential strains on social welfare systems.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 22:40

  • Is A Cyber 9/11 Coming?
    Is A Cyber 9/11 Coming?

    Authored by Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Talk of a “Cyber 9/11” has been circulating for years.  With the next presidential election twelve months away now, some folks are predicting that a major cyber event will happen before then, throwing a monkey wrench into the 2024 election process.

    What the heck is Cyber 9/11?

    What does Cyber 9/11 mean?  Is there a real risk?  What should we be preparing for?

    There are two aspects to the Cyber 9/11 concept.  The first is the disaster itself; 9/11 was a catastrophe that ended the lives of over 3000 people in one day.  There are fears that if power grids were hacked or enough damage was done to logistical centers, the ensuing chaos would cause deaths.

    Quite memorably, back in 2000, a disgruntled public works employee in Australia hacked into the water treatment system and caused raw sewage to pour into public areas, flooding a Hyatt hotel.  One man acting alone caused a disgusting, expensive mess. Of course security experts are concerned with what a team of angry individuals could do.

    The second aspect to a potential Cyber 9/11 is the change in the regulatory landscape that occurred after 9/11 in 2001.  I remember flying as a teenager in the 90s. So many things changed later.  The airport changes were most obvious to regular citizens, but the passage of the Patriot Act in October 2001 was far more consequential.  It dramatically changed the way surveillance was conducted.

    Under the Fourth Amendment, private citizens are supposed to be protected from warrantless search and seizures.  The Patriot Act really weakened that. Law enforcement is now allowed to delay the notice of search warrants.  They don’t need nearly as much oversight from judges to conduct phone and internet surveillance.

    These Constitution-weakening changes occurred after 9/11 in 2001.

    How might our Constitutional rights be altered after a Cyber 9/11?

    Centralized powers have made it obvious that they love using calamities to push through changes the public would never otherwise accept.  Winston Churchill was the first person on record to say, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” as he worked to establish the UN in the 1940s, but he was hardly the last.

    Understanding this tendency to see crisis as opportunity is absolutely vital to understanding everything else going on today.

    So, is a Cyber 9/11 something we should be preparing for?

    Some experts believe that a Cyber 9/11 would be difficult to pull off by the known terrorist groups for technical reasons.  And the world is too connected, globally, for most governments to pursue large-scale cyberattacks, even between unfriendly nations.  For people who want to use the internet to harm American society, there are simply better ways to do it.

    However, we can’t ignore the fact that cyberattacks have been increasing.  Ask any small business owner. Daisy has mentioned in previous articles that most of this site’s income goes to security.  And I’ve heard similar things from friends that work in fields as diverse as accounting and energy.

    These stories from friends align with what security professionals have found, too.  The Information Security Forum is a London-based firm that provides guidance on internet security for many Fortune 500 companies and governments around the world.  They have seen a huge increase in cyberattacks, too, and in June this year, they hosted an Operational Technology Cyber Simulation exercise in Brussels.  This gave industry leaders an opportunity to meet and collaborate, working through a simulation of a cyberattack on a fictitious manufacturing facility

    How would governments react to a major cyberattack?

    I don’t think a major cyberattack is an unreasonable concern.  I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask, if we did have a major cyber event, how would our governments react?

    Central banks and governments around the world have been talking an awful lot about implementing CBDCs.  In late June, 130 countries representing 98% of the global economy were exploring CBDCs.  This is despite a lack of interest by average citizens.  During Covid, many people became aware of how China used its social credit system, interconnected with online banking, to enforce compliance.

    It’s not just China that people can look to with alarm. When Nigeria’s government tried to impose CBDCs on their citizens, widespread protests erupted.

    In the U.S., Republican Senators introduced legislation that would ban the federal government from implementing a CBDC.   Europeans don’t want CBDCs, either.  It has simply become too obvious that CBDCs will be used as a means of control, and politicians have been caught admitting it.

    Look at the Rumble pranksters who convinced European Central Bank President Christine LaGarde that she was on the phone with Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky.  She admits, thinking that she is speaking privately, that CBDCs would be used to control what kind of payments the population would be able to make.

    There’s no putting the cat back in that bag.  Politicians and central bankers want total financial control, and they think they have the technology to do it, through CBDCs.  Average citizens worldwide have been making it clear that they would really prefer to have the option of private, decentralized payments through crypto or cash, and so there is a legitimate concern that any upcoming cyberattack (no matter who actually conducts it) could be used to reset financial systems worldwide.

    But do they have the technology to pull this off successfully?

    Who knows.

    We’ve talked before about Ukraine’s Diia app and how, shortly after it launched, they had a massive data breach in which millions of people had their personal information released all over the dark web.

    This breach was tiny compared to what just happened to the people of India in the recent Aadhaar data breach.

    Aadhaar is the Indian program launched to streamline the identification process of Indian citizens.  The program was rolled out in 2009, issuing a unique 12-digit number to each person who registered in exchange for their biometric data/

    Before Aadhaar, there was no universal identification program within India, and as you can imagine, this led to widespread abuse and corruption.  Aadhaar claimed to solve that problem.

    Within a few years of launching, Aadhaar had become the world’s largest biometric data collection service.  As of 2023, 99% of Indians, or 1.3 billion people, have handed over their fingerprints and iris scans in exchange for access to government services.  The Indian government has boasted that this allows the poorest Indians, many of whom had no official identification beforehand, to receive benefits.

    A court ruling in 2018 claimed that the Indian government could demand Aadhaar data, but that private entities such as banks and phone companies could not.  However, despite this court ruling, many educated people within India claim that it was not clear what services would or would not be withheld based on Aadhaar participation.  Instances of fraud have been playing out since its adoption.  It has been used for voter fraud.  And, once you opt-in, there’s no opting out.

    Within the past two weeks, India has suffered a massive data breach, with 815 million people having their biometric data and banking information put up for sale on the dark web.

    This is the biggest data breach in history.  Eight hundred fifteen million people means that more than 1 in 10 people on planet Earth just had their data stolen.  You can find many, many videos on YouTube of furious Indians talking about the data breach, but Western media has totally ignored this for reasons that are probably obvious.

    How am I preparing?

    So, after all this, am I preparing for Cyber 9/11?  Am I prepping for the attack itself, or some kind of biometrically linked CBDC to roll out?

    General chaos, leading to Thirdworldization, is my pre-2024 election prediction.  There are some power-hungry people individuals who would love to have the whole world living under a global digital system, but I think that forced implementation is more likely to cause chaos than anything else.  These systems are not foolproof and lead to problems wherever they’re tried.

    We may not be able to avoid attempts at forced implementation.  But we can prepare by paying attention to our surroundings, becoming more skilled producers rather than consumers, and most of all, developing trusted networks of friends and family in the real world.

    For more information on preparing for a cyberattack, check out this article and this one.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 22:20

  • Seven Hezbollah Fighters Killed In Syria After Expanded Israeli Airstrikes On 'Iran Axis'
    Seven Hezbollah Fighters Killed In Syria After Expanded Israeli Airstrikes On 'Iran Axis'

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah has issued a rare announcement Friday, saying that seven of its fighters have been killed, describing that they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem” – which is code for fighting Israel.

    But it’s being widely reported that at least some of the slain Hezbollah members were killed inside Syria, after a new Friday Israeli airstrike on central Homs. In total on Friday, Hezbollah released seven death notices.

    Hezbollah funeral procession on Monday, after a fighters was killed on the southern border, via AP.

    Hezbollah as well as international sources have cited a death toll of at least 68 Hezbollah fighters since the Oct.7 conflict began, centered on southern Israel and Gaza.

    “A Hezbollah official and a Lebanese security official said the seven fighters were killed in neighboring Syria this morning,” international press agencies and regional reports indicated. “They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.”

    Israel’s attacks on Syria, where Hezbollah has long been operating in coordination with the Assad government, have grown to almost daily of late. This presents the prospect that the war could go regional, given these assaults are ultimately aimed at the ‘Iran axis’. 

    On Wednesday, there were reports that three ‘pro-Iran’ fighters had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on the outskirts of Damascus. And Bloomberg on Friday says that cross-border fire in southern Lebanon has persisted:

    Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched missiles at Israeli soldiers, the militant group’s Al-Manar TV reported. Israel Defense Forces said that a group launched a number of anti-tank missiles from Lebanon toward an army post in northern Israel. The Israeli army said it responded and struck the source of fire.

    There also appears to be a concerted effort to degrade and destroy Israel’s string of observation and communications posts along the border…

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

    While most analysts have underscored that a full ‘war front’ has yet to be opened by Hezbollah, the fact of 60+ Hezbollah deaths does mean that significant fighting is taking place. 

    Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a recent speech said part of the purpose of operations was to divert up to one-third of Israel’s military hardware and personnel to the north, in order to divert these way from Gaza operations.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 22:00

  • Taibbi: Big Brother Is Flagging You
    Taibbi: Big Brother Is Flagging You

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

    “We just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA,” wrote Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council on July 31, 2020, according to a devastating new House report:

    So much for “CISA did not found, fund, or otherwise control the EIP.” That’s what the public was told in March, after Michael Shellenberger and I testified to Jim Jordan’s Weaponization of Government Committee about the ubiquitous presence in the Twitter Files of the the Election Integrity Partnership, a cross-platform content-flagging operation set up ahead of the 2020 Trump-Biden election.

    Nominally run by Stanford University, the EIP is really government censorship in a ski mask, a creature of the Department of Homeland Security and its sub-agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Despite media protestations to the contrary, this has never really been in doubt. Stanford Internet Observatory Director Alex Stamos told the world EIP was formed because CISA “lacked both kinda the funding and the legal authorizations” to do its “necessary” work:

    Now, after a damaging new report packed with subpoenaed documents just released by the House Weaponization of Government Committee, a thorough exposé by Michael Shellenberger and Alexandra Gutentag at Public, and new documents in this space from both the Twitter Files and the Missouri v. Biden case, the public hopefully will have enough information to shut the door on one of the more infuriating and shameless ass-covering campaigns in recent memory:

    After Shellenberger and I testified in March, some partners in the EIP — which included the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP), Graphika, and the “Center for Internet Security” (CIS) — denied they were part of a censorship operation, claiming to be victims of “false statements” and mischaracterizations.

    The denials triggered a furious campaign of counter-accusation leveled through national media, which was of course more interested in Jordan, Michael and me than in efforts by an intelligence service to build a domestic censorship operation. EIP members worked with everyone from Mehdi Hasan at MSNBC to PBS Frontline to the Washington Post, New York Times, and the New Yorker, unironically depicting congressional subpoenas and Freedom of Information requests as “tools of harassment.” Stanford’s Renée DiResta even told The New Yorker, “Matt Taibbi says something on a Twitter thread, and then members of Congress get to read my e-mails!”

    Of course, congress gets to read such emails because voters chose to give politicians who wanted to read them subpoena power. Or: Freedom of Information laws allow anyone curious about the destination of public funds to see correspondence involving anyone working on public projects. That EIP “researchers” believe subpoeanas or FOIA rules to be unfair impositions says a lot about how much say they feel the public should have in publicly-funded programs.

    The Twitter Files confirm information in the Weaponization Committee report, containing multiple references to DHS plans in 2020 to build an election content-reviewing program. Here for instance lawyer Stacia Cardille says, “DHS want to establish a centralized portal for reporting disinformation”:

    Shortly after, in May 2020, a different Twitter official noted “CISA received a grant to build a web portal for state and local election officials to report incidents of election-related misinformation,” and “This tool has been built in beta form”:

    The Committee report noted Twitter was “briefed on the portal” by DHS in May, 2020. In a June a Twitter exec noted in an email, “We have already done a demo with DHS/CISA,” and, “Twitter has already received a demo on this product.”

    Along with the Brookie email about the EIP set up “at the request” of DHS/CISA, plus the EIP’s own bragging about filling the “critical gap” for a government agency that “lacked both kinda the funding and the legal authorizations” to do this work, it was already comical to claim “CISA did not found, fund, or otherwise control the EIP.”

     

    Subscribers to Racket News can read the rest here…

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 21:40

  • Visualizing The Expansion Of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization
    Visualizing The Expansion Of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

    China has actively pursued the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic, and international security entity.

    Established in 2001 by Russia, China, and former Soviet states, the organization serves as a counterbalance to Western influence in the region.

    Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti and Sabrina Fortin created the chart below, using data from Incrementum, the UN, and the SCO, to illustrate the development of the largest regional organization globally.

    SCO Timeline

    The SCO, formed with objectives such as combating terrorism, promoting border security, strengthening political ties, and expanding economic cooperation, initially included China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

    In 2002, member states ratified the organization statute to encourage political, trade, economic, technological, cultural, and educational collaboration.

    Since then, the organization has undertaken over 20 large-scale projects related to transportation, energy, and telecommunications. A notable initiative is China’s expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to rebuild the Silk Road and connect China to Asia, Europe, and beyond through significant infrastructure investments.

    The organization has also expanded its geopolitical influence. It attained observer status in the UN General Assembly in 2005 and gave Afghanistan observer status in 2012. Currently, it is working with the interim Taliban administration to include Afghan representatives in its future meetings.

    India and Pakistan officially became members of the SCO in 2017, and Iran is in the process of obtaining full-time membership. Egypt and Qatar are dialogue partners, and Saudi Arabia, a traditional U.S. ally, has taken steps to join. Belarus is set to become a member in 2024 after signing a memorandum of obligations.

    Furthermore, the organization also plays a crucial role in Chinese military ambitions.

    In 2007, the SCO signed an agreement outlining the legal rights and responsibilities for military exercises in another member country.

    The agreement allows Chinese armed forces to engage in air-ground combat operations abroad, covering activities like long-distance mobilization, counterterrorism missions, stability maintenance operations, and conventional warfare.

    Military presence is particularly important for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which fears that separatist movements in the Uyghur-dominated autonomous region of Xinjiang could gain support from other Central Asian states.

    Implications for the United States

    Today, the SCO encompasses 42% of the global population and 32% of the global GDP.

    Due to its growing influence, U.S. policymakers have been monitoring the development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    In a 2020 report to the U.S. Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission highlighted that through the SCO, China is establishing diplomatic relationships and expeditionary capabilities that could support power projection beyond its borders.

    According to the document, “there is a significant risk that Beijing may leverage its relationships with SCO countries to limit the ability of U.S. armed forces to operate in Central Asia.”

    Nonetheless, the same report mentions that the SCO could serve as a beneficial tool for Central Asian states, offering a platform for cooperation and presenting an alternative to potential domination by Russia, particularly in areas such as energy.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 21:20

  • "Malpractice": Ramaswamy Denies Claim By RNC Chair McDaniel That He Voted For Obama
    "Malpractice": Ramaswamy Denies Claim By RNC Chair McDaniel That He Voted For Obama

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (Emphasis ours),

    GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has denied claims made by Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel that he voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama.

    Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the NBC News Republican Presidential Primary Debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    The Ohio entrepreneur took to social media to accuse Ms. McDaniel of “flat-out lying” and reiterated his call for her resignation.

    He repeated online anonymous claims that the RNC chair had allegedly vowed not to give “one cent” to his campaign after he criticized her during the third GOP debate held on Wednesday.

    “I’ve never voted for Obama in my life,” Mr. Ramaswamy told Fox News on Thursday. “So, for a chair of the RNC to be saying that on national television, is malpractice.”

    The RNC, in response to inquiries, directed The Epoch Times to a statement denying Ms. McDaniel’s reported remarks about withholding financial support for Ramaswamy’s campaign.

    (L–R) Former Gov. of New Jersey Chris Christie, former Gov. of South Carolina and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) attend the third Republican presidential primary debate at the Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    At the third GOP debate in Miami on Wednesday, one day after the Nov. 7 off-year elections that saw Democrats gain ground in key elections, Mr. Ramaswamy said the GOP had become a “party of losers.” He attributed the blame to the Republican establishment and called on Ms. McDaniel to resign.

    “Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022,” he said. “We got trounced last night in 2023, and I think that we have to have accountability in our party.

    “For that matter, Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over [and] yield my time to you.“

    Following the debate, Ms. McDaniel said the GOP should be focused on domestic issues, such as the border and fentanyl crisis, crime, U.S. families, and defeating President Joe Biden—not her.

    “I’m not running for anything, so let’s focus on Joe Biden and beating the Democrats,” she said Wednesday night.

    RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel delivers remarks before the NBC News Republican Presidential Primary Debate at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    In further comments on Thursday, Ms. McDaniel dismissed Mr. Ramaswamy’s comments calling on her to resign, saying that he “needs a headline” and noting that he’s polling at “4 percent.”

    She also said the RNC, a federal committee, isn’t involved in state elections.

    “We’re a federal committee, so we weren’t involved in those races on Tuesday,” Ms. McDaniel said. “I know Vivek is kind of newer to the party. He voted for Obama, so he may not know that, but this is something we’re going to have to get right … as a party.”

    Ms. McDaniel made her remarks during an interview with Fox News, in which she was responding to criticisms Mr. Ramaswamy leveled at her during the third GOP debate on Wednesday night.

    Among the victories for Democrats on Tuesday were Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection and the keeping and flipping, respectively, of the Virginia state Senate and House of Delegates.

    To qualify for the fourth GOP debate, candidates must meet either of two polling thresholds: “at least 6 percent in two national polls” or “6 percent in one national poll and 6 percent in one early state poll from two separate ‘carve out’ states,” according to the RNC.

    They also need a minimum of 80,000 unique donors, with at least 200 donors from each of 20 or more states and territories.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 21:00

  • Lilly's New Weight Loss Medication Ignites Obesity Drug Price War
    Lilly's New Weight Loss Medication Ignites Obesity Drug Price War

    The obesity drug price war has just begun following the Food and Drug Administration’s Wednesday approval of Zepbound, a weight-loss drug from Eli Lilly and Company. Zepbound is anticipated to be more affordable than Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and will be stocked at US pharmacies after Thanksgiving. 

    Zepbound is the latest entrant into the GLP-1 craze this year as obese Americans give up Pelotons for ‘miracle’ weight loss drugs that can help people lose up to 5% of body weight in a month. The new drug costs 21% less per month – or about $1,060 for a shot, compared with the premium price of $1,349 a month for Wegovy, according to Bloomberg. 

    Despite the high monthly cost of Wegovy, which can be comparable to expenses like car payments, rent, or mortgage payments and thus unaffordable for many folks, along with some insurance companies unwilling to pick up the bill, the introduction of Zepbound offers hope for more affordable options in the GLP-1 space. 

    Bloomberg noted Lilly’s discount has likely instigated the opening move of a “war between the two drugmakers to win over insurers’ dollars.” 

    There could be a divide-and-conquer strategy between the two drugmakers with insures:

    Even as list prices remain high, drugmakers often offer insurance companies steep behind-the-scenes discounts in exchange for favorable coverage, especially when there’s competition from a very similar drug. What drugmakers lose in rebates — as these deals are often called — they gain in potential market share. Winning over the fragmented, complex and lucrative US health-care system is imperative for Lilly and Novo in maximizing long-term profits.

    The two drugmakers are experts at navigating the behind-the-scenes fights with insurers for access to their patients. For years, the two competed to get coverage for injectable diabetes drugs, including more recently Mounjaro and Ozempic. They have historically split market-share for diabetes treatments, but the stakes are higher for weight-loss medicines. -Bloomberg

    Bloomberg Intelligence’s Michael Shah said Lilly and Novo “want to get broad access, so insurers will likely pit one against the other to secure the biggest discount.” 

    Shah estimates that Novo has discounted Wegovy by at least 55% to secure access with insurers. He said the obesity drug war will likely mean rebates will move higher. This is a good sign for obese folks that more affordable pricing is ahead.  

    On Wednesday, after Zepbound’s approval, Lilly wrote in a press release that its new drug is a “powerful new option for the treatment of obesity.” Clinicals have shown it can help people lose up to 52 pounds in 16 months. 

    Patrik Jonsson, a Lilly executive vice president, recently said the more affordable Zepbound is a “signal from our side” that Lilly is taking drug costs seriously. 

    Bloomberg noted the obesity drug wars will accelerate this weekend:

    Novo is expected to present data at the American Heart Association meeting from a big trial showing that Wegovy can prevent heart attacks and strokes in cardiovascular patients without diabetes. Those findings could also pressure insurers to cover the drug if it has more perceived health benefits.

    The beginning innings of the obesity drug price war appear to have started this week to ‘make America slim again’ (also make billions of dollars along the way). 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 20:40

  • This Crime Data Is Not Real
    This Crime Data Is Not Real

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

    Headlines in recent weeks blared that crime is down, all based on a new report from the FBI.

    News media picked it up and did the predictable kabuki dance over the greatness of the Biden administration, as if the president has anything to do with it.

    Mainly, the point is that all is well.

    There’s nothing about which to complain.

    You’re safe and prosperous, so just stop your kvetching.

    The report stated the following:

    “The FBI’s crime statistics estimates for 2022 show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7 percent in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates: Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2022 estimated nationwide decrease of 6.1 percent compared to the previous year. In 2022, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 5.4 percent decrease. Aggravated assault in 2022 decreased an estimated 1.1 percent in 2022. Robbery showed an estimated increase of 1.3 percent nationally.”

    Before we examine this reported data, consider that there’s no reason to believe that it’s even close to the truth.

    In all the chaos of the last several years, people have mostly stopped reporting theft and even assault. It’s so routine and everyone knows that the police will not and probably cannot do anything anyway. This truth is easily confirmed by asking any street-level store owner in any big city. Theft is rampant. Cameras are everywhere. But there’s nothing they can do about it.

    Just a couple of days ago, I was in a CVS Pharmacy and startled that the toothpaste was under lock and key. That’s how terrible things have gotten in formerly civilized places.

    One wonders about assaults, too. Based on what you can see in midtown Manhattan on any night, does anyone believe that assaults in this setting are being reported? What precisely would be the point?

    To be sure, murders are different. Those data are less subject to reporting problems. But here’s another problem: a basic statistical error in how it is presented. It’s a sophomoric point but nonetheless real. Whether something is up or down, getting better or getting worse, entirely depends on the baseline that you choose as your starting date. If you choose the absolute worst peak of a trend, everything else looks good by comparison.

    That’s precisely what the FBI has done.

    It has chosen the worst possible year in order to make our present hellish reality seem great by comparison. Joshua Crawford of the Georgia Center for Opportunity explains:

    “Part of the problem with most media analysis is that 2019 didn’t represent a historical baseline of homicide and violent crime rates in America—2014 did. Nationally, violent crime and murder were much more prevalent in 2019 than in 2014. So though U.S. rates have fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, the country is well above normal violent-crime rates. Total violent crime in 2022 was 5 percent higher than in 2014, an increase that represents tens of thousands of additional victims in a single year. The national homicide rate in 2022 was 43 percent higher than in 2014. Since 2015, there have been roughly 30,000 more murders in the U.S. than there would have been if the homicide rate had stayed at the 2014 low.”

    Which is to say, this is all terrible news. It’s only not as terrible as the most terrible possible reality of 4 years ago. This isn’t crime being down; this is crime persisting and even worsening in many respects in many places, especially in blue areas such as San Francisco.

    We’re all getting pretty fed up with the lying by statistics. Sadly, it often works. It depends fundamentally on the public’s statistical ignorance, which is undoubtedly very high. People can only understand the most rudimentary notions, such as “up” and “down,” without asking more important questions such as “Compared with what?” much less more sophisticated questions such as “Are we talking about an absolute fall or a drop in the rate of increase?”

    We experience this constantly with inflation data. For more than two years, we’ve kept hearing about a fall in the inflation rate. People hear that and think, “Oh, prices are coming back down,” without even realizing that this isn’t what it means. It means a falling rate at which prices are going up. Prices are still going up.

    Mass statistical ignorance is extremely costly. It allows a ruling class to toss around numbers all the time to sound vaguely sciency but without having any real substance behind the claims. This is what enabled the Biden administration to say daily that the job market is great, that economic growth is strong, that Americans are growing wealthier, and now, that crime is down. It’s all completely gibberish and contradicted by every bit of reality that we observe with our own eyes.

    The crime problem is a major one because it directly affects two fundamental points of security that are essential to the good life: security of property and security of person. Both are in deep trouble in America today. It only adds insult to literal injury that our own FBI is tossing around extremely misleading data to suggest that it’s all in our heads.

    If and when things settle down, and America gets its act together again, there needs to be a mass educational campaign to do remedial classes in math and statistics (and probably logic, too). It was the ignorance of the basics that allowed so many people to be bamboozled during the COVID-19 era. When you don’t really understand the math or data, you have no real choice but to trust the interpretation of the featured experts. This is a huge problem.

    During this period of our lives, property became ever less secure, first wrecked by government edict and then threatened by mobs of riots and now under assault from petty thieves and organized shoplifting gangs. Respect for life has declined, too. Generally, the very notions of human dignity and bodily autonomy have declined in moral legitimacy in the public mind.

    Foot traffic in our cities has fallen dramatically, and this is partially a result of crime fears. Will murders decline from their highs, too? Certainly. But this isn’t because our streets are safer. It’s because people are too terrified to go there. This isn’t an improvement but evidence of a worsening problem.

    That kind of analysis is too deep and rich for sound bites in today’s manipulated public square, where propaganda always seems to prevail over facts. It’s true in economics. It’s true in public health. And now we see that it’s true in crime reporting as well. It’s just another sector of life in which the decline in trust is much merited.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 20:20

  • Vietnam Veterans Are The Largest Veteran Group In The US
    Vietnam Veterans Are The Largest Veteran Group In The US

    Tomorrow marks Veterans Day and, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, military men and women who served in Vietnam are still the largest group of vets in the U.S. 

    Infographic: Vietnam Veterans are the Largest Veteran Group in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Even when counting both Gulf War periods together, like is done in some statistics, veterans of these wars only surpassed the number of Vietnam vets currently living in the US in 2016.

    The Department of Veteran Affairs has also projected the future development of veteran populations in the U.S.

    The smallest group to date, WWII veterans, are expected to lose its last members in 2045.

    By that time fewer than 400 veterans of the Korean War are expected to remain alive.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 20:00

  • Russia's Finance Ministry Says (Again) That The Digital Ruble Will Replace Cash
    Russia's Finance Ministry Says (Again) That The Digital Ruble Will Replace Cash

    Authored by Riley Waggaman via Off-Guardian.org,

    The transition to CBDCs will be completely voluntary, though. You needn’t worry!

    Alexei Moiseev, Russia’s deputy minister of finance, is the world’s most candid space lizard.

    When he announced in a September 2021 interview that “the digital ruble is a replacement for the cash ruble”, skeptics and haters spread hurtful rumors that Moiseev’s refreshing and award-winning honesty had been taken out of context.

    Here’s what Mr. Moiseev told RIA Novosti two years later, on October 30, 2023:

    Essentially, [the digital ruble] is the real currency of the 22nd or any other century, which at the end of the day must replace cash.

    He also promised that the digital ruble would be more “convenient” than cash and non-cash transactions. Safety and convenience are the guiding principles of the 21st century, so it’s easy to imagine that the 22nd century will be extremely safe and outrageously convenient.

    source: ria.ru

    But just to be 100% clear: Elvira Nabiullina and her devoted blog-admirers promise that Russians will never be coerced into using digital rubles.

    The gradual transition to CBDCs will be an organic process—a naturally occurring result of Extreme Convenience.

    Russians will never be prevented from using cash in certain situations, even though this is already happening right now, today, in 2023.

    That was fast. (source / source)

    But that’s neither here nor there. As the Bank of Russia’s universally loved chairwoman said just yesterday, Russians will always be allowed to decide how they receive their salaries and pensions—that is her current “position” and it would be rude to even consider the possibility that this position might change.

    Just like it would be uncouth to think that the Bank of Russia’s position on placing restrictions on how digital rubles can be spent (“coloring” them) would ever change.

    All Russians understand how convenient and voluntary the 21st and 22nd centuries will be.

    Just look at what they’re saying on the internet forums:

    source: yaplakal.com

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 19:40

  • FBI Seized NYC Mayor Eric Adams' Phones, iPad
    FBI Seized NYC Mayor Eric Adams' Phones, iPad

    Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times,

    An attorney for New York City Mayor Eric Adams confirmed on Friday that the FBI seized the mayor’s phones and an iPad as part of an investigation into his campaign financing.

    “After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators. The Mayor has been and remains committed to cooperating in this matter,” his attorney Boyd Johnson said in a statement.

    “On Monday night, the FBI approached the mayor after an event. The Mayor immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.”

    Mr. Adams also denied any wrongdoing in a statement.

    “As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation—and I will continue to do exactly that. I have nothing to hide,” he stated.

    Last week, the FBI raided the home of Brianna Suggs, one of the mayor’s chief political consultants, after which the mayor also issued a statement that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

    “I feel extremely comfortable about how I comply with rules and procedures. I’ve stated this over and over again. I hold myself to a high standard, I hold my campaign to a high standard, and I hold my staffers at city hall to a high standard,” he said. He also said that Ms. Suggs was a “real professional” and would remain on his team for his 2025 reelection campaign.

    “I am outraged and angry if anyone attempted to use the campaign to manipulate our democracy and defraud our campaign,” Mr. Adams said in the statement.

    “I want to be clear, I have no knowledge, direct or otherwise, of any improper fundraising activity—and certainly not of any foreign money.”

    A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan declined to comment.

    Investigation

    The FBI has not made public details of the investigation, but a search warrant was first reported by the New York Times, which reported that the federal investigation is related to alleged corruption in Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign and possible ties to the Turkish government.

    The seized devices, which the FBI has likely made copies of, were returned days later.

    The mayor’s staff has confirmed that his office has met with the federal prosecutors, but did not disclose what they discussed.

    After the raid on Ms. Suggs’s home, media reported that the relationship between the mayor’s 2021 campaign and Brooklyn-based KSK Construction Group’s ties to Turkey is the center of the probe.

    The KSK Construction Group owns apartment buildings and condominiums throughout the city. It is owned by the KiSKA Construction Corp., a company that possesses two branches of a Turkish hotel chain in the United States.

    Turkey

    Mr. Adams has visited Turkey multiple times, including as part of official duties in different public offices.

    “I’m probably the only mayor in the history of this city that has not only visited Turkey once, but I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit to Turkey,” Mr. Adams said at a Turkish flag-raising ceremony in New York recently.

    Two of those trips were made while he was the Brooklyn Borough President.

    Campaign records show that he received donations from three members of a foundation opened by the son of the Turkish president.

    At an event this week, the mayor answered reporters’ questions about the probe and his ties to Turkey.

    “We just thought it was a great opportunity to exchange ideas as we do with all these…countries and we want to attract businesses here,” he said of the trips, according to The City.

    “So Turkey as well as any other country, I want to attract people to the city. There’s nothing specific about that one particular country.”

    He added that he frequently told his staff to “follow the law.”

    “I just strongly believe you have to follow the law. It would really shock me if someone that was hired by my campaign did something that was inappropriate,” he said.

    *  *  *

    ZH: Well, that will be the last time Adams mentions the illegal immigrant crisis or the open borders…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 19:20

  • Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out
    Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out

    No more green for Zelenskyy.

    With war funding for both Ukraine and Israel now seemingly snarled up beyond repair in Congress, on Thursday the Pentagon said that funding delays have forced the US to begin restricting the flow of military assistance to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has only $1 billion left to replenish stocks of weapons that were sent to the country, according to a spokeswoman.

    “We have had to meter out our support for Ukraine,” Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. “We’re going to continue to roll out packages but they are getting smaller.”

    Singh urged Congress to break a deadlock and approve the Biden administration’s $61.4 billion request for emergency funds for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, part of a masive $106 billion package that would include aid for Israel and the US-Mexico border, but which now has virtually no chance of passing. House Republicans have sought to separate the aid for Ukraine and Israel, an idea both the Senate and the White House oppose.

    Singh said the US had burned through about 95% of previous funding for Ukraine, which she said also totaled more than $60 billion; of course, much of that $60 billion was then rerouted back to the Military Industrial Complex and Deep state back in the US, where it served to boost various military companies, and their political supporters and assorted hanger-on lobbies. 

    She said the remaining $1 billion is part of a program that allows President Joe Biden to send existing US military hardware to Ukraine and replace it with new orders.

    Singh’s warning was only the latest from the administration, which has said repeatedly it’s scrambling to keep military aid flowing for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces. Last month, the Pentagon’s comptroller said a government shutdown, which is also looming later this month, would slow the pace of replacing weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine.

    Perhaps realizing that Ukraine’s military forces are about to expire, Telegraph reported that Russia has amassed an estimated 40,000 troops around the key battlefront in Avdiivka as it prepares for a third wave assault on the shattered eastern town, the Ukrainian military has said.

    “They are building up reserves. They’ve brought in about 40,000 men here along with ammunition of all calibres,” said Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade. “We see no sign of the Russians abandoning plans to encircle Avdiivka.”

    Russian forces, he said, had surrounded the town on three sides and were “playing cat and mouse”, sending up “huge numbers” of drones to scout out Ukraine’s defences.

    Ukrainian forces regard the town as a gateway for future advances to recapture territory in the east; alternatively the Russian army expects capture of the town to allow to penetrate deep into Ukraine territory.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 19:11

  • Pentagon Lays Out 4 Military Objectives For Middle East Amid Force Build-Up
    Pentagon Lays Out 4 Military Objectives For Middle East Amid Force Build-Up

    Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

    A Department of Defense spokesman explained Washington’s current goals in the Middle East. Since Israel launched a massive military operation in Gaza, the US has deployed thousands of troops and a large host of naval ships to the region. 

    According to a press release outlining Gen. Pat Ryder’s statement, the Pentagon’s four priorities for the Middle East currently are: 

    1. “Protection of US forces and citizens in the region.”

    2. “Flow of critical security assistance to Israel as it defends against further Hamas terrorist attacks.” 

    3. “Coordination with the Israelis to help secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, to include American citizens.”

    4. “Strengthening of force posture across the region to deter any state or nonstate actors from escalating the crisis beyond Gaza.”

    On October 7, Hamas launched an attack in southern Israel that killed over 1,000 people. Israel responded with a massive bombing campaign that killed 10,000 civilians, including 4,000 children, in the past month. 

    President Joe Biden has traveled to Israel, and the White House has offered full-throated support for Tel Aviv’s military operation in Gaza. While American officials have admitted that the Israeli operations have killed many thousands of civilians, the White House refused to call for a cease-fire or condition American weapons transfers to Israel on reducing civilian casualties.

    US forces in the region have come under attacks from local military groups that view Washington’s support for Tel Aviv as crucial to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Over the past month, various groups have conducted 38 attacks on American soldiers, injuring at least 45 troops.

    In response to the attacks on US soldiers, the Pentagon has deployed more military assets to the region, including thousands of troops, two aircraft carrier strike groups, and a nuclear-powered submarine. 

    Additionally, on Wednesday, US Central Command announced it had conducted two show of force operations with B1-B Lancer bombers in three days. “For the second time in three days, a US B-1 Lancer conducted a mission over the Middle East area of responsibility. US F-16s escorted the bomber,” CENTCOM posted on X. 

    The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to attack the American ships in the region if a more expansive war broke out. “Since the outbreak of the war, the US has threatened to bomb us in Lebanon from its military ships in the Mediterranean. We are prepared for whatever scenario,” he said in a speech last week. “If an all-out war breaks out, you Americans will pay with your ships, your aircraft, and your soldiers.” 

    While the Biden administration has sought to secure the release of American citizens who are held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, Tel Aviv has rejected pauses in the fighting to facilitate prisoner swap negotiations.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 19:00

  • 'Cocoa Mayhem' Sends Prices To $4,000 Per Ton, Highest Since 1978
    'Cocoa Mayhem' Sends Prices To $4,000 Per Ton, Highest Since 1978

    Cocoa prices Friday topped $4,000 per ton in New York, the highest level since 1978, as the outlook of poor crop harvests across West Africa has been a bullish factor pushing prices higher this week. There is also an increasing risk that El Nino-induced weather disturbances could cause the global cocoa market to sink into a deficit for the third year. 

    According to Bloomberg, harvests in Ivory Coast and Ghana – some of the world’s largest cocoa producers – are producing lower crop yields, which has led to tighter supplies, therefore supporting higher prices. 

    “The market does not seem convinced that production will recover enough to avoid a supply deficit for 2023/24,” ADM Investor Services Inc. analysts said in a note.

    Cocoa futures rose 1% in New York, topping $4,000 a ton for the first time in 45 years. 

    Analysts warn El Nino-induced weather disturbances could bring drier weather to top-growing regions. They say that could result in a third year of deficits. 

    “The expectation of a supply deficit has been compounded with weather variations, especially in West Africa,” the International Cocoa Organization said in a recent report. 

    In June, we told readers: Global Cocoa Shortage Sends Prices Soaring As “Consumers Should Brace” For ‘Chocolateflation’… Fast forward to Halloween, ‘candyflation‘ strikes: 

    Data from retail price tracking website Datasembly reveals consumers have been slapped with the second year of double-digit inflation in the candy aisle. Prices for candy jumped 13% this month compared to prices last October. That’s up from a 14% increase in candy in October 2022. 

    Earlier this week, Oreo-maker Mondelez International said it would have to hike prices on some of its products due to the soaring cocoa and sugar prices. 

    Meanwhile, sugar prices hit decade highs on global shortage fears in April. And Arabica coffee prices are set to move higher after inventories hit 24-year lows. 

    This all might indicate that food inflation is very sticky. As one ag analyst warned this week, the current global food crisis is ‘much worse than 2008‘. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 18:40

  • The Censorship "Switchboard": A New Layer To The Biden Administration's "Orwellian Ministry Of Truth"
    The Censorship "Switchboard": A New Layer To The Biden Administration's "Orwellian Ministry Of Truth"

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Free speech is in a free fall as millions embrace censorship as a political cause, including some now running for federal office on a pledge to silence others. 

    One of the most alarming aspects of this period has been the emergence of a type of triumvirate of censorship, an alliance of government, academic, and media corporations. Together they have established the most comprehensive censorship system in the history of this country.

    That system is being forced out into the public by the investigation of House committees. This week the House Judiciary Committee released a 103-page staff report on the academic prong of the triumvirate. What is most chilling about this report is that it adds yet another layer of government-supported speech controls. It also reflects a conscious and coordinated effort to carry out censorship through allies in a labyrinth of academic and public interest groups.

    Earlier this year, I testified at the first hearing by the special committee investigating the censorship system. I warned that there was ample evidence of a system based on “censorship by surrogate” where government agencies used academic and media allies to silence those with opposing views.

    The latest report reveals details of the critical role played by government officials in “switchboarding” the censorship system by channeling demands for removal or bans from state and local officials. In addition to the direct targeting of individuals by federal agencies, switchboarding allowed the agencies to operate as a control tower in this sprawling system.

    This switchboarding system was confirmed by Brian Scully of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security. CISA has emerged as one of the critical control centers in this system.

    CISA head Jen Easterly declared that her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure would be extended to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes not just “disinformation” and “misinformation,” but combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

    Despite the determined opposition by Democratic members and the Biden Administration, the investigation has revealed a wide array of grants to academic and third party organizations to create blacklists or to pressure advertisers to withdraw support for conservative sites. The subjects for censorship ranged from election fraud to social justice to climate change.

    The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in partnership with Stanford University “at the request of DHS/CISA.” It is described as a “consortium of ‘disinformation’ academics led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).

    EIP supplied a “centralized reporting system” to process what were known as “Jira tickets” targeting unacceptable views. It would include not only politicians but commentators and pundits as well as the satirical site The Babylon Bee.

    Some of us have previously criticized Stanford for its effort to systematize and expand censorship. Stanford’s Virality Project pushed to  censor even true facts since “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures.

    In newly released emails, the secret coordination with federal agencies was made public, including a July 31, 2020 email from the director at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, an EIP partner.

    Graham Brookie, the lab’s senior director, confirmed that her group “just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA and are in weekly comms to debrief about disinfo.”

    During this time many of us in the free speech community were raising the alarm over the evidence of a government-supported censorship system, including the use of surrogates in academia.  As noted in emails in May 2020, government officials were privately saying that they need to avoid any move that would “openly endorse” censorship while funding these groups and switchboarding the system.

    As officials served as the conduit, it continued to attach a standard disclaimer that CISA “neither has nor seeks the ability to remove what information is made available on social media platforms.”

    Notably, EIP worked not only with CISA, but with the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency entity housed within the State Department. It was the Global Engagement Center that contracted with the Atlantic Council, which sent suggested blacklists to Twitter. It got to be so reckless that Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, responded “omg” and “what a total crock.”

    This system rests on grants coming from Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the State Department, and other agencies. That system included scoring groups through a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The index targeted ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation, including sites like Reason which publishes conservative legal analysis. Conversely, some of the most liberal sites were ranked as the most trustworthy for advertisers.

    The report on switchboarding is most chilling when placed within this larger context. The Biden Administration has funded a global effort to score, target, and ban opposing views through an ever-increasing array of allied groups in academia and corporations. A federal court recently enjoined aspects of that system after finding that it is an unprecedented censorship system that effectively created a type of “Orwellian Ministry of Truth.”

    The solution is as obvious as the danger itself. Congress must bar any funding — directly or indirectly — for censorship systems. Calling opposing views “disinformation” does not alter the fact that there is a comprehensive censorship system using groups allied with the government.  Federal agencies are always able to respond to claims that they deem are untrue about their own policies and programs. However, we need to get the government out of the business of speech controls, including shutting down the censorship switchboard.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 18:20

  • Gun Owners Score Major Legal Victories On Pistol Braces and Ghost Guns 
    Gun Owners Score Major Legal Victories On Pistol Braces and Ghost Guns 

    This week, gun owners scored two major victories in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. One judge granted a preliminary injunction that halts the enforcement of the recent Biden Administration’s pistol brace rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on a nationwide basis, while another determined that the Biden administration did not have the authority to regulate ‘ghost guns.’ 

    On Wednesday, in the case Britto v. ATF, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction halting the ATF’s enforcement of the rule that redefines braced pistols as short-barreled rifles under the National Firearms Act. 

    Enacted earlier this year, the pistol brace rule would jail or fine tens of millions of law-abiding Americans who refused to reclassify their braced weapons as short-barreled rifles. 

    Two of the three plaintiffs in Britto v. ATF were injured Marine veterans represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, who argued the rule violates their Second Amendment and be thrown out for “vagueness.” Pistol braces were designed in 2012 to help disabled veterans shoot rifles more accurately. Meanwhile, radical Democrats on Capitol Hill frequently lied about the braces, saying they were ‘machine guns.’ 

    “Additionally, ATF admits the 10-year cost of the Rule is over one billion dollars,” Judge Kacsmaryk said. “And because of the Rule, certain manufacturers that obtain most of their sales from stabilizing braces risk having to close their doors for good.”

    Kacsmaryk claimed, “The Court is certainly sympathetic to the ATF’s concerns over public safety in the wake of tragic mass shootings.”

    “The Rule embodies Salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society. But public safety concerns must be addressed in ways that are lawful. This rule is not,” he added. 

    The Biden administration’s Justice Department will most likely appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on the pistol brace ruling. 

    The next win for gun owners was realized on Thursday when a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with gun owners, gun rights groups, and manufacturers in declaring the ATF’s 2022 ‘ghost gun’ rule is “unlawful.” 

    The rule updated the definition of a “firearm,” “frame,” and “receiver” under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to force ghost gun makers and gun shops to run background checks. 

    In writing for the 5th Circuit panel, Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt said ATF’s rule “flouts clear statutory text and exceeds the legislatively imposed limits on agency authority in the name of public policy.”

    “ATF, in promulgating its final rule, attempted to take on the mantle of Congress to ‘do something’ with respect to gun control,” Engelhardt wrote, adding, “But it is not the province of an executive agency to write laws for our nation.”

    In a statement, Cody Wisniewski, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Firearms Policy Coalition Action Foundation, called the ruling a “massive victory against ATF and a huge blow to the Biden administration’s gun control agenda.”

    “The Fifth Circuit has thoroughly rebuked the Biden ATF for acts of legislation, which only Congress may do under our Constitution,” said Defense Distributed’s Cody Wilson, also one of the plaintiffs in the case. 

    *   *   *

    Rulings:

    Britto v. ATF

    VanDerStok v. Garland

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 11/10/2023 – 18:00

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Nov 10

Today’s News 10th November 2023

  • Dr. Robert Malone Reveals How The Government Tore His Reputation Apart, "Piece By Piece"
    Dr. Robert Malone Reveals How The Government Tore His Reputation Apart, “Piece By Piece”

    Authored by Dr. Robert W. Malone, MD, MS via Who Is Robert Malone,

    Fellow Americans, the government will take care of you!

    They don’t want you to have to worry about information that they don’t approve in your social media accounts.

    They don’t want you to worry that the US government would directly interfere with your First Amendment rights, and certainly would never meddle in an election or with your medical freedoms.

    That said, the deep state will gladly “contract those jobs out to creepy left-wing “disinformation”-fighting firms”.

    A bombshell new report has been published, titled: “WEAPONIZATION OF “DISINFORMATION” PSEUDO-EXPERTS AND BUREAUCRATS: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PARTNERED WITH UNIVERSITIES TO CENSOR AMERICANS’ POLITICAL SPEECH”, Interim Staff Report by the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government U.S. House of Representatives was released on November 6, 2023.

    In that report, the committee laid out the role of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and other astroturf organizations contracted (that means paid for) by the Department of Homeland Security to censor Americans.

    Representative Jim Jordan on his Twitter account also provided the receipts how the Election Integrity Partnership was founded, by attaching a letter from the Atlantic Council advising a “sync-up” whereby they created the Election Integrity Partnership in 2020. Ergo, a partnership of four organizations working in collaboration with both the US Government and the Atlantic Council.

    In fact, the EIP is made up of four “partners”. They are the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), The U. of Washington Center for an Informed Public (CIP), Graphika, and the Atlantic Council. Each organization has a distinct role to play, from identifying “spreaders of misinformation”, to identifying the networks of social media landscapes that those so accused interacted on, to actual recommendations to social media companies for removal of identified offending posts, and communications back and further between the government and the EIP. This was done with government monies and resources.

    Below is a link for each partner, together with a description of their technologies or recent activities.

    • The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP)
      Their mission “is to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse”.

      AS of this month (Nov 2023), the CIP has now turned its identification of targets for censorship to identifying the flow of what they view as the “new elites” of X (ergo influencers with large followings) regarding how they share information regarding the Hamas/Israel conflict.

      The implication being that “X” will be targeted in the future for more harassment by the Election Integrity Partnership.

    .

    This is a company that specializes in “cutting-edge technology that creates large-scale explorable maps of social media landscapes”. Their in-depth analysis reveals insights to help “clients and partners understand complex online networks and take decisive action”. Graphika lists Harvard, Oxford and DARPA (DARPA = CIA) as its partners.

    The Atlantic Council’s DFRL is staffed by former US intelligence establishment technology staffers (ergo, ex CIA and DIA = “Deep State” personnel), and of course the the Atlantic Council itself is known as a landing bed for deep state operatives (otherwise known as a cutout organization).

    The DFRL website states:

    Centralized and decentralized platforms share a common set of threats from motivated malicious users—and require a common set of investments to ensure trustworthy, user-focused outcomes…

    Further research and capability building are necessary to avoid the further proliferation of these threats.

    Within industry, decades of “trust and safety” (T&S) practice has developed into a field that can illuminate the complexities of building and operating online spaces. Outside industry, civil society groups, independent researchers, and academics continue to lead the way in building collective understanding of how risks propagate via online platforms—and how products could be constructed to better promote social well-being and to mitigate harms.

    Take away all the flowery words and it sure sounds like organized government-sponsored Deep State censorship to me!

    Beyond the websites listed above, the House Report does an excellent job of showing how the Election Integrity Partnership worked to censor the American People.

    Lets go back to the the Congressional report on censorship, it reads:

    Enter the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a consortium of “disinformation” academics led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) that worked directly with the Department of Homeland Security and the Global Engagement Center, a multi-agency entity housed within the State Department, to monitor and censor Americans’ online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election. Created in the summer of 2020 “at the request” of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the EIP provided a way for the federal government to launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny.

    This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election. This report also publicly reveals for the first time secret “misinformation” reports from the EIP’s centralized reporting system, previously accessible only to select parties, including federal agencies, universities, and Big Tech. The Committee and Select Subcommittee obtained these nonpublic reports from Stanford University only under the threat of contempt of Congress. These reports of alleged mis- and disinformation were used to censor Americans engaged in core political speech in the lead up to the 2020 election.

    As this new information reveals, and this report outlines, the federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions. This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as “misinformation” while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors. The pseudoscience of disinformation is now—and has always been—nothing more than a political ruse most frequently targeted at communities and individuals holding views contrary to the prevailing narratives.

    <in other words, people that were saying things that the Deep State did not want to be said were the ones being censored>

    The EIP’s operation was straightforward: “external stakeholders,” including federal agencies and organizations funded by the federal government, submitted misinformation reports directly to the EIP. The EIP’s misinformation “analysts” next scoured the internet for additional examples for censorship. If the submitted report flagged a Facebook post, for example, the EIP analysts searched for similar content on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, and other major social media platforms. Once all of the offending links were compiled, the EIP sent the most significant ones directly to Big Tech with specific recommendations on how the social media platforms should censor the posts, such as reducing the posts’ “discoverability,” “suspending [an account’s] ability to continue tweeting for 12 hours,” “monitoring if any of the tagged influencer accounts retweet” a particular user, and, of course, removing thousands of Americans’ posts.

    The House committee (through Rep. Jim Jordan) also released a google doc (Jira Tickets) that lists some of those censored in chronological order and what their alleged “crimes” were.

    In the Jira Tickets list, it is worth noting that on 11 June 2021, the list abruptly changed its focus from “election misinformation” to “vaccine misinformation” and renamed these efforts as the virality project. Almost like there was some sort of directive from the top .

    On the last page of Jira Tickets list, they have included the censorship of my original interview with Tucker Carlson for Fox News. Almost directly after that, the list ends. So, how many times I was recommended for censorship is an unknown. Except that based on the obvious shadow-banning over the past two years, most likely it was in the hundreds of times.

    Some screenshots from the Jira Tickets report generated on me regarding the Tucker interview (page nine):

    My sin, as shown in the screenshot below, was that I claimed on the Fox interview that the risks outweigh the benefits in teenagers and young adults (per June 30, 2021).

    In the image below, the Election Integrity Partnership (now the Virality partnership) notes I am both “General anti-vaccination” and also “right wing” in my affiliations.

    So this is really creepy. That fact that my political leanings are mentioned implies that being “right wing” was/is criteria enough for censorship. That this criteria was enough for censorship shows direct election interference.

    As this list also labels me as being generally against vaccination. As if being against the mRNA gene therapy for specific vulnerable groups makes one against vaccination. This was enough apparently to be censored.

    I believe that is a listing of where that had been shared prior to the censorship:

    The Election Integrity Partnership also notes that I am a “repeat offender”

    Frankly, the whole document and the House Committee report makes me feel violated.

    The House report then goes to to document how even Congresspeople were censored and that under Biden, the censorship efforts were ramped up domestically.

    This did not end with the 2020 election.

    After President Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, the government’s censorship regime ramped up. At CISA, the CFITF team dropped any pretense of a “foreign”-focus and relabeled itself as the “MDM team” that would focus on foreign and domestic speech that the government considered mis-, dis-, or malinformation. Throughout 2021, the Biden White House engaged in a pressure campaign against Facebook and other social media companies to censor anti-vaccine content, even if it was true. By 2022, CISA invited Dr. Starbird, thenTwitter Executive Vijaya Gadde, and others to form an advisory MDM Subcommittee to consult with CISA about how the agency could and should combat Americans’ speech that the government considered to be mis-, dis-, or malinformation.

    But by 2023, as Republicans retook the majority in the House of Representatives and initiated oversight of the censorship-industrial complex, CISA scrubbed its website of references to domestic censorship. The Committee and Select Subcommittee obtained and revealed how Facebook changed its policies because of pressure from the Biden Administration. Internal Facebook documents showed that the Biden White House in particular wanted true information and satire censored at a rate even Big Tech found objectionable.

    Based on the Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s work, even the mainstream media could no longer ignore these constitutional violations. The plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden have obtained significant victories before a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and now will have their case heard by the Supreme Court. Public reporting shows that universities are reconsidering whether to permit their professors to receive funding and engage in censorship work. But the work is not done yet. The Committee and Select Subcommittee’s investigation remains ongoing.

    Clearly, the hit pieces on me by the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington post (twice), Business Insider, The Scientist and Rolling Stone and other main stream media outlets within a very short timeframe were a coordinated effort by the Deep State to bring me down . I believe that this effort was led by the intelligence agencies and DHS through the Deep State. Kash Patel nicely discusses how this these types of hits are conducted in his book, Government Gangsters. Whereby the government feeds information into operatives working in main stream media (ergo, as in CIA Operation Mockingbird). Now I am told that those same hit pieces were used against me in other government circles. The Supreme court case, Sullivan Versus New York Times, resulted in a situation whereby people in the public eye can almost never win a lawsuit for malicious defamation. The Deep State uses this fact to attack, malign, defame, harass and engage in direct character assassination. This is evil.

    For me, I will never get my reputation back as it once was. However, I will not give up fighting for our freedoms, whether it be to bring back integrity to the FDA, CDC, NIH, DoD and HHS or whether it be reining-in the intelligence agency. We all must continue to bring our government to heel.

    I will not concede to the Deep State character assassination. I will not let them ruin my life and reputation. And I will not allow them to victimize me.

    “Who is Robert Malone” is a reader supported publication. Please consider supporting us in our important work.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:40

  • When Will The Global Population Reach Its Peak?
    When Will The Global Population Reach Its Peak?

    When will the world reach its peak population?

    According to data from the United Nations’ 2022 Revision of its World Population Prospects, we could see a peak of over 10.4 billion people sometime in the late 2080s.

    While the UN’s projections are the most widely used, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most accurate. Several alternative models have predicted an earlier and lower peak, suggesting that the world’s population could decline sooner than expected.

    In the UN’s latest revisions, it lowered its own estimates for global population in 2100, from 10.9 billion (as of 2019) to 10.4 billion (as of 2022).

    In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcu Lu and Miranda Smith visualized population projections to 2100 from three organizations: the UN, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

    Data and Highlights

    The population projection data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below. Note that UN projections are as of 2022, IHME are as of 2020, and IIASA are as of 2014.

    From this data we can see that the UN expects the world to hit peak population in 2086, as well as maintain above 10 billion people in 2100.

    On the other hand, neither the IHME nor IIASA models expect global population to reach 10 billion, instead forecasting a peak of 9.7 billion in the 2060s (IHME) or 9.4 billion in 2070 (IIASA). Both models also predict population to fall back to the 8 billion range by 2100.

    The differential at 2100 is substantial, with IHME’s forecast lower than the UN’s by 1.6 billion people, for example.

    What Is the IHME and IIASA, and Why Do They Differ?

    The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a Seattle-based research institute founded in 2007 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its mission is to “deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice.”

    The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), on the other hand, is an international research institute based in Austria, dating back to 1972. It was established to improve scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and the U.S., and today has members in over 20 countries.

    To understand why the IHME and IIASA models differ from the UN’s, let’s look at each organization’s projections for fertility rate, which is measured as the number of children per woman.

    Based on this chart, the IHME and IIASA expect global fertility rates to fall at a quicker rate pre-2050, then stabilize as we approach 2100. This contrasts with the UN’s projections, which expect fertility to decrease at a slower, steadier rate all the way to 2100.

    Generally speaking, a country’s birth rate declines as it becomes more developed. This is due to many factors like higher education rates for women (and thus more women in the workforce), greater access to contraceptives and family planning, as well as higher childbearing costs.

    How Fast Will Fertility Rates Fall in Africa?

    Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, but this is quickly falling as the region experiences rapid economic growth.. For instance, GDP per capita in Sub-Saharan Africa has climbed from $632 in 2000, to $1,690 in 2022.

    Because of this economic transformation, some researchers believe that Africa will undergo a fast demographic transition similar to East Asia, in which population growth falls off sharply. For instance, a UNICEF survey from 2021 found that fertility rates in Nigeria had fallen from 5.8 to 4.6 (a 17% decrease) in just five years time.

    ℹ️ Consider this July 2023 article from the Wilson Center for more context on the evolution of Nigeria’s demographics.

    Now going back to the question at hand, let’s see how the UN and IHME’s fertility rate projections for Sub-Saharan Africa differ.

    These differences may seem small, but even a few decimal places can have a huge impact. For example, let’s revisit the UN’s population projection for the year 2100, which was 10.4 billion people.

    Under the UN’s low fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 lower), population in 2100 would be a significantly smaller 7.0 billion. Meanwhile, under the high fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 higher), population would balloon to 14.7 billion.

    As a result, how birth rates change in high fertility regions like Sub-Saharan Africa will have a significant influence on when the global population will reach its peak.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:20

  • China Unveils Plan To Mass Produce Human-like Robots, Calling It 'New Engine' For Growth
    China Unveils Plan To Mass Produce Human-like Robots, Calling It ‘New Engine’ For Growth

    Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    China is setting out to mass produce human-like robots in two years, an ambitious plan that, according to a blueprint issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), it hopes will make the regime in Beijing the leader in the field of robotics.

    The goal is to establish an innovation framework for humanoid robots and ensure that the country can make core parts of the robots on its own.

    The products, under the MIIT plan, will meet advanced international standards in quality, for use in harsh environments, manufacturing, and service sectors, according to the directive. Like smartphones, computers, and new energy vehicles, humanoid robots have the “disruptive” potential to “revolutionize” people’s lives, the document said.

    The ministry told local officials to take advantage of China’s market size and its “whole-of-nation system” to accelerate humanoid robot development as a pillar industry to advance China’s manufacturing and digital dominance.

    Beijing hopes that by 2025 it will have two to three companies with global influence and will nurture more smaller businesses dedicated to the field. In another two years, the aim is to create a “safe and reliable supply chain” for the technology and make the country competitive globally. At that point, it said, such products will be deeply integrated into the economy and become a “new engine” for economic growth.

    The “brain,” “cerebellum,” and “limbs” of the robots should be the focus, and the industry should aim at creating “highly reliable” robots for harsh or dangerous conditions, the guideline said. When monitoring and safeguarding “strategic locations,” robots need to be able to move in “highly complicated terrains,” size up the situation, and make intelligent decisions, it said, adding that robots will need greater ability to protect themselves and work with higher precision in scenarios such as rescue work or where explosives are involved.

    Relevant authorities need to deepen international cooperation, encourage foreign companies to create research centers in China, and bring Chinese products to the international market, according to the document.

    Eager to partake in setting the global standard for emerging technology, Beijing said it’d like to get “deeply involved in the international rules and standard setting” and “contribute Chinese wisdom” to the industry’s development, the document said.

    The directive is China’s latest attempt to boost technological self-reliance as the United States tightens its ban on China’s access to advanced U.S. chips. Expanding on chip controls on China from October last year, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the Commerce Department in mid-October required more U.S. firms to obtain a license before they could export advanced semiconductor chips to China, a step they said is necessary to prevent Beijing from using these chips for their military ends. On Oct. 23, the U.S. government told Nvidia to stop shipping most of its key artificial intelligence chips to China.

    Without citing those actions by the United States, the document asked the industry to design AI chips for humanoid robots that would allow for self-learning and other capabilities.

    Half a dozen Chinese intelligence firms saw their shares jump by as much as 20 percent the day after the announcement, and stock value for other robotic electronics also surged.

    The Beijing regime’s roadmap means it will be competing with international firms such as Samsung, Microsoft, and Tesla that are investing in the field.

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been trying to build a humanoid robot called Optimus or Tesla Bot. After much hype last year, though, the display of the robot walking slowly on the stage and waving to the crowd fell short of expectations.

    A man takes a picture of robots during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, on July 7, 2023. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images)

    There seems to be optimism about the technology among Chinese media.

    Lu Hanchen, director of the Gaogong Industry Research Institute, told the state-owned Securities Times that while China is some distance away from producing humanoid robots at scale, that goal isn’t far off.

    More than 10 Chinese companies this year have revealed innovations related to humanoid robots, he noted, adding that China already has some supporting facilities from developing industrial robots.

    Beijing has set aside about 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion) to fund the robotic development. On Nov. 6, China opened the first provincial-level innovation center on humanoid robots in the country’s capital to work on solving pressing “key common problems,” including an operation control system, open source software, and robot prototypes.

    At least one Chinese company, Jiangsu Miracle Logistics System Engineering Co., has promised to introduce its first humanoid robot by the end of the year. Chinese securities brokerage firm Zheshang Securities estimates that the humanoid robot market will have a demand for 1.77 million machines by 2030.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 23:00

  • Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out
    Pentagon Is Starting To Restrict Flow Of Military Aid To Ukraine As Money Runs Out

    No more green for Zelenskyy.

    With war funding for both Ukraine and Israel now seemingly snarled up beyond repair in Congress, on Thursday the Pentagon said that funding delays have forced the US to begin restricting the flow of military assistance to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has only $1 billion left to replenish stocks of weapons that were sent to the country, according to a spokeswoman.

    “We have had to meter out our support for Ukraine,” Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. “We’re going to continue to roll out packages but they are getting smaller.”

    Singh urged Congress to break a deadlock and approve the Biden administration’s $61.4 billion request for emergency funds for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, part of a masive $106 billion package that would include aid for Israel and the US-Mexico border, but which now has virtually no chance of passing. House Republicans have sought to separate the aid for Ukraine and Israel, an idea both the Senate and the White House oppose.

    Singh said the US had burned through about 95% of previous funding for Ukraine, which she said also totaled more than $60 billion; of course, much of that $60 billion was then rerouted back to the Military Industrial Complex and Deep state back in the US, where it served to boost various military companies, and their political supporters and assorted hanger-on lobbies. 

    She said the remaining $1 billion is part of a program that allows President Joe Biden to send existing US military hardware to Ukraine and replace it with new orders.

    Singh’s warning was only the latest from the administration, which has said repeatedly it’s scrambling to keep military aid flowing for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s forces. Last month, the Pentagon’s comptroller said a government shutdown, which is also looming later this month, would slow the pace of replacing weapons stockpiles sent to Ukraine.

    Perhaps realizing that Ukraine’s military forces are about to expire, Telegraph reported that Russia has amassed an estimated 40,000 troops around the key battlefront in Avdiivka as it prepares for a third wave assault on the shattered eastern town, the Ukrainian military has said.

    “They are building up reserves. They’ve brought in about 40,000 men here along with ammunition of all calibres,” said Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade. “We see no sign of the Russians abandoning plans to encircle Avdiivka.”

    Russian forces, he said, had surrounded the town on three sides and were “playing cat and mouse”, sending up “huge numbers” of drones to scout out Ukraine’s defences.

    Ukrainian forces regard the town as a gateway for future advances to recapture territory in the east; alternatively the Russian army expects capture of the town to allow to penetrate deep into Ukraine territory.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:40

  • Taibbi: The Tragic Victimhood Of "Disinformation Experts"
    Taibbi: The Tragic Victimhood Of “Disinformation Experts”

    Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

    On June 8th, the Washington Post ran, “These academics studied falsehoods spread by Trump. Now the GOP wants answers,” a story about how “records requests, subpoenas and lawsuits” were wielded as “tools of harassment” against “scholars” in the “field of disinformation.” In photo portraits, Kate Starbird of the University of Washington stared plaintively in the distance, a caption under one: “The political part is intimidating — to have people with a lot of power in this world making… false accusations about our work.” Starbird sits on an advisory committee for the 245,000-person, $185 billion Department of Homeland Security, but perhaps she meant “a lot of power” in a different sense?

    SMART GLASSES DO WORK! Clockwise from top left, Rick Stengel, Ben Collins, Brandy Zadrozny, Paul Barrett, Joan Donovan, and Clint Watts

    When Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, and I first started working on the Twitter Files, none of us knew much about people who did “anti-disinformation” work. Before it became controversial, these “experts” didn’t seem bashful about security-state credentials. For instance, New Knowledge, the firm profiled by Susan Schmidt last week that authored a Senate report on Russian interference and was caught creating fake accounts in an Alabama Senate race, gained this cheerful description in VentureBeat after raising $11 million for “anti-disinformation”:

    What further distinguishes New Knowledge is that its founders are AI and Homeland Security experts who grew up in the NSA and have worked as security advisers. [CEO Jonathon] Morgan, for instance, was an adviser for the U.S. State Department and published research at the Brookings Institution.

    When lawsuits like Missouri v. Biden and then the Twitter Files began shining light on this direction, experts reinvented themselves as “scholars” or research fellows. That their LinkedIn pages often featured odd gaps, or periods listed as “consultants” to the military or the FBI, was apparently not important, nor that “anti-disinformation” is not an academic discipline. Even if they were very new arrivals to campuses, we were expected to show deference to new roles as “researchers,” much as campaign reporters were asked to stop calling Rick Perry a dummy when he put on glasses.

    Reporters once didn’t fall for this sort of thing, reserving special bile for politicians or spooks who tried to pass themselves off as intellectuals. But these days they swoon like teen girls seeing the Elvis wiggle for the first time for “anti-disinformationists,” with anchors like Nicolle Wallace, Brian Stelter, and Rachel Maddow giving the “We’re not worthy!” treatment to anyone with intelligence credentials who utters dire prophecies about Trump and “fake news.”

    Even the once-mocked “smart glasses” trick became foolproof, as former counterterrorism warriors like Hamilton 68 frontman Clint Watts earned plaudits as bespectacled “disinformation experts,” and even media figures who once went for hunky or fetching in headshots donned solemn expressions — and glasses — when moved to the disinfo beat. I don’t remember Rick Stengel wearing specs much as editor of Time magazine, but he accessorizes nicely in his new role as former head of the Global Engagement Center, pimping books like Information Wars.

    This is all background for “Big Brother is Flagging You,” about the House Weaponization of Government Committee report on Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership. I’ve been in media long enough not to be shocked by much, but the people picked to man “anti-disinformation” bureaucracies have an almost admirably bottomless capacity for self-pity and deception. With teary eyes, they’ll swear they’re not in the censorship business, but then it will come out that they’re sending notes to platforms like, “We recommend that these posts be removed immediately.”

    They’ll describe concerns about the First Amendment as conspiracy theories, but then we learn about people like Stanford’s Renée DiResta making notes about “very real 1st amendment questions” in a presentation about the EIP, or a lawyer for former CISA director Chris Krebs snapping at congressional investigators to cite a legal authority “other than the First Amendment” to justify questioning. “Researchers” will declare unequivocally that CISA did not “found, fund, or control” their program, but then it will come out the superficially private structure of the EIP was necessary because “DHS cannot openly endorse the portal,” while a “behind-the-scenes” arrangement was fine. And so on.

    Put bluntly, these people lie, but do it in a way that would impress even a politician. In one of the many times I was pestered this year by a mainstream reporter asking why a nice “scholar” like DiResta should be prevented from “just doing research,” I asked him to go back and find out what academic credentials qualified her for “scholar” status (she’s listed as a “research manager”), and to cite another type of “research” that involves flagging content for removal of speech on behalf of an intelligence agency. As my podcast partner Walter Kirn puts it, Stanford’s Observatory is the first one in history that destroys planets.

    I asked the same reporter why non-doctors should be allowed to police the scientific opinions of MDs and PhDs, why publicly funded programs targeting the speech of voters should be exempt from FOIA requests, and so on, but it’s hopeless. In the new world, brazen enough scams are respected, those who don’t fall for them become the outlaws, and we all have to get used to it.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:20

  • Pentagon Confirms Series Of New Attacks On Bases In Syria, Iraq After Latest US Airstrikes
    Pentagon Confirms Series Of New Attacks On Bases In Syria, Iraq After Latest US Airstrikes

    The overnight Pentagon airstrikes on alleged Iran-back militia targets in Syria’s east has already been met with retaliation attacks. The US strikes marked the second major such aerial operation in Syria in recent weeks since the Gaza war began. 

    “American troops were hit four times by Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East after a U.S. strike Wednesday on an Iranian facility in Syria,” The Hill reports based on fresh defense official statements. 

    AFP via Getty Images

    Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh in a Thursday briefing filled in more details on the continuing tit-for-tat as US troops are in the line of fire while occupying some one-third of Syrian territory.

    She indicated that in 56 American soldiers were wounded in more than 46 attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria in the period of time spanning Oct. 17 to Nov. 9

    One of the Wednesday US strikes was reportedly against an “IRGC-linked weapons storage facility” – and Singh said it was ‘successful’ as “we were able to render that building pretty much non-usable.” She described that the prior attacks on US bases have all involved rockets and suicide drones, which in total has been 24 attacks in Iraq and 22 in Syria.

    “If these attacks continue against our personnel, we won’t hesitate at a time and place of our choosing to respond again,” Singh added.

    Defense officials have further said that all or most of the over 50 US troop injuries have been minor, and that all have since returned to duty.

    Below: an initial round of US strikes in late October:

    Map: BBC

    The US has had some 1,000 or more troops and personnel in Syria for years. Originally claiming a “counter ISIS” mission, the US “mission” quickly became an oil and gas resource grab – ultimately with an eye toward regime change in Damascus, via suffocating sanctions and diverting of domestic energy.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 22:00

  • Watch: Rand Paul Says It's "Difficult To Imagine Trump Winning" In 2024
    Watch: Rand Paul Says It’s “Difficult To Imagine Trump Winning” In 2024

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    GOP Senator Rand Paul says that he thinks it is difficult to imagine Donald Trump winning another term in office because of the magnitude of everything that is being done by Democrats and the establishment to prevent it happening.

    “It’s difficult to image Trump winning, but it’s also difficult to imagine anything more unfair they could do to him, and also how pitiful the performance of Biden has been, and how frail and detached that he looked in doing his job,” Paul said during an interview with Piers Morgan.

    “It worries people that he is still able and has enough vim and vigour to actually be the president,” Paul continued.

    Paul also, somewhat jokingly, said “I haven’t endorsed [Trump or anyone else] yet because I haven’t decided whether I’m going to run or not.”

    “I ran in 2016, maybe I should through my hat in, I don’t think it’s going that well for everybody else,” the Senator further stated.

    Elsewhere during the interview, Paul urged that the solution to “ugly or despicable” speech is “more speech”. 

    Morgan had asked Paul about the Anti-Israel demonstrations that threaten to disrupt Remembrance Day events at the weekend in London. Paul responded that countering with better ideas and useful arguments is “much better than banning speech”. 

    Watch:

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:40

  • Iraq Combat Vet Explains Why The US Might Be Marching On The Middle East Again Soon
    Iraq Combat Vet Explains Why The US Might Be Marching On The Middle East Again Soon

    Former Army drill instructor and Iraq combat veteran ‘Angry Cops’ offers some interesting evidence that suggests the US military is gearing up for a major deployment to the Middle East. 

    Where specifically?  It’s hard to say. 

    While all eyes are currently on Israel and Gaza, US air forces are striking targets in Syria, naval units are intercepting drones and missiles from Yemen and tensions are rising with Lebanon and Iran. 

    It’s clear from previous statements by US and Israeli officials that Iran is the ultimate target of the growing conflict, and if this is the case there is no doubt American troops would be involved. 

    ‘Angry Cops’ points out that two odd command decisions made simultaneously by two different military branches hint that the US government is about to take on a war posture, and they may deploy troops very soon…

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:20

  • Aussie Telco Blackout Chaos Proves Cash Still Remains King
    Aussie Telco Blackout Chaos Proves Cash Still Remains King

    Authored by Eric Abetz via The Epoch Times,

    The Optus blackout proves that a small glitch in the system can cause total mayhem in a cashless society…

    Modern technology is a wonderful thing … until it isn’t.

    Australians experienced that truism when telco giant Optus had a substantial outage on Nov. 8, resulting in a stop to call services and any bank card transactions for several hours.

    In short, the mayhem, frustration, and missed opportunities piled up in all quarters.

    Some businesses, like the call centres for the banks, may have breathed a sigh of relief given they could not field calls from concerned customers after they suffered another 0.25 percent interest rate hike the day before, courtesy of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

    However, for most people and small businesses, it spelled disaster. The ever so convenient “tap and go” method of making payment was removed. And without warning.

    It’s a timely reminder to us all that carrying cash may be a sensible thing to do for occasions such as that experienced on Nov. 8.

    Such outages have happened in the past and will happen in the future. So the wise counsel is to be prepared.

    Speaking of which, it is making more and more sense to use cash as retailers and banks continue charging for the use of cards and “tap and go”—to which we were all seduced by its ease and promised “no extra costs.”

    Remember when Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) delivered you cash free of charge because it saved the bank from paying wages?

    Tap and go sped things up considerably for the customer, the business, and the bank. It was less labour intensive and created new savings for businesses and banks (particularly during COVID-19 we were all encouraged not to use cash because of its propensity to transmit germs).

    Yet once enough of us had been lured into ATMs, rather than real live human tellers behind a counter in a local branch, banking staff was then cut and branches closed. Then, fees started to be charged at the ATM.

    People queue for ATM machines outside a branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Melbourne on Aug. 8, 2018. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

    An Extra Price to Pay

    Fast forward to today and the surcharges for paying with a card have been quietly introduced, meaning that the supposed “savings” for customers were now being ignored.

    The surcharges vary but can be as high as a few percent on a total transaction.

    In a period of cost of living pressures, those extra gouged percentages can be avoided by paying cash. A saving that could place literally hundreds of dollars back into the family budget.

    Surely, the cost of a cashless transaction is far less than one that involves receiving money from the customer, giving change, balancing the till at the end of the day, and taking the proceeds to the bank for depositing.

    Further, tap and go often makes the customer oblivious to what they are actually paying for. In the past, the customer would have had to dig a bit deeper into his pocket and pull out an extra coin or note making a person a lot more price aware and the merchant more self-conscious about increasing prices.

    Supplied image of people using a new contactless payment app designed by Optus on a smartphone at a retailer in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 13, 2014. (AAP Image/Fuel Communications, Optus)

    From a privacy point of view, cash payments allow purchases to be made without traceability as well. But in that case, it is important to ask for a receipt as proof of purchase may become necessary.

    With the federal government’s ham-fisted announcement that it will shortly outlaw cheques, it is more important than ever that the public retains access to cash and that cash transactions be accepted by all merchants.

    The removal of cash from the economy will give unprecedented power to the banking institutions, as they will be able to control all transactions other than bartering.

    The Royal Commission into the Australian banking sector exposed the power exercised and the moral free zone it became as profits were pursued in an ethics-free environment. It is doubtful that with even more market power, there would be a commensurate enhancement of moral and ethical standards.

    The Australian Mint has announced that by Christmas 2023 the visage of the king of Australia, King Charles III, will start appearing on local currency.

    This a timely reminder that cash is king and it is in every Australian’s interest to ensure it remains a viable method to undertake transactions, besides potentially saving hundreds of dollars each year.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 21:00

  • "Younger Voters Have Turned Against The Governor": Berkeley Poll Reveals Record Number Of Californians Disapprove Of Newsom
    “Younger Voters Have Turned Against The Governor”: Berkeley Poll Reveals Record Number Of Californians Disapprove Of Newsom

    A new poll from the University of California-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) reveals that more Californians disapprove of the job Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is doing (49%) than approve (44%) – the first time this has happened since Newsom took office in 2019.

    By Sabo via Unsavory Agents, support here.

    This marks an 11-point decline in Newsom’s approval rating since the last time IGS asked the same question in February, just nine months ago.

    “This includes significant declines among the governor’s Democratic voter base and is most prominent among two of the state’s swing voter blocs – political moderates and No Party Preference voters,” according to the poll.

    “Younger voters have also turned against the governor, while voters ages 65 or older remain supportive.”

    Poll Director Mark DiCamillo suggested the sharp decline was due to those with extreme views, “with the proportion strongly approving of Newsom’s performance declining from 25% to 18%, while those strongly disapproving climbed from 29% to 36%,” NY1 reports.

    According to DiCamillo, the decline is “broad-based and is particularly noteworthy among political moderates and No Party Preference voters.”

    While 66% of Democrats approve of the job Newsom is doing, just 37% of No Party Preference and 7% of Republicans approve. Support was strongest in San Francisco (53%), where Newsom served as mayor before being elected governor, and among females, with 46% of women approving of his job performance compared with 41% of men.

    While 53% of voters age 65 or older continue to support the governor, younger voters are less approving. Just 35% of voters age 18 to 29 and 38% of voters age 30 to 39 approve of the job he’s doing. -NY1

    Newsom’s declining approval rating comes as California struggles with budget shortfalls and other issues. Meanwhile, just 50% of California voters approved of Newsom’s recent trip to China to meet with President Xi Jinping, while 39% disapproved.

    It also comes as Newsom stands accused of running a ‘shadow’ Presidential campaign to take the mantle if Joe Biden dies or otherwise isn’t the Democratic nominee in the 2024 US election.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:40

  • Running On Censorship: A California Candidate Seeks To Ride The Anti-Free Speech Wave
    Running On Censorship: A California Candidate Seeks To Ride The Anti-Free Speech Wave

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    It is not easy to unseat an incumbent in Congress, but Will Rollins believes that he has hit on a guaranteed winner to galvanize Democratic support in California’s 41st congressional district.

    He is pledging to push for greater censorship to stop those “profiting by spreading division based on lies.”

    Of course, the former assistant U.S. Attorney suggests that he will know who is lying and who should be allowed to speak freely.

    Rollins is also running on his role “prosecuting insurrectionists” from January 6. While most of us condemned the riot on that day and supported the prosecution of those who broke into the Capitol, polls show that most Americans do not view what occurred as an actual insurrection or rebellion.

    That, however, is a legitimate matter of debate and people of good faith can differ in how they view the crimes committed that day. What is far more serious is the embrace of censorship as a political cause.

    Rollins pledged to stop people saying things that “erode our democracy.” His policy platform promises “accountability” for tech platforms that “spread conspiracy theories” and do not yield to demands for censorship. It appears to be a pitch to restore censorship systems on sites like X but also pledges to go after “media outlets.”

    He is not alone in such efforts. Democratic members caused a firestorm previously by writing to cable carriers like AT&T to ask why they are still allowing people to watch FOX News. Rollins promises to crackdown on “propaganda networks to protect the public’s right to be informed.” He does not identify which networks would be targeted, but the assumption is that it is not MSNBC. (For full disclosure, I am a legal analyst on Fox News). However, he wants ramped up penalties for anything that he considers “harmful lies and conspiracy theories.”

    Of course, one person’s “conspiracy theory” is another person’s news. It is again unlikely that Rollins will be pursuing the Washington Post which recently reaffirmed that it is standing by past false claims made about Lafayette Park, the Hunter Biden laptop, and Russian collusion. Rollins is not likely referencing the false conspiracy theories funded by the Clinton campaign like the Alfa Bank allegations.

    As someone who was raised in a liberal, politically active Democratic family in Chicago, I remember when the party championed free speech as a touchstone of the party. Now it is often treated as an existential threat to democracy.

    In recent hearings on the government’s censorship programs, Democratic members and pundits attacked witnesses as “Putin lovers” or supporters of “insurrectionists” in opposing censorship.

    President Joe Biden is now arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. His administration is unabashedly and unrepentantly pursuing the silencing of those with opposing views. Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

    Democratic members have warned social media companies that they will not tolerate any backsliding after Elon Musk dismantled the massive censorship system at Twitter.

    In one hearing, tech CEOs appeared before the Senate on past censorship. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) pushed back on statements from the witnesses suggesting an effort to protect free speech and reminded them that “the pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm” as well as “climate change misinformation policy” and “climate denialism.”

    It did not matter that many censored over their views on the efficacy of masks or the necessity of shutting down schools have been vindicated. Even raising the lab theory on the origin of Covid 19 was denounced as a conspiracy theory. Even after the theory was embraced by government agencies as possible or the most likely explanation, science and health reporter for the New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli,  continued to denounce the theory as “racist.”

    The concerning aspect of Rollins’ campaign is that censorship was largely used as a political tactic in Washington to silence critics and opposing views. It is now an actual political campaign. It shows how speech regulation has become popular with the rank-and-file in the party. It now defines the party.

    Campaigning for censorship should be a warning sign of the breakdown of democratic values. Limiting free speech is akin to cutting off oxygen to the body politic. It produces atrophy in a system, the breakdown of our political tissues. That is also reflected in a recent poll that shows that 52% of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life while 47% of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats. Roughly 40% of both parties believe violence is now justified and roughly a quarter of both parties now question our system of government.

    Politicians fuel that anger by running on silencing their opponents in the name of disinformation or malinformation. It is of course popular. Rage is often popular. Indeed, it can be addictive. Yet, what remains is release from reason in the blind pursuit of those with opposing views.

    Will Rollins is right that this is a popular pitch for an age of rage. However, it is the political version of the Dead Sea Fruits that were irresistible to pick but would turn to ashes in one’s mouth. Silencing others creates an insatiable appetite for combating an ever widening circle of “lies.” Until, that is, when you find yourself encircled by your own truth police.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:20

  • Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy Rocket To Launch Mysterious Space Plane Into Orbit 
    Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy Rocket To Launch Mysterious Space Plane Into Orbit 

    The US Space Force’s Boeing X-37B unmanned, reusable space plane will be launched via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, for the first time in early December, the US military wrote in a press release. 

    “The X-37B Mission 7 will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, designated USSF-52, with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives,” Space Force said.

    The mysterious spaceplane is built by Boeing and operated by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and the Space Force. Its last mission ended one year ago after spending 2.5 years in space.

    Space Force said the Falcon Heavy rocket will launch the X-37B into space on a mission called “USSF-52” on Dec. 7 and perform “tests include operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA.” 

    “We are excited to expand the envelope of the reusable X-37 B’s capabilities, using the flight-proven service module and Falcon Heavy rocket to fly multiple cutting-edge experiments for the Department of the Air Force and its partners,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, the X-37B Program Director. 

    The X-37B is similar to the retired space shuttle, although the space plane is a fraction of the size, coming in at 29 feet in length and 9.5 feet high, with a wingspan of 15 feet. 

    Here’s a list of the prior X-37 B’s top-secret missions in low-Earth obit:

    There are rumors the X-37B might be a testbed for space weapons or could be used to capture adversary satellites… 

    News of the X-37B launch via SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket further shows Elon Musk is becoming the ‘uncancellable’ billionaire as the West increasingly relies on his rocket technology.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 20:00

  • 2.9 Million Borrowers Pay Nothing In Biden's 'Most Generous Ever' Student Loan Repayment Plan
    2.9 Million Borrowers Pay Nothing In Biden’s ‘Most Generous Ever’ Student Loan Repayment Plan

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Nearly 5.5 million federal student loan borrowers have enrolled in what the Biden administration calls “the most generous” repayment option ever offered, federal officials said on Wednesday.

    President Joe Biden is joined by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona as he announces new actions to protect borrowers after the Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness plan in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on June 30, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    The repayment plan, dubbed the Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, went into effect in August as part of President Joe Biden’s regulatory effort to dramatically reduce monthly obligations for student borrowers who aren’t earning very much, with many borrowers seeing their bills shrink to practically nothing.

    According to the latest update from the U.S. Department of Education, about 2.9 million of the SAVE plan’s current enrollees have incomes that are low enough that they have monthly payments of $0.

    The updated SAVE enrollment figure includes 1.8 million borrowers who have newly signed up for the program, as well as another 364,000 borrowers who were automatically switched to SAVE because they had already been in one of the existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that the Biden administration seeks to replace with SAVE.

    The new figure is based upon enrollment in the program as of Oct. 15. It reflects an increase from the the 4 million borrowers that the Education Department said were enrolled in the plan at the beginning of September.

    Overall, borrowers are repaying $300 billion in federal student loans on the plan. That represents about 19 percent of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding debt from the federal student loan portfolio.

    One of the biggest differences between the SAVE plan and IDR plans is that the amount of income incurring no charge, or protected income, rises from 150 percent above the federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent. Under the SAVE plan, payment also drops from 10 percent of the difference between earnings and protected income to 5 percent.

    In practice, this means a single person who earns less than $32,800 a year is required to pay $0 a month. The same applies to a family of four that has an annual income less than $67,500.

    On top of all that, under the SAVE plan, borrowers will see their remaining loan balances wiped out after 10 years of repayments. By comparison, it takes 20 or 25 years under IDR for borrowers to get their remaining debt canceled.

    “I’m thrilled to see that in less than three months, nearly 5.5 million Americans in every community across the country are taking advantage of the SAVE Plan’s many benefits, from lower monthly payments to protection from runaway student loan interest,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement on Monday, promising to “not rest” in the efforts to “make paying for college more affordable.”

    Biden Plan Faces Republican Challenge

    The SAVE plan is expected to cost billions in taxpayer dollars, a point Republican lawmakers have been emphasizing since the plan’s announcement.

    Estimates vary widely, but one analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School suggests that the plan will cost about $475 billion in a span of 10 years.

    “About $200 billion of that cost will come from payment reduction for the $1.64 trillion in loans already outstanding in 2023,” the analysis read.

    According to the leading business school, the SAVE plan will be incentivizing college students to collectively borrow billions more dollars every year in the next decade due to the expectation that they may not have to repay the debt.

    “The remainder of the budget cost, or about $275 billion, comes from reduced payments for about $1.03 trillion in new loans that we estimate will be extended over the next 10 years,” it added.

    Citing Wharton’s estimates, a group of 17 Republican senators in September introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution against the plan. A CRA resolution does not only nullify an existing rule but bans the federal agency from issuing the same rule again unless Congress later passes a new law authorizing the agency to do so.

    “It’s incredibly unfair to those who never incurred student debt because they didn’t attend college in the first place or because they either worked their way through school or their family pinched pennies and planned for higher education,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of Senate’s education committee.

    “Our resolution protects the 87 percent of Americans who don’t have student debt and will be forced to shoulder the burden of the President’s irresponsible and unfair policy,” he added.

    Sen. Cassidy is joined by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), John Thune (R-S.D.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

    A companion CRA resolution was introduced by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) in the lower chamber. Both chambers are expected to vote on the Republican-led resolutions in the coming weeks.

    In defense of the repayment plan, Mr. Cardona implored lawmakers seeking to undo it to speak with borrowers who are “drowning in debt.”

    “We’re hearing from the American people who are drowning in debt and can’t buy a home in the economy because of college costs,” he said during a Sept. 8 interview on CNN. “Those who are vehemently opposed to it have not spoken to their constituents who are drowning, who need support, who need to make higher education more accessible.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:40

  • Arab Spring 2.0? Gro Intelligence's Head Warns Global Food Crisis 'Much Worse Than 2008'  
    Arab Spring 2.0? Gro Intelligence’s Head Warns Global Food Crisis ‘Much Worse Than 2008’  

    Speaking at the sidelines of Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, Sara Menker, founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, cautioned that the current food crisis surpassed the one in 2007-08, which ultimately sparked Arab Spring across the Middle East a few years later. This is primarily due to elevated crop prices and steep declines in local currencies against the dollar. 

    Bloomberg’s Yvonne Man asked Menker: “When we talk about where we see food prices – come off from the record highs of last year. What drives food insecurity is wars, climate change, and economic shocks. And we’re feeling that on all fronts right now… So what worries you the most?” 

    Menker responded: “It’s actually the narrative that food prices have come off the highs, which has been the narrative we’re using because we’re all following future markets that are all dollar-denominated as a gauge of where food prices are.” 

    She said, “Year-on-year food prices have come off quite substantially.”

    “But what has happened in most other parts of the world that import food – is that food prices continue to go up because local currencies are weakening significantly against the dollar,” she said, adding, “People eat in local currency and not in US dollars.”

    She pointed out, “While wheat futures are down double digits year on year – it’s up double digits year on year in Egypt because the price of importing wheat has gone up just due to the decimation of the Egyptian pound.” 

    Menker said in Syria, food inflation is up 2,000%, 1,200% in Lebonan, and 700% in Argentina. She said the food crisis “is far from over for most people in the world.” 

    Later in the interview, Man asked Menker: “Where are we headed now? Obviously, we look at the 2007-08 food crisis at that time. Are we getting closer to that scenario?” 

    Menker’s response was apocalyptic: “Actually, I think we are much worse.” 

    She explained again, “Where food prices are in a lot of countries – if you take it in a local currency basis – food prices are significantly higher when compared to 2007-08.” 

    Here’s the interview.

    For some context, after global food prices spiked in 2007-08, in late 2010 and early 2011, discontent over soaring prices triggered the Arab Spring. 

    In late 2020, SocGen’s Albert Edwards started to warn about the Federal Reserve blowing bubbles during the Covid pandemic and how it could spark a rise in food prices and the usually ongoing risks, such as social-economic instabilities. 

    The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently warned the world food import bill jumped to nearly $2 trillion in 2022 as many poor countries are on the brink of crisis. 

    This time, unlike a decade ago, the Western world has been battered with food inflation crushing tens of millions of low-income folks. 

    “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy,” American investigative journalist Alfred Henry Lewis stated in 1906. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:20

  • Minnesota Supreme Court Dismisses Case To Keep Trump Off The Ballot
    Minnesota Supreme Court Dismisses Case To Keep Trump Off The Ballot

    Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that sought to keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot on Wednesday, after having heard arguments on whether they should take the case.

    Former President Donald Trump leaves the courtroom for a lunch break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Nov. 6, 2023. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

    In a brief opinion and order written by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, the justices said the petition was dismissed without prejudice.

    Free Speech for People, a liberal group, had sued on behalf of eight local voters, arguing that the secretary of state putting President Trump on the ballot would be an “error.”

    In the opinion, Chief Justice Hudson wrote, “there is no ‘error’ to correct here as to the presidential primary election if former President Trump’s name is included on the presidential primary ballot after the Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota provides his name to the Secretary of State.”

    “Because there is no error to correct here as to the presidential nomination primary, and petitioners’ other claims regarding the general election are not ripe, the petition must be dismissed,” she wrote.

    She added that this dismissal would not prevent the petitioners from bringing forth the claim again regarding the general election ballot.

    President Trump commented on the decision in a Truth Social post.

    “Ridiculous 14th Amendment lawsuit just thrown out by Minnesota Supreme Court. Without Merit, Unconstitutional. Congratulations to all who fought this HOAX!” he wrote.

    State Secretary Powers

    During a hearing on Nov. 2, the justices had seemed skeptical of the petitioner’s arguments, noting that it would give the secretary of state a great amount of power if, as petitioners argued, they had the power to decide who to put on election ballots.

    The secretary of state, Steve Simon, had declined to make arguments on merit, saying only that he disagreed it was his authority to determine eligibility and would defer to the court’s decision.

    In the opinion, Chief Justice Hudson wrote that allowing President Trump to appear on the ballot if the state’s Republican party deems he meets their requirements is the correct procedure under state law.

    “There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” she wrote.

    14th Amendment Challenges

    The 14th Amendment grants citizenship and equal rights to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Ratified after the Civil War, it also included a section that prohibited those who had participated in “rebellions” or “insurrections” against the nation from holding office.

    The Minnesota petition argued that, under section three of the 14th Amendment, President Trump is disqualified from holding elected office again because he engaged in an “insurrection.”

    Similar challenges have been brought in several other states, with most courts having ruled similar to Minnesota in dismissing the cases. Some note they don’t have jurisdiction over the matter, while in Minnesota justices also brought up the question of whether it was prudent for them to take on the case even if they did have jurisdiction, as it could potentially create “chaos” with ballots varying from state to state.

    Likewise, secretaries of state have across the board said they don’t have the authority to determine the eligibility of a candidate under state laws, sometimes leading to petitions against them.

    On Thursday, a hearing will take place in Michigan, where petitioners have sued Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, arguing she needs to keep President Trump off the ballot. President Trump and the Trump Campaign are intervenors in this case, as they have been with other 14th Amendment challenges.

    To date, only Colorado has brought such a case to trial, and a state court spent two weeks hearing substantive testimony from witnesses and experts on whether Jan. 6, 2021, constituted an “insurrection” and whether President Trump “engaged” in that.

    Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace will rule on the case next week.

    “This is an internal party election to serve internal party purposes.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 19:00

  • Tesla Shares Fall 5% On HSBC $146 Target, Continued Cybertruck Skepticism
    Tesla Shares Fall 5% On HSBC $146 Target, Continued Cybertruck Skepticism

    Tesla shares sold off by more than 5% on Thursday after HSBC came out and added yet another bearish sell side voice to the discussion about Elon Musk’s EV automobile empire. HSBC’s Michael Tyndall began coverage of Tesla shares on Thursday, advising a sell and setting a target of $146, suggesting a potential 33% decline from current prices.

    Following this, Tesla’s shares had fallen by almost 5.5% at Thursday’s close, adding to a now 18.9% fall over the last month, according to Yahoo Finance.

    “We see considerable potential in Tesla’s prospects and ideas, but we think the timeline is likely to be longer than the market and valuation is reflecting. Hence the Reduce rating,” the note said. 

    “Timing of delivery is our primary concern: we think questioning Tesla’s credibility is  problematic. Its ambitions may be grand (20m units by 2030), but it has a track record of  generally doing what it promises. Equally, as outsiders, we struggle to challenge the feasibility  of the group’s ideas. So, our caution stems from the uncertainty around the timing and  commercialisation of its varied ideas. We see considerable potential in Tesla’s prospects and  ideas, but we think the timeline is likely to be longer than the market and valuation is reflecting.  Hence the Reduce rating,” the note continues. 

    It continued, questioning the future prospects of many of the “growth” stories Tesla’s valuation depends on: “Our DCF [discounted cash flow] valuation is generous as we assume businesses such as FSD [full-self driving], Dojo and Optimus all become successful by the end of the decade, contributing around 40% of our DCF value. We think, however, that the expected cost of capital for these businesses should be well above the group average given the regulatory and technological challenges they face.” 

    Yahoo Finance wrote that HSBC recognizes Tesla’s unique position in the electric vehicle (EV) market, acknowledging its cost leadership and strong growth prospects.

    And although Tyndall considers Tesla’s target of 20 million units by 2030 ambitious, he notes that doubting the company’s commitments is challenging, given its track record of fulfilling its promises, despite some skepticism regarding the feasibility of such figures at present.

    Calling CEO Elon Musk a “risk”, Tyndall continued: “Musk’s global fame has afforded the group a customer awareness that far outweighs the money it has spent on marketing and advertising, which is therefore a tangible benefit. Leaving aside the current legal issues Elon Musk faces, we think his prominence presents a considerable ‘singleman’ risk at the group.”

    The autonomous software sector, including Tesla, faces challenges, with investigations into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot software by NHTSA and the Department of Justice, Tyndall noted. Additionally, GM’s Cruise service has now been halted nationwide, his note pointed out.

    Despite the pessimism, Tyndall does admit that Tesla is an innovator and deserves a premium:

    It is more than just an auto company; Tesla has positioned itself as an innovator. Cars  may well be the main driver of revenue and profits currently, but if the group is to be taken at its  word, the future for Tesla is about robots, autonomous vehicles, energy storage and super computers. Many of these ideas are in concept stage at present, which makes modelling them  and valuing them problematic. To gain a better understanding of the prospects for each, we  have relied on HSBC’s domain experts in each field. This has helped round out our opinion and  valuation on the stock, but it seems clear, to us, there is a fair degree of hope in the current  share price.

    Ironically, the better Tesla is as an auto company, the more it deserves an “auto like” valuation, so arguably the ideas need to become reality to support the current share price. Tesla auto faces fewer challenges than the incumbents and as such, deserves a  premium: we view conventional carmakers as ex-growth businesses; they are selling to  (largely) saturated markets and their ability to price higher content has historically been limited.  

    For the incumbents, the switch to electric is simply another price-cost challenge – how long will  EV premiums prevail? Can they cut costs quickly enough to maintain margins? These  challenges don’t exist for Tesla. EVs, by virtue of rising penetration, are a growth market and  are likely to be for decades. Tesla is already the cost leader and given its stated ambitions (and  scale), is likely to remain so.

    Adding to the misery for Tesla this week was InsideEVs writeup on the company’s forthcoming Cybertruck. The article was called: “I Saw The Tesla Cybertruck Up Close. It Still Looks Horrible” and it sports a subtitle that says “A close look reveals a lot of issues.”

    “Basking in the SoCal sun, this Cybertruck looked frankly horrible,” the article says. “I’ve been around hundreds of prototype cars in my career, ranging from early test mules to near-production prototypes, and I’ve never seen an automaker proudly present something of this poor quality, especially not this late in development.”

    Daniel Golson from InsideEVs added: “It is absolutely baffling to me that Tesla’s lead designer would parade around a vehicle in this condition just weeks before deliveries of production cars are allegedly commencing and even more baffling that he’d park it at such a public enthusiast event.”

    The article concluded:

    “Yes, this is still just a prototype at the end of the day. But at this stage of development, this close to customer deliveries starting, I couldn’t help but feel something akin to second-hand embarrassment when looking at it. If Tesla feels comfortable showing this Cybertruck off, I don’t think it bodes well for early customers.”

    Recall, Tesla shares were trounced after last quarter’s earnings due to comments Musk made about the difficulties the company was having (and would be having) with producing the Cybertruck. Elon Musk said at the time:

    “It’s an amazing product but I do want to emphasize that there will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with the Cybertruck and then in making the Cybertruck cash flow positive,” Musk said during Tesla’s earnings call on Wednesday.

    “While I think this is potentially our best product ever — I think it is our best product ever — it is going to require immense work to reach high-volume production and be cash flow positive at a price that people can afford.”

    However, Musk claims demand for the Cybertruck is “off the charts” with more than 1 million potential buyers putting down $100 to reserve one.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:40

  • To Understand Mike Johnson, Look To Small-Town Louisiana
    To Understand Mike Johnson, Look To Small-Town Louisiana

    Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    In the classic American film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” an idealistic leader appointed to the U.S. Senate finds himself in a tangle of political corruption and intrigue as he struggles to do what’s best for the people.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Freepik, Shutterstock, Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

    Mr. Smith, played by actor Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film, arrives at Congress from an unnamed Western state after the death of an incumbent senator. Initially, he’s unaware of the dishonest actions of some of his new congressional colleagues, and his inexperience leads the press to take advantage of him.

    In the movie, Mr. Smith refuses to become corrupt, proving the importance of decency and honesty and driving home the idea that one person really can make a difference.

    The film appears to be as relevant today as it was more than 80 years ago, a cautionary tale for politicians who believe that they can change what they see as a broken system.

    Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from small-town America, appears to want to do just that.

    The Cypress Baptist Church, which is attended by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and his family, in Benton, La., on Nov. 5, 2023. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

    Shaping a Speaker

    To understand Mr. Johnson, one must look to the places that shaped him—his church and community.

    God is loved in Louisiana. America is, too.

    When people speak about Mr. Johnson in his hometown of Benton, their comments always weave back around to his faith, which was demonstrated to the world after he was elected House speaker.

    “I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night,” Mr. Johnson said, addressing the House chamber after receiving the gavel on Oct. 25. “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture—the Bible—is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.”

    Benton has a population of about 2,000 and serves as a bedroom community for the much larger nearby city of Shreveport.

    At least 18 churches have Benton addresses, far outnumbering the single-traffic-light intersection in the small downtown.

    Couples holding hands stroll through the upscale neighborhood that Mr. Johnson calls home, as children laugh and play on manicured green lawns where American flags wave beneath towering pines and hardwoods.

    “He’s not afraid,” Marty Treece said of his now-famous neighbor.

    Mr. Treece and his wife, Brenda, told The Epoch Times that they believe that God is using Mr. Johnson just like he used former President Donald Trump.

    People in the community were excited when they heard that their congressman, a dark horse candidate for speaker, had ascended to the position without a single dissenting Republican vote.

    For weeks, Republicans in Congress bickered among themselves in an attempt to elect another speaker, after hardline Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and seven other Republicans voted to oust sitting Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) with the help of Democrats.

    The new speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), takes a selfie with Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) after a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Oct. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

    “All I want to say to Mike Johnson and those Republicans up there is ‘Stand up,’” Mr. Treece said. “It’s just sad that there are so many RINOs [Republicans in name only]” serving in Washington.

    Mr. Treece said he likes the way in which Mr. Johnson is approaching the job already, especially in proposing a cut to the IRS budget to find money for Israel in its war with the terrorist group Hamas.

    The Treeces said everyone knows that people will try to smear Mr. Johnson. But they feel certain that the new speaker won’t fear the trials ahead because his faith is his backbone.

    No sooner had the little-known Louisiana congressman been elected as speaker than both sides of the political divide tried to quantify Mr. Johnson. He had managed to do what heavy-hitters in the GOP, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), couldn’t—get elected as speaker.

    Those on the political left dubbed him MAGA Mike, a Bible-thumping fundamental Christian who supported President Trump as he fought against what he maintains was a rigged 2020 election.

    To those on the right, especially in his community, Mr. Johnson is known as a devout Southern Baptist who loves family and country.

    A politician often said to have no enemies, Mr. Johnson emerged as the right man at the right moment to unite a fractured Republican conference during turmoil at home and abroad, his allies say.

    Prayers From Home

    Christians in Benton indicate that they see a spiritual significance in Mr. Johnson’s rise in politics.

    Cypress Baptist Church—the home church of the Johnson family—was packed on Nov. 5 with believers who came to hear the Rev. John Fream.

    “God, continue to lift up our dear friend House Speaker Mike Johnson and his wife, Kelly,” the pastor prayed aloud.

    Mr. Fream, known in these parts as Pastor Fream, spoke of being thankful, even in a wicked world.

    His sermon dovetailed with Psalm 37, reportedly Mr. Johnson’s favorite Bible verse. It calls on the faithful to “fret not” because the righteous will prevail against evildoers.

    Some nonbelievers might scoff at those who follow the Bible, Mr. Fream said in the sermon. He knows some mock the idea that there are only two sexes and that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

    “What was worse, Sodom and Gomorrah, or today?” he asked a hushed congregation from the pulpit.

    “They celebrate evil as good. We live in a world that is so upside down and inside out that you say, ‘God, send your wrath.'”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:20

  • The Delta Between New York City And New Jersey Rents Across The River Is Narrowing
    The Delta Between New York City And New Jersey Rents Across The River Is Narrowing

    If you still thought you could still escape the astronomical rents in New York City by the time-honored tradition of hopping across the river to Jersey City, your window of time may be coming to an unceremonious close. 

    According to data from rental platform StreetEasy, the median rent in Jersey City, located directly across from Manhattan, soared to $2,850 last month. This represents a staggering 48% increase since January 2020, surpassing the growth rates of the majority of neighborhoods in New York and nearly a hundred other principal cities.

    In other words, rents are growing quicker than in New York City, meaning the delta between the two locations is narrowing, according to Bloomberg.

    StreetEasy economist Kenny Lee told Bloomberg: “The opportunity for rent arbitrage in New Jersey has been going away.”

    Their report caught up with several people who tried to make moves to save money. One person was Angel Njoku, who moved to Brooklyn after her rent in Jersey City went up $125 to $3,795 per month. 

    “‘I was like, ‘There’s no point living in New Jersey’. I’m basically paying New York prices, why not just live in New York?” she told Bloomberg. 

    One realtor told Bloomberg that, as of 2019, a one-bedroom apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey typically remained available for around 14 days before being rented out.

    The Bloomberg report notes that these units are being snapped up in nearly half that time and at markedly increased rates, as the inventory of available rental properties has shrunk by one-third. A notable case, as mentioned, is an apartment that once would list for $5,500 and might have been offered two or three times is now commanding a rent of $8,500.

    “The lack of housing is crippling people,” the agent commented.

    After a 35% rent rise on their two-bedroom Jersey City apartment, 32 year old Oliver McAteer, and his wife renegotiated to $4,150 temporarily. Post their daughter’s arrival in spring, they purchased a house in Maplewood, New Jersey, with a mortgage matching their rent.

    McAteer told Bloomberg: “Everyone was coming over from Brooklyn, making Hoboken and Jersey City the new Williamsburg. What surprised me was how quickly it changed. It was such a shame that so many people got driven out.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 18:00

  • Watch: Biden DHS Head Claims There Is "No Disaster" At The Border
    Watch: Biden DHS Head Claims There Is “No Disaster” At The Border

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Despite record numbers of encounters will illegal immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border in their thousands every day, including suspected terrorists, the head of the Biden Department for Homeland Security claimed under oath Wednesday that there is “no disaster”.

    Alejandro Mayorkas made the claim while testifying before Congress regarding the border security budget and spending, and asking for more funding.

    GOP Senator John Boozman told Mayorkas that “by every metric the situation at the border is a disaster,” adding that “what you’re asking for does nothing to get those numbers down.”

    Mayorkas attempted to pivot the exchange to suggest Republicans are resistant to providing funding to hire more personnel at the border.

    Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith further asked Mayorkas: “So the situation at the border, you’re saying, is not a disaster?”

    “That is correct,” Mayorkas then answered.

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    Mayorkas was further pressed by other Senators about whether he sees the border situation as a crisis and again failed to respond:

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    Does this look like a crisis/disaster nor not?

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    *  *  *

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    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 11/09/2023 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 09

Today’s News 9th November 2023

  • Will The Woke Industrial Complex Ever Wake Up?
    Will The Woke Industrial Complex Ever Wake Up?

    Authored by Christian Milord via The Epoch Times,

    Have you ever wondered if and when the woke industrial complex will rise out of its slumber and smell the coffee? There are plenty of common-sense folks who wonder about the same topic.

    It appears that woke influencers in business, education, entertainment, government, and sports repeat the same mistakes over and over despite being called out by concerned citizens and consumers. Indeed, many businesses such as Budweiser, CNN, Disney, Target, and others continue to defy the will of the people even when public support diminishes.

    In California, the woke industry has permeated every corner of society with its emphasis on identity politics and accompanying speech codes.

    It all starts in public education where governing officials believe that your children belong to the state. If they belong to the state, the schools can teach whatever they want as they create a wedge between parents and students.

    California has one of the highest per pupil spending rates in America (your tax dollars), yet the outcomes are dismal. Test proficiency scores have been near the bottom for several years with no end in sight despite instructional pendulum shifts every 10-12 years.

    Rather than learning fundamental civics and patriotism, students are taught a balkanized ersatz history which generates further division according to color, ethnicity, gender, and race. Other core subjects are also dumbed down to reveal the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Standards are diluted in order to accommodate the concept of social promotion.

    By the time students enroll in college, large percentages of them require remediation, which puts them further behind those who studied. During my group mentoring of university juniors and seniors, I’ve observed that far too many students have the comprehension and writing skills of early high school students.

    Critical thinking skills are replaced by a fixation on electronic devices.

    How are students going to cope in the real world when they are “traumatized” by folks who question their entitlement mentality, or they discover that entry-level jobs don’t always start at $100,000 a year and they must work for a living?

    Is it any wonder that large numbers of college students have a meltdown over every grievance or perceived microaggression? If they aren’t taught thorough reasoning and research, they will be tossed about by fleeting events and feelings. In the current hatefest on campuses across California and the country, students are ignorant regarding Middle East dynamics, the Holocaust, and the last century of events in and around Israel. They haven’t truly studied the history of Israel or the Jewish people.

    We do know that the infamous George Soros, who has funded borderless border policies and lawless district attorneys, has also helped to finance pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and in the streets, according to the New York Post. He has helped to finance the Tides Center, among other advocacy groups, that are busy attacking Israel with the support of a compliant legacy media and leftist members of Congress.

    If several professors and students at both private and public universities around the state can’t differentiate between the stone age barbarism of Hamas and the ordered liberty of Israel, something is definitely Orwellian in higher education. Perhaps we ought to rename our vaunted postsecondary institutions as “indoctrination centers of shallow learning,” because there is an appalling lack of intellectual diversity on too many campuses.

    When the woke government apparatus portrays nonviolent parents who are concerned about their children’s education as domestic extremists, yet views terrorist groups as legitimate, isn’t something terribly askew with their thought processes? Welcome to the brave new world of dystopian modern Marxism.

    Many “inclusive” campus groups are calling for the elimination of Israel, so why aren’t they being arrested for inciting violence? How could such free speech insanity emanate from Stanford or the University of California system? Aren’t folks supposed to be intelligent to be accepted into our elite universities?

    Moreover, plenty of woke individuals and governing bodies are calling for a ceasefire or truce in the current conflict. However, the cessation of hostilities is primarily aimed at Israel, not Hamas, which unleashed the unprovoked Oct. 7 slaughter upon Israel. Anyone with a head on their shoulders understands that if Israel stopped fighting, the carnage activated by Hamas would accelerate.

    By contrast, if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered without conditions, the chance of peace in the region would vastly increase. Unfortunately, the anti-Israel protestors are oblivious to the track record of Iranian sponsored regional terror over many decades, and they are too lazy to investigate. Without a clear moral compass, they lash out at any convenient target and turn a blind eye to genuine terrorism.

    Are there remedies to the woke apparatus? Yes, there is always hope when the silent majority begins to take a stand against the wrong side of history. We must defund organizations that are antisemitic and stop supporting media outlets that spew irrational hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people. We can also hold on to our wallets when woke businesses ignore their customers by catering to special interest groups.

    It is also critical to encourage competition in education that would give parents options regarding the different types of schools for their children. Character, civics, critical thinking, and merit ought to be ingrained from a young age so youngsters can identify the difference between good and evil. More philosophy and religion courses could be offered even at the secondary school level.

    Finally, it’s crucial to elect representatives that are straightforward and who cherish principles such as border sovereignty, free markets, limited government, responsible liberty, the rule of law, and a peace-through-strength national security infrastructure.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 23:40

  • "Enough Is Enough": Widower Sues Hospital for Withholding Ivermectin, Claims Wrongful Death
    “Enough Is Enough”: Widower Sues Hospital for Withholding Ivermectin, Claims Wrongful Death

    The family of a woman who died after a hospital refused to treat her with ivermectin for Covid-19 has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

    Scott Mantel, whose wife Deborah Bucko died at Mount Sinai Hospital on May 16, 2021 from complications related to Covid-19, filed the lawsuit in September. He contends that the hospital refused to administer ivermectin, which was prescribed by her doctor. Mantell claims that the refusal contributed to her death.

    According to the lawsuit, Mantel “researched possible alternative treatments, and he read several news stories about patients with severe COVID-19 illness who had been treated successfully with ivermectin.”

    Despite her condition initially improving after she received the drug under a court order, the hospital’s subsequent decision to stop the treatment led to a rapid decline in her health, according to the complaint.

    “While she was being treated with the ivermectin and immediately afterwards, Ms. Bucko’s respiratory and cardiovascular functions showed significant improvement and she required significantly less oxygen, vasopressors, and ventilator support, which was clearly demonstrated in her medical records,” reads the suit. “As a result of the ivermectin, Ms. Bucko was on her way to recovery.“

    Mantel’s lawsuit seeks not only compensation for himself and his two children but also punitive damages against the hospital. The claim is that Mount Sinai’s withholding of ivermectin after it had been prescribed constituted a breach of standard medical care, the Epoch Times reports.

    Mantel’s lawyer, Steven Warshawsky, says that the hospital’s refusal to comply with the court-ordered treatment, particularly given the patient’s initial improvement, was against the patient’s best interests and the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship.

    “Early on during the pandemic there were a lot of early legal actions seeking court orders requiring hospitals and doctors to treat patients with ivermectin, but here you have a situation where orders were issued and the hospital did not fully comply with them despite [the] patient showing progress of ivermectin,” he said.

    The controversy around the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 has been a contentious issue within the medical community. Despite this, a lawyer for the FDA confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in August 2023 that doctors are legally permitted to prescribe ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.

    “FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” said Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in a statement to the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

    Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, who supports the use of ivermectin, has criticized pharmacists who refuse to fill such prescriptions, arguing that this oversteps their authority and impacts patient care.

    “This needs to come to an end. In telling my patients what medicines they can and cannot have access to, we effectively have a large group of pharmacists practicing medicine without a license,” Bowden said on Friday. “They have no accountability for this yet they are allowed to dictate patient care.”

    “I see it every single day. Enough is enough,” she continued.

    The outcome of Mantel’s lawsuit could have implications for future cases where there is a conflict between hospital policies and the treatments doctors wish to prescribe. Warshawsky hopes that a favorable ruling will set a precedent affirming the right of physicians to administer treatments they deem necessary, without undue interference from hospital administration. The hospital is expected to respond to the motion later this month.

    “I am hoping to not only get a good result for Deborah and her family but certainly to lay a precedent which is that physicians cannot withhold life-saving treatments from their patients, not only in the case of ivermectin, but also with other medications that might not be standard protocol for hospitals,” said Warshowsky.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 23:20

  • Sperry: Hamas Ally CAIR Has Been Operating With Impunity Inside America For 30 Years
    Sperry: Hamas Ally CAIR Has Been Operating With Impunity Inside America For 30 Years

    Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClear Wire,

    After Hamas massacred 1,400 men, women and children in Israel last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the terror group “and its allies” could inspire attacks on Americans “here on our own soil.” He also told the Senate that the FBI is conducting “multiple, ongoing investigations” into people affiliated with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

    What Wray didn’t say is that the FBI has been investigating Hamas’ biggest ally in America for the past 30 years – without filing any charges. Launched in 1994 as a secret front organization to support Hamas, according to declassified FBI wiretap transcripts and FBI testimony, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has, in the decades since, become an accepted member of Washington’s lobbying community. The New York Times and other influential newspapers routinely describe CAIR as a “Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.”

    Although it has not repudiated its support for Hamas – which is committed to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people – CAIR was enlisted by the Biden administration in May to take part in a White House initiative to fight antisemitism.

    On Oct. 7, the day Hamas terrorists butchered 1,400 Jews, including 33 Americans – raping many and abducting some 240 others to Gaza from southern Israel – CAIR’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, delivered an anti-Israel message in Arabic which seemed to justify what Hamas did. Translated into English, it read: “All Arab peoples must go out on Sunday, Oct. 8 – and every day – in demonstrations in support of the Palestinians and in rejection of normalization with the occupier and the apartheid regime [Israel].”

    On Saturday afternoon, CAIR helped rally more than 100,000 Muslims in D.C. to instead condemn Israel for supposedly carrying out “genocide” in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Multiple speakers called for the destruction of Israel – and, by implication, the Jewish people there – by demanding Palestinians take all the lands “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”

    Awad was front and center, delivering a fiery speech bashing Israel and President Biden for not calling on Israel to stop bombing Hamas targets inside Gaza, which he called “genocidal attacks.” He threatened to hurt Biden at the ballot box in 2024 if he does not urge a ceasefire.

    “We have discovered the language that President Biden understands: ‘No ceasefire, no votes,’” Awad bellowed to the crowd, which erupted into a chant repeating his words. “No votes in Michigan, no votes anywhere if you do not call for a ceasefire now. He then led a chant: “Free, free Palestine!”

    Also, Awad promised to provide legal support to Muslim Americans who protest in support of Palestine. “We are with you,” he said. “The people of Gaza rely on your voices and activism.”

    Protesters later marched on the White House, where they defaced the white brick gate of the Executive Mansion with red paint symbolizing the blood of Gazans who have died from the Israeli army’s counterstrikes. Awad is on record declaring his support for Hamas. At Barry University in 1994, for example, he said: “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”

    CAIR did not respond to requests for comment, but without addressing specifics, it has previously argued it “is not a ‘front group for Hamas.’” The FBI and White House declined to comment.

    While CAIR is now a mainstay of American politics – headquartered just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, with 35 offices across the country – its history reveals its close connections with terror groups such as Hamas, as detailed in the 2009 book this reporter co-authored with counterterrorism expert P. David Gaubatz, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

    The story began in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan in the 1960s, where Awad and a co-founder of CAIR, Omar Ahmad, were born. Both men eventually came to the United States for university studies. By 1992, Awad was a key member of the so-called Palestine Committee in America, which helped finance Hamas. According to a 1992 letter from the Gaza Strip, Hamas asked the Committee for money to buy “weapons, weapons, our brothers.” The letter continued: “The meaning of killing a Jew for the liberation of Palestine cannot be compared to any jihad on earth.”

    Around the same time, the FBI was eavesdropping on several Hamas leaders in connection with terrorist activities, which produced tapes documenting the incarnation of CAIR in 1993. At a secret meeting that October, Omar Ahmad called to order the Hamas summit in Philly at a Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Philadelphia to discuss the formation of a new front organization to support their “movement” in America. Awad also attended the meeting.

    According to court testimony by FBI agent Lara Burns, who runs a major counterterrorism program for the bureau, Ahmad, Awad, and the other leaders who gathered there hatched a scheme to disguise overseas payments to Hamas terrorists and their families as charity. FBI wiretaps also recorded them stating the need to deceive Americans about the true aims of their planned American front group as Hamas launched a campaign of terror attacks on Israel known as the “Intifada.”

    They compared the deception to the “head fake” in basketball, where a shooter tricks an opponent guarding him into moving in a different direction. The group, according to the wiretap transcripts, envisioned an “alternative” organization whose pro-Palestinian stripes were “not very conspicuous.” Burns testified CAIR was what they had in mind. During the talks, they tried to mislead any authorities who might be listening in by referring to Hamas as “Samah” – Hamas spelled backward.

    Ahmad would co-found CAIR in 1994, hiring Awad as executive director that same year. Both men have expressed hatred toward Israel and resentment toward their adopted country for helping fund and arm the Jewish nation.

    Burns testified during the 2008 terrorism trial of a charitable front for Hamas known as the Holy Land Foundation. It was the largest terror funding case in U.S. history. As part of the court filings, the Justice Department included CAIR on a list of co-conspirators underwriting Hamas terrorism – though CAIR and its founders were never indicted in the case. The HLF, busted up as the main fundraising arm of Hamas in America, commingled funds, assets, and personnel with CAIR, according to tax records and court documents.

    “CAIR has been identified by the government as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization [Hamas] – a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew,” said former Assistant U.S. Attorney James Jacks, who was the lead prosecutor in the case.

    A federal judge agreed. “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR with Hamas,” then-U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis wrote in a July 2009 ruling.

    A number of FBI counterterrorism agents were frustrated that CAIR’s national office and executives were never charged in the conspiracy, although the founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter was sentenced to prison. They said politics intervened. After 9/11, they said FBI headquarters viewed CAIR as a link to the Muslim community through which they might obtain tips about terror threats to the homeland. Brass even invited CAIR officials up to the executive suites located on the 7th floor of the Hoover building to discuss outreach policy.

    “We said, ‘These are the bad guys, this is Hamas. What are you doing?’” former FBI Special Agent John Guandolo said, describing how he and other agents protested the special treatment afforded CAIR.

    After CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF’s criminal scheme to funnel more than $12 million to Hamas terrorists, the FBI finally disengaged from the group. The agency stopped conducting formal outreach with CAIR’s national office until, it said, it could resolve issues with Awad and other worrisome leaders.

    “Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” then-Assistant FBI director Richard Powers said in a 2009 letter to the Senate.

    But some investigators say the FBI should have shut down the group, not just the outreach program, issuing search warrants and conducting more intrusive surveillance, which they say would have allowed the government to run the Hamas front out of business.

    “CAIR is the leading Hamas entity inside the United States, and the FBI has taken no action to prosecute them,” said Guandolo, who helped lead several major counterterrorism probes at the Washington field office after 9/11. He explained that “politically correct” FBI leadership is hesitant to go after a minority religious group and is overly sensitive to charges of “Islamophobia” often leveled by CAIR against its critics.

    The FBI’s reluctance to roll up the Hamas front has pushed private investigators to take matters into their own hands. In 2008, a counterterrorism specialist led a team of investigators in a daring undercover operation of CAIR that included infiltrating its national headquarters located on New Jersey Avenue in Washington, D.C., near the Capitol Building. Working as interns, the investigators, who posed as recent converts to Islam wearing traditional Muslim garb, secretly video-recorded conversations with CAIR officials. During the six-month operation, they also intercepted more than 12,000 pages of documents CAIR intended to shred as trash. The evidence, which was turned over to the FBI, is documented in “Muslim Mafia,” which also features an appendix with several key internal CAIR documents reprinted.

    Among other things, the book revealed that CAIR employed violent Islamic terrorists, and then supported the terrorists behind the scenes even after they were convicted. It also uncovered an influence operation against members of key homeland security committees in Congress that included planting CAIR operatives in congressional offices. Internal CAIR documents laid out a plan to elect dozens of pro-Hamas Muslims to Congress. CAIR even started holding Muslim prayer sessions each Friday in the basement of the Capitol.

    “Muslim Mafia” also traced the deeper roots of Hamas back to the secretive Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-jihad group founded in Egypt that built a sophisticated network of Islamic nonprofits inside the U.S. several decades ago. The book documented how Muslim Brotherhood leaders wrote a secret blueprint for “destroying [America] from within … so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” FBI investigators discovered the manifesto stashed in a sub-basement of a Brotherhood leader’s home in Annandale, Va., after raiding his residence as part of a terrorism probe.

    Several alarmed Republican members of Congress held a press conference about the book’s findings, warning a Hamas terror front group was infiltrating Congress.

    Besides exposing Hamas’ political arm in America, the book exposed the inner workings of the broader anti-Israel lobby, which includes several leftwing groups aligned with CAIR. This lobby is now revealing itself in the wake of Israel’s own 9/11.

    “The seeds for 9/11 were planted in 1948,” according to a draft of a “Proposed Muslim Platform” found at CAIR’s headquarters. “A resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be based on recognizing and correcting the harm that was done to the Palestinians since 1948,” when the United Nations partitioned land for Israel.

    Guandolo said Hamas proved just how dangerous it is on Oct. 7. He warned that the terrorist group has already penetrated American society, and CAIR is the tip of the spear.

    “Currently, CAIR is directing efforts at the ground level across the United States with organizations known for violent extremism,” he added in a recent interview with RealClearInvestigations. “Again, the FBI is doing nothing to adhere to their oaths of office and protect the American people.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 23:00

  • Wealthy Detroit Neighborhood Shaken: Family Held Up At Gunpoint In Own Driveway
    Wealthy Detroit Neighborhood Shaken: Family Held Up At Gunpoint In Own Driveway

    Lawlessness continues spreading into America’s wealthy neighborhoods as criminals are emboldened by leftist rogue prosecutors, progressive bail reform laws, defunding the police policies, and other soft-on-crime policies in crime-ridden Democrat-run cities.

    A recent incident in Chicago highlights the concerns why law-abiding taxpayers should reconsider their residence in collapsing progressive cities: Last week, a family in the Beverly neighborhood was held up at gunpoint in their own driveway. 

    According to local media WGN-TV, the two robbers “took the victim’s belongings and fled the scene in the stolen car.”  

    X account Awake Illinois posted a shocking video with comments from the family about the incident: 

    “This could have easily been your wife/daughter/son/mother/you. I ask all of you men who are tasked with protecting your family, when is enough enough? Does the gun have to go off & kill us to wake up & do something about this senseless violence?” the father of the family who wished not to be named said. 

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    “This family was unaware they were likely followed home by the attackers. Please be aware of your surroundings as these attacks are happening with increased frequency in the Chicago area. We support this family and hope the criminals are apprehended and brought to justice,” Awake Illinois said. 

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    This reminds us of an incident in mid-September when two robbers stormed the garage of a Westport, Connecticut, home, assaulting a man and stealing his Aston Martin. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 22:40

  • 'Cave Sweet Cave?' Geologist Builds Cozy Abode In Vertical Cliffs In New Mexico… Here's Why
    ‘Cave Sweet Cave?’ Geologist Builds Cozy Abode In Vertical Cliffs In New Mexico… Here’s Why

    Authored by Michael Wing via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Was it nuclear holocaust he was expecting? Who in their right mind would spend $20,000 excavating the side of a cliff in a steep valley for a few extra square feet of office space?

    (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    A naval intelligence commander, that’s who. And it was Bruce A. Black who first sketched out the plans for his cave on a bar napkin over a few beers with a pair of miners, the Zink brothers, in 1982.

    That napkin plan became the basis for an abode nested in a geologic wonder in a cliff valley of a special type of sandstone—a formation known as Ojo Alamo—located in northwest New Mexico (did we mention Mr. Black was also a geologist?).

    It’s also worth asking who planted such a crazy idea in his head. It might not be so crazy after all, for the native ancestral Puebloans of the 12th century once lived here and built the impressive Cave Palace not two hours north.

    A cave master bedroom with a balcony overlooking a steep 300-foot vertical drop into La Plata River valley, New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    An aerial view of the geologic valley wonder known as Ojo Alamo located in northwestern New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    Some theorize that those same Puebloans built their fortress halfway up a cliff, partially sheltered in a cave, to defend against tribal aggressors.

    Whether Mr. Black wanted an out-of-the-way office space, a cave fortress, or a nuclear fallout shelter is neither here nor there; it became none of the above in the end. Rather, it became Kokopelli’s Cave—or Koko’s Cave. Although inspired by Puebloan architecture in some ways, it’s now furnished with most of the amenities you’d expect from a cozy bed and breakfast.

    So, the Zink brothers used hydro-drilling and blasting to remove stone, carving a donut cavity in the living sandstone. Inside, a large central pillar was left to help hold up the solid rock roof. There was a main opening for a door and a secondary puncture for a balcony with a vista—it overlooks La Plata River valley with a 300-foot vertical drop to the valley floor.

    A rocky path descends into the valley, leading to Koko’s Cave domicile in New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    The entrance to Mr. Black’s cave domicile, hewn from living sandstone on the side of a cliff in New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    At first, this raw, vacant cavity was unfinished, unfurnished, and unused for years. It turned into a hangout where youngsters partied. It became a blank canvas for vandals, and soon the cave’s interior was covered with graffiti and smoke from bonfires.

    Eventually, Mr. Black became fed up and barred the entrance with ¼-inch-thick steel doors, and the place took on the urban legend of some crazy man’s pet project. That is, until 1993.

    Time passed. Eventually, Mr. Black’s son returned from his first stint in the Air Force, and he would continue where his father left off. He would make the cave something other than a bunker, office, or cliff palace. It wouldn’t be a home either, but something else entirely.

    An interior view of Koko’s Cave shows the living room, hearth, and front entryway. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    Part of the cave living area in Koko’s Cave domicile in New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    “Dad decided the logistics of moving his office in were cumbersome, and he abandoned the office effort,” Mr. Black’s son told The Epoch Times. “As an experiment, we moved my fiancé and her dog in it for a year as I began my career as an FBI agent in Las Vegas.”

    By 1994, he had the place finished and comfortable for living. After his son got married, Mr. Black made it a bed and breakfast, as it remains today.

    It’s comfortable but also a geologist’s dream. The textures are wonderous, for the walls expose the sandstone strata deposited at Ojo Alamo right above the boundary of the last great extinction when the dinosaurs disappeared—in the early Cenozoic period, 65 million years ago.

    A view of the living room in Koko’s Cave domicile in New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    A mockup kiva is made to resemble a traditional Puebloan hearth. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    Inspired by the circular stone hearths the Puebloans once gathered round, called kivas, Koko’s Cave features a mockup construct made of local sandstone with an orno fireplace. There are still many kivas nested throughout Cave Palace today.

    Modern comforts were furnished thanks to electrical and other utilities run through a 100-foot shaft drilled to the clifftop above. The hole doubles as a powered venting shaft. Now they have running water for a jacuzzi with a waterfall that serves as a shower. Of course, like any bed and breakfast, there are a kitchenette and laundry facilities.

    A view of the kitchenette in Koko’s Cave in New Mexico. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    (Left) The bathroom features a jacuzzi and a waterfall shower; (Right) A view of the cave kitchen which also includes a washer and drier. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    The floor plan is a free-flowing ring of about 1,700 square feet. The bathroom is the only room with an installed wall. Drainage pipes run inside excavated grooves under the floors, traveling to a septic system down in the valley.

    “The cave was done on a shoestring,” Mr. Black’s son said. “Fortunately, Mom and my sister picked out excellent colors on the carpet and countertops.

    “The cave, due to its natural stone walls, is full of texture, and we deliberately avoided trying to add to it.” They furnished the cave with aspen wood upholstery.

    A view of the master bedroom in Koko’s Cave. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    A gorgeous sunset viewed from the patio of Koko’s Cave. (Courtesy of Kokopelli’s Cave)

    You can visit Koko’s Cave for a holiday, stay in its cozy cave rooms, and marvel on its magnificent view—perhaps as the Puebloans did in the 12th century. The proprietors will meet you at a church parking lot in nearby Farmington. You’ll drive out to the valley and descend a stone path halfway down the cliff to a cozy alcove of an entrance (bring a backpack and avoid cumbersome luggage!).

    Farmington is close, so you can run to the grocery store or dine out. You’ll have to leave your pets at home, as the proprietors want to encourage local cute critters—squirrels, chipmunks, ring-tailed cats, and hummingbirds—to come keep visitors company during their stay.

    Now, it’s starting to seem much clearer why anyone, whether Mr. Black or the ancestral Puebloans, would want a cliff cave for a domicile. Wouldn’t you agree?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 22:20

  • Urban Revival Stalls As Office-to-Apartment Conversions Face Financial Fiasco
    Urban Revival Stalls As Office-to-Apartment Conversions Face Financial Fiasco

    Transforming vacant office buildings into apartments was supposed to solve so many problems, however the reality of doing so has been anything but straightforward.

    This 1989 building near the White House was once occupied by the Department of Justice. Photograph by Evy Mages

    In 2022, less than 1% of apartments built via new construction were created via office conversions, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing data from RentCafe. The dismal figures were attributed to ‘financing issues, stagnating rental markets and other challenges.’

     

    In an effort to salvage the industry, the Biden administration last month said that it would update guidance for existing grants and spending programs to free up billions of dollars for such conversions, while cities including Washington D.C., New York, and San Francisco are sweetening the deal with tax incentives and faster permits.

    That said, the realities of converting office space into apartments, because less than 1% of available office space in major US cities are ideal candidates for the process, according to Avison Young.

    In significant ways, the conversion process is getting even harder now. Slowing rent growth might make apartment conversions less attractive to investors, if the trend persists into next year. Asking rents for apartments have fallen 1.2% nationally over the past 12 months, according to rentals website Apartment List.

    Construction loans are also far more expensive than they were 18 months ago and many banks now shy away from development lending. A number of conversion efforts are on hold because of higher interest rates. -WSJ

    Steven Paynter, a principal at Gensler, lays out the harsh reality: costs are skyrocketing due to pricier construction loans and hesitant banks, while red tape slows everything down. Delayed projects pile up, waiting for financial backing that’s harder to come by as interest rates bite. “It adds a huge amount of cost to the project,” Paynter points out. The lengthy permit process doesn’t help, often leading to costly waiting games that can “kill the project.”

    Meanwhile, the construction itself is an expensive and complex process, particularly when you factor in essential updates such as plumbing for new kitchens and bathrooms. Trevor Martinez from Sherman Associates doesn’t mince words, comparing it to an intricate and pricey endeavor — “It’s like building a ship inside of a bottle.“

    Trouble in paradise

    While the Biden administration and various states scramble to salvage the deflated scheme, foreclosures loom as stark warnings for ambitious projects in Phoenix and Dallas, where financial struggles have cast a shadow over the entire endeavor. And as Ahmad Abu-Khalaf of Enterprise Community Partners suggests, maybe it’s time to look beyond offices for conversion opportunities — such as strip malls, which could potentially offer over 700,000 new housing units.

    “If you only have a one-floor or two-floor retail building, it may be more feasible to do acquisition, raze it and build from scratch,” he said.

    Before: The former Peace Corps headquarters at 20th and L streets is slated to become 163 apartments with a rooftop pool. Photograph by Evy Mages via Washingtonian

    In August, Gregory Lodato, president of MarLo Associates Inc., told the Stamford Advocate that lending institutions are hesitant to finance apartment construction.

    Gregory Lodato, president of MarLo Associates Inc., poses in an apartment building that was converted from office space to apartments along Summer Street in downtown Stamford, Conn., on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013.Jason Rearick

    “You go to residential because you can get financing,” he said. “I think it’s a trend out of necessity. There’s no sign of recovery in the office market.“

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 22:00

  • COVID-19 Lockdowns Contributed To 'Collective Trauma' Among Americans: Psychologists
    COVID-19 Lockdowns Contributed To ‘Collective Trauma’ Among Americans: Psychologists

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

    The United States is still reeling from the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and other aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic as Americans have suffered a “collective trauma,” the American Psychological Association (APA) has said, citing a study.

    People wearing protective face masks walk on the street in Brooklyn, New York on Oct. 7, 2020. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)

    While the national health emergency caused by the COVID-19 outbreak officially came to an end on May 11, in some ways the country hasn’t returned to “normal.” according to the organization.

    The APA concluded in the results of its survey, released on Nov. 1, that there are “signs of collective trauma among all age cohorts” in the United States.

    “The COVID-19 pandemic created a collective experience among Americans. While the early-pandemic lockdowns may seem like the distant past, the aftermath remains,” Arthur C. Evans Jr., the organization’s CEO, said in a statement.

    The study found that adults between the ages of 34 and 44 reported the biggest surge in chronic health conditions since the pandemic, rising to 58 percent in 2023 from 48 percent in 2019.

    The same age group also experienced the biggest jump in mental health illnesses, chiefly anxiety and depression. These rose to 45 percent this year from 31 percent in 2019, according to the study.

    Chronically elevated levels of stress create risks for various mental health challenges and wear down the immune system, according to the APA. The association noted that the data suggest that long-term stress sustained since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on Americans’ well-being.

    “We cannot ignore the fact that we have been significantly changed by the loss of more than one million Americans, as well as the shift in our workplaces, school systems, and culture at large,” Mr. Evans said. “To move toward posttraumatic growth, we must first identify and understand the psychological wounds that remain.”

    Chronic stress can cause inflammation, breaking down the immune system and raising the risk of all sorts of ailments, including stroke and heart disease, the APA warned.

    The study is the latest that suggests that the heavy-handed response to the outbreak, which included school closures, business shutdowns, and near-universal mask-wearing, has had a negative effect on people’s physical and mental health.

    Child Gun Deaths Rise Sharply

    Recent research on child gun deaths adds heart-wrenching evidence to the growing pile of data suggesting that COVID-19 lockdowns and other restrictions had a devastating effect on society.

    The study, authored by researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and published on Oct. 5 in a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that injury-related deaths among children rose sharply during the pandemic years 2020–21.

    The spike in pediatric fatal injuries was driven by drugs and injuries involving firearms.

    In 2021, when lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions were pervasive, more child homicides (2,279) and suicides (1,078) by gun were recorded than in any year since 1999, according to the study.

    Some see a clear causal link between the explosion in child gun deaths and pandemic lockdown policies, which other studies have linked to a variety of negative outcomes, including delayed health treatments, learning loss, and mental health crises.

    “Due to lockdowns and other misconceived pandemic policies, child gun deaths in the United States exploded exponentially in 2020,” Kevin Bass, a researcher and doctoral student in medicine, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

    While the study shows that firearm-related homicides began rising in 2018, Mr. Bass said that it’s “very clear that the huge leap to record levels occurred between 2019 and 2020, which is when lockdowns happened.”

    The study’s findings dovetail with an April report from the Pew Research Center, which found that the number of children and teenagers killed by gunfire surged by 50 percent between 2019 and 2021.

    Some studies have identified lockdowns as contributing to jumps in suicides, mental health crises, learning loss, and delayed health treatments.

    “Our results show that major non-pharmaceutical interventions—and lockdowns in particular—have had a large effect on reducing transmission,” wrote the authors of the study backing restrictive measures, although the research didn’t evaluate any other unintended impacts of the measures.

    However, one recent study that looked at a wide array of research into lockdowns concluded that such measures can be an effective tool in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic but only if “long-term collateral damage is neglected.”

    “The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save,” the study’s authors wrote.

    The authors also said that what deserves a “special and urgent analysis” is the question of “to what extent, why, and how the dissenting (disapproved by healthcare officials) scientific opinions were suppressed during COVID-19.”

    “Suppression of ‘misleading’ opinions causes not only grave consequences for scientists’ moral compass; it prevents the scientific community from correcting mistakes and jeopardizes (with a good reason) public trust in science,” they wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 21:40

  • 'We Don't Feel Safe': Florida Jews Panic Buy Guns Over Antisemitism Fears
    ‘We Don’t Feel Safe’: Florida Jews Panic Buy Guns Over Antisemitism Fears

    In response to the rise in antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests at universities and in liberal-leaning cities, American Jews are panic-buying firearms as a precautionary measure.

    Vicky Furer, a 48-year-old educator from South Florida, told Bloomberg that she recently joined members of her synagogue for a shooting lesson at a firing range in Pompano Beach – just north of Fort Lauderdale. 

    “It’s scary, holding this thing,” Furer said, “thinking of how I will ever be able to shoot at someone.” 

    Across South Florida, as well as across the US, Jewish folks have historically leaned left and pro-gun control. However, that appears to be changing following the Israel-Hamas war, as well as the rise in antisemitism and pro-Palestinian spreading across the US. 

    The latest data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) shows that unadjusted criminal background checks in Florida were 124,000 in October, up 30% from September. Background checks serve as a proxy for gun sales because there is no national database tracking firearm purchases. 

    Outside of Israel, Florida has one of the largest concentrations of Jewish people, upwards of 740,000. In predominantly Jewish neighborhoods, people are arming up:

    “This is the first time I really feel unsafe in the US,” Michele Lazarow, a Hallandale Beach city commissioner, told Sun Sentinel. He added: “Maybe it’ll finally be when I get a firearm.”

    Rabbis, firearms instructors, and gun shops have told Bloomberg that gun buying among Jewish folks has soared in recent weeks because they fear a Hamas attack and or see the rising tide of antisemitism nationwide. 

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    On Tuesday, a 69-year-old man demonstrating in support of Israel died after sustaining a head injury during a fight with a pro-Palestinian protester in Los Angeles. 

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    Also, Jewish people are watching the surge in antisemitism at liberal colleges and are shocked. 

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    Left-leaning Jewish folks who never thought they would own a gun are now realizing in Biden’s America – that the need for self-defense against crazies is crucial for survival. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 21:20

  • Has Uber Caused More Societal Harm Than Good?
    Has Uber Caused More Societal Harm Than Good?

    Authored by Terrence Keeley via RealClear Wire,

    Has Uber caused more harm than good? After disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of livery drivers the globe over, many believe it has – but those critics probably never met Meshack Andrew and Osman Omer.

    Osman spent 1991-95 living in a Kurdish refugee camp following Saddam Hussein’s brutal invasion of Kuwait. The Kurds have never had a country to call their own, and Osman’s teenage years near Erbil were particularly harsh. After miraculously winning a US visa in 1996, his life has been transformed. Osman and his wife now own their home and make a good living in Salt Lake City. He supplements his income as a receiving manager at a Walmart super center by driving an Uber several days a week. “Whenever I have spare time, I can drive MY customers to wherever they need to go.” Osman feels deeply blessed by both job opportunities. “If anyone told me when I was in Makhmur I would one day own a piece of the American Dream, I would have told them they were crazy.”

    But even Osman’s blessings seem modest when compared to Meshack’s. The hardworking father of four children has more than doubled his income to 40,000 Kenyan shillings per month since abandoning his career as a corporate driver in Nairobi five years ago. It’s not that his life’s become easier: Meshack typically works 14 hours a day, 30 days a month. But because of his industriousness and thrift, his eldest son Simon will soon finish his electrical engineering degree at Kabete Technology College. Simon’s younger brother Steven plans to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, relying upon the same tuition help he got from his father. Simon and his siblings will reap the benefits of advanced technical degrees and life-transforming careers Meshack himself could never attain. Meshack exudes prideful joy, knowing all four of his children will live easier, more fulfilling lives because of his hard work and entrepreneurialism.   

    “The process of industrial mutation incessantly revolutionizes economic structures from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one,” wrote the late, great Joseph Schumpeter. Just as all of our personal weaknesses are mirror images of our strengths, capitalism’s painful tendency towards “creative destruction” is precisely how it breeds improved productivity, higher living standards and greater consumer choice. I can speak passionately to the latter. Over the past month alone, I have ridden Ubers in eleven different cities on three separate continents, all summoned through the convenience of a single app. In addition to getting from point-to-point in totally unfamiliar African, European and US environs efficiently, I made two great, new friends, Osman and Meshack.

    Uber now has more than 3.5 million drivers worldwide. Many have inspirational, entrepreneurial stories like Osman and Meshack. Like Osman, many drivers work part time, augmenting their income whenever they can. Others like Meshack work punishing hours just to make as much as money as they can. Uber has clearly opened up new labor markets, and that new supply of labor has been met with consumer demand. In the US, a quarter of Uber drivers are female. They co-exist with licensed-for-hire drivers in most urban centers, but also service many more remote jurisdictions that never had car services. Approximately 25 million Uber trips are taken every day around the globe. Since its founding, Uber has provided more than 42 billion rides, point-to-point. Uber has created a much larger market, one traditional drivers could have never reached.

    Stakeholder capitalism has captured the imagination of managers and workers alike because many have concluded that wealth generated by traditional capitalism has not been distributed broadly enough. The UAW insisted they had not been given their fair share of GM, Ford and Stellantis’ burgeoning profits. They now have more coming their way. Displaced livery drivers around the globe justly claimed Uber has made their former livelihoods less livable.

    But new markets play an essential role in distributing capital and labor more broadly. If stakeholder capitalism is to have any chance of success, it must remain capitalistic. “Incessantly revolutionizing structures from within” invariably hurts some, but when it benefits more than it hurts – as has clearly been the case with Uber – the common good is served.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 21:00

  • "Dick Cheney In 3-Inch Heels": Vivek Takes No Prisoners During GOP Debate, Savages Haley, DeSantis And NBC Moderators
    “Dick Cheney In 3-Inch Heels”: Vivek Takes No Prisoners During GOP Debate, Savages Haley, DeSantis And NBC Moderators

    In what some have called “the greatest opening statement ever,” GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ‘unleashed hell’ at the start of the 3rd primary debate tonight.

    Zero shits were given and no punches were pulled as the tech mogul began his opening statement by inviting Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign on stage in the aftermath of the disastrous Tuesday night election results.

    “There’s something deeper going on in the Republican Party here and I am upset about what happened last night,” he said.

    “We’ve become a party of losers,” he continued, adding: 

    “…there is a cancer in the Republican establishment… Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017 we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave, that never came.”

    And then the haymaker…

    “We got trounced last night in 2023 and I think that we have to have accountability in our party,” he went on.

    “For that matter, Ronna if you want to come up on stage tonight. You want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign… I will turn over my time to you.”

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    Vivek then switched focus to the fact that the debate is being moderated by NBC, saying that the GOP debates should be moderated by Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk:

    “We’d have 10x the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about!”

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    Then specifically at the NBC hosts and their years-long bias:

    “Do you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic Debate? They wouldn’t do it…

    Kristen I’m going to use this time to ask you if the Trump collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years, was that real or was that Hillary Clinton, made up disinformation? Answer the question— Go..”

    Her response…

    Ramaswamy was not done…

    “…we need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election; they rigged the 2020 election with the Hunter Biden laptop story; and they’re going to rig this election unless we have accountability…”

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    Next Mr. Ramaswamy pivoted to the neocons, slamming the warmongerers and aiming a particularly sharp arrow at Nikki Haley (and DeSantis):

    “Do you want a leader from a different generation who’s going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Cheney in 3-inch heels.”

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    Watch the full , uninterrupted, opening statement below…

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    Did Vivek just out-Trump Trump?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 21:00

  • US Attacks Eastern Syria In 2nd Round Of Major Strikes On 'Iran-Linked' Militants
    US Attacks Eastern Syria In 2nd Round Of Major Strikes On ‘Iran-Linked’ Militants

    Update(1930ET): The US has just confirmed it conducted a second round of major airstrikes in Syria since the Gaza war began, which the Pentagon has described as retaliation for a recent series of attacks by “Iran-linked” militias against US troops in the country’s east:

    U.S. fighter jets conducted “a self-defense strike” at a weapons storage facility in Syria that was being used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.

    The strike in eastern Syria was carried out at President Joe Biden’s direction, Austin said in a statement.

    “This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates,” Austin said.

    At this point the Pentagon has cited that 46 US service members have been injured over the past month of attacks inside Iraq and Syria, most with ‘traumatic brain injuries’.  

    * * *

    Update(11:45ET): Yemen’s Houthis have claimed they’ve successfully shot down a US MQ-9 reaper drone over “territorial waters” off the Yemeni coast. According to a machine translation of a Houthi army statement: 

    Our air defenses were able to shoot down an American MQ9 aircraft while it was carrying out hostile, monitoring and spying activities in the airspace of Yemeni territorial waters and within the framework of American military support for the Israeli entity.

    If confirmed as accurate, this could draw the United States deeper into what could develop into a broader regional conflict. The Pentagon has had aerial assets flying over Gaza, and the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Further US warships have been seeking to intercept ratcheting drone and missile attacks from the Houthis, with one such intercept having already occurred in the opening weeks of the Gaza war, now having reached one month.

    There’s as yet been no Pentagon or US official confirmation of the alleged MQ-9 drone shootdown. 

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    However, footage purporting to show the drone shootdown has been released…

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    * * *

    President Biden in a phone call this week urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to implement a three-day pause in fighting. This was revealed by multiple sources to Axios Tuesday, and Biden’s request appears to have been rejected, given the call took place Monday and Israel has since reaffirmed there will be no truce until the hostages held by Hamas are released.

    “According to a proposal that is being discussed between the U.S., Israel and Qatar, Hamas would release 10-15 hostages and use the three-day pause to verify the identities of all the hostages and deliver a list of names of the people it is holding, the U.S. official said,” according to the report. 

    AFP via Getty Images

    But Netanyahu on Tuesday gave a speech declaring that his forces were “reaching deeper than Hamas ever imagined” a hailed the killing of thousands of Hamas terrorists and commanders. “There will not be a ceasefire without the return of our kidnapped,” he emphasized in a message “to our enemies and our friends alike.”

    Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had at the same time declared that the IDF is fighting “in the heart” of Gaza City and is “tightening the noose” around Hamas.

    Concerning the Monday phone call, Axios revealed further, “The two U.S. and Israeli officials said Netanyahu told Biden he doesn’t trust Hamas’ intentions and doesn’t believe they are ready to agree to a deal regarding the hostages.”

    The Israeli leader “also said that Israel could lose the current international support it has for the operation if the fighting stops for three days, the officials said.” Netanyahu further voiced to Biden that in 2014 Hamas took advantage of a humanitarian pause to kidnap an Israeli soldier and kidnap others.

    The official White House call readout from the Biden-Netanyahu meeting only said the two leaders “discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas” – but without offering further details.

    Of the estimated total 240 captives, Hamas has so far released four hostages, reportedly in large part through Qatar’s mediation, but lately US officials have said progress has stalled since then.

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    Israel says it was able to free a female soldier during the initial phase of ground operations, while reports have said that in some cases deceased hostages have been found, possibly due to airstrikes.

    Hamas has meanwhile continued to publish short videos of what the group says are successful ambush attacks on tanks and armored convoy units, also showing close urban combat, but typically with IDF ground troops nowhere to be seen. The IDF appears to be advancing into Gaza City purely with armor, and presumably with ground infantry troops staying in the rear until a city area is initially prepared through tank, artillery, and airstrikes.

    On Wednesday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US stands by Israel in rejecting calls for a full ceasefire. “Israel has repeatedly told us that there is no going back to October (7) before the barbaric attacks by Hamas — we fully agree,” he said. He then said of G7 counterparts, “We all agreed humanitarian pauses would advance key objectives.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 20:59

  • Steve Cohen Plans $8 Billion Mega Casino For Queens
    Steve Cohen Plans $8 Billion Mega Casino For Queens

    Because in his time as Mets owner, he has proven himself to be such an incredible capital allocator, Steve Cohen has now revealed an $8 billion plan to build a massive complex in Queens, near Citi Field. 

    The plan is part of Cohen’s bid to try and win a state casino license and the complex would covert nearby parking lots to a “Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, a live music venue, a food hall and 20 acres of park space,” CBS News New York reported. 

    Empire City Casino in Yonkers and the Racino at Aqueduct are expected to get two of the state’s three casino licenses and there is “intense competition” for the third license, CBS reported. 

    Tom Grech, president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, commented: “It’s going to be an $8 billion investment in Queens, 15,000 construction jobs — both temporary and permanent — and a way to transform an entire area to continue to cement Queens as kind of our sports and entertainment mecca for the entire city.”

    The details of Cohen’s proposal were released publicly for the first time on Tuesday, Bloomberg added in a writeup. Bloomberg detailed the plans:

    If Cohen is granted the license, he plans to partner with Hard Rock and SHoP Architects to build the gaming complex, which is being called Metropolitan Park. It would feature 20 acres of newly built public park space designed by landscape architect firm Field Operations, which helped develop the High Line in Manhattan and Freshkills Park in Staten Island.

    It would also include new athletic fields, a renovated mass-transit station and a “Queens food hall,” a Cohen spokesperson said in a statement. The new gaming complex would create 15,000 permanent and construction jobs, Cohen said.  

    Cohen has hired more than 6 lobbying firms and spent millions to get feedback and support from the surrounding neighborhoods. Cohen also faces additional obstacles, with Bloomberg noting that “The proposed casino site sits on what is technically state-owned parkland, and the legislature would need to pass a bill allowing annexation of the land.”

    It is estimated that a casino in Queens could generate $1.9 billion annually in revenue. The state has still not set a deadline for when prospective bids are due or when it will decide on the third license, the report concludes. 

    We’re sure it won’t be long until AOC voices her displeasure for the idea, just as she did with the proposed construction of new Amazon facilities that would have brought thousands of jobs to Long Island City years ago. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 20:40

  • The Unexpected Battle Between Vaccines And The COVID Virus
    The Unexpected Battle Between Vaccines And The COVID Virus

    Authored by Yuhong Dong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Since the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic that started in January 2020, humans have been in a constant battle with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

    Vaccine strategy targeting the SARS-CoV-2 virus is challenged in the COVID-19 battle. (Shutterstock/Lightspring)

    A series of vaccine versions have been developed and administered globally, beginning in January 2021 when an mRNA vaccine based on the original Wuhan strain was implemented. Subsequently, a bivalent mRNA vaccine was developed based on the Omicron offspring. Currently, the most updated version is based on XBB.1.5 and is ready to be injected into people’s arms.

    Bivalent vaccines contain two different components. One component is to protect us against the original viral strain, while the other targets the most recent variants.

    The vaccine is based on the gene code of a known virus, whereas the lead time for vaccine development normally takes an average of 10 years. Even with the current “green-light” policies for COVID-19 vaccines, it takes almost one year for the first generation to launch and a couple of months for the second and third generations.

    However, due to the basic survival skills of SARS-CoV-2, the virus is always mutating in order to escape from a vaccine. Even before a vaccine is ready to launch, there are always a few mutants that have already found a way to escape from the antibodies induced by the sluggish vaccine, creating the next wave.

    Regardless, the unprecedented speed of vaccine development won’t be able to compete with the speed of viral mutation, as the virus is always taking the lead and will be one step ahead of the vaccine.

    This is why even the top scientists cannot predict how the virus will mutate and when the next wave will occur.

    SARS-CoV-2 Variants

    From 2020 to early 2021, a number of major SARS-CoV-2 variants have appeared: Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma(P.1), and Delta (B.1.617.2).

    Not including those old variants, once Omicron (B.1.1.529) was first reported in South Africa in November 2021, it quickly evolved into a few sister lineages: BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, XBB.1.5, EG.5, and HV.1, which each took the stage, one after the other within an interval of a couple of months.

    • BA.1 and BA.2: first detected in February 2022.
    • BA.4 and BA.5: first detected in May 2022.
    • XBB.1.5 (Kraken): an offspring of two BA.2 sublineages first detected in October 2022.
    • BA.2.86 (Pirola): first detected in 2023 and is currently being monitored.
    • EG.5 (Eris): first detected in Feb 2023, peaked in October, and is now declining.
    • HV.1: first detected in July 2023, has taken the lead in the United States at the end of October 2023.

    The fierce battle between the virus and human technology has become a marathon. With each generation of vaccine development, who were the winners?

    First Generation Vaccine: Delta Emerged, Creating Global Havoc

    In January 2021, the original mRNA monovalent vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna and based on the old Wuhan strain were launched at a rocket-like speed.

    In June 2021, when more than 50 percent of the U.S. population had received two doses of these vaccines, the stage was set for various mutants to take over, including the well-known alpha and delta variants.

    A key mutation in spike protein called N501Y, which can escape from vaccine protection, was discovered in alpha. It was also found in two other major variants prevalent during that time and significantly increased in the rate at which it spread.

    Shortly thereafter, Delta (B.1.617.2) emerged and presented even more enhanced transmissibility and vaccine escape ability with its intriguing spike protein double mutations of L452R and E484Q, refreshing the viral spreading and escaping records. It was designated as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 11, 2021.

    These double mutations in the spike protein cause the vaccine-induced antibodies to significantly lose their ability to bind to delta, resulting in immunological evasion and causing major global havoc.

    The increased binding affinity caused by delta makes it much easier to replicate in human cells. It was reported that patients infected with delta had a viral load 1000 times greater than patients with the original strain. It’s also been able to spread twice as fast as the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

    In July 2021, preliminary data from Israel showed that Pfizer’s vaccine efficacy was significantly reduced at five and six months after vaccination to 44 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

    In a July 2021 outbreak in Massachusetts, 74 percent of breakthrough infections occurred in fully vaccinated persons, and the delta variant was detected in 90 percent of them.

    The first round of the battle between the vaccine and the virus concluded with an overwhelming vaccine failure when the first generation of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine met the unexpected delta variant.

    Vaccine Versus Virus: The First Battle Round

    Vaccine: Monovalent.

    Result: The vaccine failed.

    Time lapsed: Seven months from the first monovalent vaccine launched in January 2021 until the dominant delta wave in July 2021 in the United States.

    Since then, a concern regarding the vaccine strategy of generating vaccine escape variants has been raised by scientists, including researchers from Michigan State University.

    Second Generation Vaccine: XBB.1.5 Won

    People continued to witness the declining effects of the original vaccine against delta, even after boosters were widely administered. The government continually stressed that the original vaccines had sufficient efficacy, one time after another.

    Almost all of Omicron and its subvariants have developed specific mutations that have made them spread more quickly while evading our immune response. It has been clearly defined as an immune escape strain according to this Nature review.

    A surprising virus, Omicron (B.1.1.529) surged more quickly than any previous strain and completely took over by April 2022. This emergence of hypermutated, increasingly transmissible Omicron variant significantly threatened the vaccine strategy.

    It harbors multiple amino acid mutations in the spike (including Q498R and N501Y), which significantly enhance binding to the ACE2 receptor. It has also altered the cell entry pathway which further contributes to its ability to escape from vaccine protection.

    In mid-2022, BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of Omicron were the dominant COVID-19 variants in the United States and were predicted to circulate in the second half of 2022.

    Thus, Pfizer and Moderna quickly took the initiative to develop bivalent boosters based on the original strain from Wuhan and Omicron BA.4 and BA.5. They made it within another miraculously short time frame of just a few months.

    On August 31, 2022, the FDA approved the bivalent booster shots of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines designed to target the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, with Pfizer only providing the data on eight mice.

    However, Omicron keeps quickly changing, splitting into even more diversified subgroups. Soon after the new bivalent vaccine was distributed, BA.4 and BA.5 became history.

    A new variant XBB.1.5 began appearing in October 2022 and reached its peak in April 2023. It combines two descendent lineages (BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75) of Omicron. The featured new spike protein mutation (F486P) leads to increased transmissibility and significant escape from the vaccine.

    Not surprisingly, the antibody levels to XBB.1.5 in bivalent mRNA-boosted individuals declined significantly to pre-booster levels after only three months. The bivalent booster vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19-associated hospitalization declined to as low as 24 percent at six months post-vaccination, according to CDC data collected from September 2022 to April 2023.

    The second round ended when the second generation bivalent mRNA vaccine encountered the XBB.1.5 starting in April 2023.

    Vaccine Versus Virus: The Second Battle Round

    Vaccine: Bivalent mRNA.

    Result: The vaccine failed.

    Time lapsed: Five months after the bivalent booster vaccine launched in September 2022 and was utilized until the U.S. dominant wave of XBB.1.5 in January 2023 emerged.

    Third Generation Vaccine: Doomed to Fail

    As of September 2023, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines have been reformulated—for the third time—this time based on XBB.1.5, which is the great-grandchild of Omicron. This latest booster recommendation applies to all individuals, regardless of previous COVID-19 vaccination history.

    However, one month before the 3.0 vaccine was approved, the dominant virus had already changed from XBB.1.5 to EG.5—the “Eris” variant, which spreads faster and has a stronger ability to escape from the XBB.1.5 vaccine.

    Vaccine Versus Virus: The Third Battle Round

    Vaccine: XBB.1.5 mRNA.

    Result: Vaccine doomed to fail.

    Time lapsed: Less than one month from the XBB.1.5 booster vaccine launch in October 2023 to the U.S. dominant wave of vaccine escape by EG.5 or other cousin variants in October 2023.

    Omicron continues to change from XBB to JN, HK.3, EG.5, and  HV.1—all belonging to the huge and diversified Omicron family.

    EG.5, carrying an additional F456L mutation, is significantly more resistant to neutralization by the sera from vaccinated people. That means even the most recent version of the COVID-19 vaccine based on XBB.1.5 is going to lose its protection with EG.5. Since the risk of breakthrough infection remains high, the WHO listed EG.5 as a “variant of concern” in early August.

    While HV.1 shares almost all spike mutations that EG.5 carries, it took on a surprising additional mutation (L452R) from a remote ancestor delta variant in 2011, which had normally disappeared in the omicron variant. HV.1 can further escape the XBB.1.5-based vaccine-induced immunity and is even more evasive than EG.5.

    The same detour trick of HV.1 is also used by JN.1 coming on the scene in August 2023. It gains an additional L455S mutation, switching from the XBB sublineage to BA.2.86 (Pirola).

    The HK.3 virus has played a novel trick. It has two mutations in the adjacent spike 455 and 456 positions (L455F and F456L), thus called a “FLip.” Together, this virus binds even more tightly to ACE2 and is taking off slowly in Brazil and Spain.

    Both HK.3 (FLip) and JN.1 present even lower binding affinities, meaning the vaccine is even less effective than the current version, raising further concerns over vaccine strategy.

    Despite the extraordinary speed of vaccine development against COVID-19 and the continued mass vaccination program, the never-ending emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants threatens to significantly overturn the vaccine’s intended effects.

    This is a tiring battle between vaccines and the virus. The winners and losers are clear. The microscopic tricks utilized by the SARS-CoV-2 virus variants are far superior to the vaccines’ unproven technology.

    Alerts have been raised and major concerns have been discussed by scientists as early as 2021 in top-ranked journals including The Lancet and Nature in addition to Nature Reviews, eBioMedicine (part of The Lancet Discovery Science), and other publications through 2023.

    The common view is that the pressure exerted on viruses from repeated vaccination programs serves as a primary driver of the diversified variants of SARS-CoV-2.

    If humans continue to develop vaccines based on these emerging new variants, there will continue to be repeated failures. How many more failures will it take to realize that all of these vaccine efforts have been in vain?

    It is a time for rational deliberation to pause to reflect on finding the root cause of the viral infection.

    We already have a dynamic shield of protection against serious viral attacks—our natural immunity. Only by facing our own innate immunity will the virus find its tricks useless.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 20:20

  • Retailers Expect A Weaker Holiday Season
    Retailers Expect A Weaker Holiday Season

    This is not what Bidenomics promised…

    Yesterday, we highlighted the fact that retail job cuts were the highest since 2020.

    Amid the early holiday shopping season, retailers have cut 72,182 jobs through October, a 258% increase from the 20,191 jobs eliminated in 2022, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

    This marks the most significant number of job cuts since retailers cut 179,520 jobs in October 2020.

    Additionally, corporate America is delivering the bleakest sales reports in four years this earnings season, a sign that weakening consumer demand is limiting companies’ ability to raise prices further.

    “We heard a lot of caution in managements’ guidance during the season and that’s exactly what we are watching for — weaker sales and margins compression as pricing power wanes,” said Marija Veitmane, senior multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets.

    “For now, consumer and corporates still have access to credit, but it’s getting harder and more expensive. Once that dries out, we would see more pain.”

    Not a pretty picture, but it gets worse…

    As Apollo’s Torsten Sløk highlighted this week, hiring for the holiday season is generally done in October, and adding up new jobs created in the BLS-defined holiday season retail sectors in the latest employment report shows that retailers expect a weaker holiday season.

    The BLS defines holiday sectors as furniture, electronics, personal care, clothing, sporting goods, general merchandise stores, miscellaneous store retailers (e.g., florists, office supply stores, gift shops, and pet shops), and non-store retailers (e.g., online shopping and mail-order houses, vending machine operators, and direct store establishments).

    This soft outlook is consistent with growing inventories at many retailers.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 20:00

  • Biden 2.0: Can The President Avoid The "Second-Term Curse"?
    Biden 2.0: Can The President Avoid The “Second-Term Curse”?

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Below is my column in The Hill on a second Biden Administration and what it might entail in policy priorities. With one year before the next presidential election, the Hill asked me to project what such a second term might look like for President Joe Biden.

    Here is the column:

    Popular culture has curses that range from the charming (the Billy Goat Curse) to the chilling (King Tut). No curse, however, has more objective validity than the “second-term curse” of American presidents.

    Only 21 presidents have stuck around for a second round. For those, the additional four years have proven the downfall of many a good president.

    While some have actually died in successive terms (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lincoln, McKinley), others have politically died from debilitating scandals, from Grant to Nixon to Clinton.

    Some second-term presidents become far too comfortable in their second terms, allowing others to dictate decisions.

    For others, it is not laziness but legacy that gets them into trouble. Some feel a certain liberty and license that comes with being a lame duck president — pursuing a legacy with reckless abandon.

    A second term for Joe Biden could easily repeat these common failings, particularly if the U.S. House remains in Republican hands. During the election, Biden pledged to follow a strategy that served him well over decades of politics: to pursue a moderate government that unites a divided country. He then immediately abandoned that strategy and moved sharply to the left. The general view was that Biden handed over much of governing to far-left aides, who proceeded to populate his administration with similar far-left appointees.

    The decision to lead from the left will likely make this election more challenging for Biden, who could well join the other 10 presidents who lost bids for a second term. To succeed, he will have to defend those policies in this election.

    It is less likely that Biden will break from his Cabinet and staff in a second term. To the contrary, second terms tend to be more ideologically aggressive, since they free presidents from the need to face voters again. Second terms are when presidents are most likely to yield to temptation.

    Second-term presidents tend to have little patience for negotiations as they watch their final years in politics ticking away. If one or both houses of Congress remain under Republican control, Biden is likely to dramatically increase his controversial use of unilateral action in areas like the environment and immigration. He has already lost a number of major legal cases finding that he exceeded his constitutional authority. That is not likely to deter a second-term Biden.

    On specific issues, Biden is likely to become more extreme.

    For example, Biden has already been criticized by industry for fulfilling his pledge to hamper domestic fossil fuel production and prioritize green technologies in the name of climate change. Even as hostile countries like Iran, Russia and Venezuela have raked in billions from oil sales, Biden has pushed for greater production by such countries rather than production in the U.S. Despite activists’ superficial complaints, he showed a remarkable level of commitment to this issue in his first term, and is likely to become more aggressive in a second term.

    Specifically, climate czar John Kerry is likely to be given the ultimate “green light” in pursuing new international agreements, as the administration tries to bolster flagging sales of electric vehicles by putting pressure on increasingly jittery auto companies.

    Biden has often called for gun bans and other measures to combat gun violence in the U.S. His claims have often been historically or technically challenged. The range of movement for Congress and the president is limited by the Second Amendment and the individual right to bear arms.

    However, Biden has made gun control a major part of his legacy. He is expected to pursue new legislation in Congress or, if the Democrats do not control the legislative branch, unilateral action through federal agencies. We saw the later type of measures recently when the administration imposed a moratorium on gun exports to much of the world, pending further review about where such guns would be used.

    Biden has faced withering criticism over his immediate moves after taking office to dismantle Trump measures along the border and to stop any additional building of segments of the wall, despite the rusting border material left at the border. Rather than build the wall, the administration sold the wall material for scrap, at a fraction of its value. As with the fossil fuel policies, the commitment has been impressive, given the public backlash with an election looming.

    It is not clear whether a second term will make Biden more or less likely to crack down on the southern border.

    The good money says that he will be more likely to yield to his party’s far-left in pursuing paths to employment, citizenship and other measures for undocumented persons.

    Across the country, Democrats are running on abortion rights. Biden has rallied his supporters to the pro-choice cause. With a sizable number of Democratic members making this a priority, it is likely that Biden will double down on unilateral actions to target states that have passed limits on abortion, while continuing an equally aggressive effort in the courts to reverse or curtail current precedent.

    The other issue that concerns me most, as someone associated with the free speech community, is the impact that a second Biden term would have on the First Amendment. Biden in his first term has proven the most hostile president toward free speech since John Adams. His administration has maintained a massive system committed to the monitoring and censorship of social media.

    This elaborate system recently led to a court finding an unprecedented, “Orwellian” attack on free speech. Free of the pressure of a new election, Biden is likely to double down on such efforts to limit what his administration views as “disinformation, malinformation, and misinformation” in areas ranging from climate change to election fraud to transgender policy.

    For a second-term president, what is past is prelude. Biden is likely to move even more boldly to the left, where he has laid the foundation for his presidency. In his first term, Biden had every reason to fulfill his pledge to lead from the center, yet chose not to do so despite dismal popularity levels.

    A shift now to the center would muddle his legacy and make him appear opportunistic in his prior appeal to the far-left.

    The odds favor more of the same, as Biden seeks to seal a legacy as the greenest, most anti-gun and most pro-abortion-rights president in history.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 19:40

  • Used Vehicle Prices Record Largest Maximum Drawdown In History 
    Used Vehicle Prices Record Largest Maximum Drawdown In History 

    Auto research firm Cox Automotive – the owner of the closely followed Manheim price index – published new data this week for October that shows wholesale used-vehicle prices continue to slide and have reached the lowest levels since April 2021. 

    The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index stood at 209.4 in October, down 2.3% from September. The index is down 4% from a year ago. These wholesale prices filter into the retail side of the market with a slight lag.  

    “October revealed some not-so-spooky price moves, namely a reversal of the gains that were seen during the prior two months,” said Chris Frey, senior manager of Economic and Industry Insights for Cox Automotive.

    Frey continued, “This confirms the caution that was mentioned last month The UAW strike, avoiding one action that could have led to higher wholesale prices. October’s price decline is eerily similar to last October’s 2.2% drop, and this was not unexpected as the market remains balanced. Wholesale vehicle values typically experience some modest increases during the holiday season, and with two months remaining, we could see some upward price movements.” 

    Charles Schwab Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders was the first to point out on social media platform X that the Manheim price index has “extended its maximum drawdown to -18%, which is largest in index’s history.” 

    X user CarDealershipGuy said the “strikes [UAW] are over” and “now back to reality.” He said used car demand is waning. 

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

    Sliding demand comes as Bankrate data shows the average borrowing rates for used cars have surged from around 3.85% in Feb. 2022 to 7.3% this month. A rate shock like this – with used car prices still above pre-Covid highs has sparked an affordability crisis among consumers. 

    The most significant drawdown in history for wholesale used car prices only means that more and more Americans who panic-bought cars during Covid peak will find themselves underwater in auto loans. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 19:20

  • White House Admits "Many, Many Thousands Of Innocents" Killed In Gaza, Still Says "No Conditions" On Military Aid To Israel
    White House Admits “Many, Many Thousands Of Innocents” Killed In Gaza, Still Says “No Conditions” On Military Aid To Israel

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The White House acknowledged on Monday that the US-backed Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed “many, many thousands of innocent people” as the Biden administration continues unconditional support for Israel’s war.

    The comments were made by White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who previously told reporters to expect that Israel would continue to kill innocent civilians.

    Image via AP

    Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that at least 10,328 Palestinians have been killed, including 4,237 children. Thousands more are missing and presumed to be under the rubble.

    The Biden administration has cast doubt on the numbers coming from Gaza’s Health Ministry but is not denying civilians are being killed on a massive scale. Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder has also acknowledged that “thousands” of civilians have been killed.

    Despite the grim death toll, the US still refuses to place any limits on Israel’s use of American weapons. When asked on Tuesday about the civilian casualties, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, “We don’t put conditions on weapons that we’re sending or that Israel is using.” 

    Here’s the exchange from the DoD transcript below:

    Q: And separately, yesterday, General Ryder acknowledged that thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed from Israel’s attacks, and at the same — in the same briefing, also acknowledged that the U.S. is not putting any conditions on the weapons its sending. Is the Pentagon comfortable with the fact that the weapons it’s sending could be used to kill civilians?

    MS. SINGH: Well, we don’t put conditions on weapons that we’re — that we’re sending or that Israel is using, but I can tell you, in all of our — both public and — and private conversations, the Secretary and this administration has been very clear that humanitarian law, proportionality, always be taken into consideration when conducting any type of response within Gaza.

    The administration is also refusing to disclose the types of weapons it’s sending to Israel. Kirby said in an October 23 press briefing that the US is shipping military equipment to Israel “on a near daily basis” but that the administration won’t detail what Israel’s receiving “for their own operational security purposes.”

    Tensions have also been growing in the State Department’s press briefings over the soaring Gaza civilian death toll, as the below demonstrates:

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

    While US weapons shipments to Israel are shrouded in secrecy, a report from The Intercept noted that the Pentagon has been releasing fact sheets detailing the weapons and numbers of rounds the US has been providing Ukraine.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 19:00

  • Trump Net Worth Jumps $500 Million Since Leaving White House
    Trump Net Worth Jumps $500 Million Since Leaving White House

    As former President Donald Trump stands trial in New York on charges of inflating his wealth by billions of dollars, his net worth has come back into the spotlight.

    According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Trump’s fortune went from $2.6 billion in 2021 to $3.1 billion, a jump of $500 million, Bloomberg reports.

    Despite the sluggish real estate market, Trump’s businesses have demonstrated considerable resilience. Notably, revenues at his golf courses have soared by more than 50% since 2019, reflecting a surge in profitability. This financial buoyancy coincides with Trump’s move to Florida, which has experienced a real estate boom, benefiting properties such as Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and the Doral resort in Miami. Additionally, the liquidation of his Washington hotel and the reduction of loans have left Trump with a robust financial standing, featuring more liquidity and less debt than at any previous point in the past decade.

    “The company has never been stronger and never been better,” said Eric Trump, EVP of the Trump Organization, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We have the most cash and the lowest debt. We are in a fantastic spot.”

    The ongoing trial dissecting Trump’s financial disclosures. While Trump claims his assets are worth  $4.5 billion, Bloomberg’s calculations have consistently been lower. The state of New York has accused Trump of inflating his fortune, adding intensity to the trial’s proceedings.

    Trump argued in court that the properties accused of being overvalued are, in fact, undervalued when considering the premium his brand contributes to their market value. He also suggested that his financial statements were not a pivotal factor for banks when deciding on his loans.

    “They just weren’t a very important element in banks’ decision-making process,” Trump told the court. “And we’ll explain that as this trial goes along.”

    Mar-a-Lago, for example, was valued by Trump in 2021 at $612.1 million, while Bloomberg has it at $240 million, and the state of New York has it at $27.6 million.

    According to Florida realtor Liza Pulitzer, New York’s estimated value for Mar-a-Lago “was a shock to the real estate community and anybody with any understanding of the island and its values.”

    That assumes a buyer views it as a single-family residence. It’s currently not zoned for such use, though Trump is able to reside there through a loophole designating himself an employee.

    Trump’s legal team engaged an expert witness who argued that a future buyer could do the same thing. And if they didn’t like the idea of sharing their property with others, they could reduce the club to a membership of one. Still, it’s unclear if Palm Beach would allow that without a change to its zoning status.

    Historically, Mar-a-Lago never made much money for the Trump organization, but that seems to be changing. It took in about $41 million in revenue last year, according to Trump’s most recent ethics disclosure, compared with $21 million in 2019. -Bloomberg

    Meanwhile, Trump valued his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower at $131.3 million, while Bloomberg has it at $40 million, and New York hasn’t weighed in.

    Trump Tower in New York City.Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    Trump’s trial could set precedent for future disputes involving high-profile properties.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 18:40

  • Democrats Should Propose Alternative Offsets
    Democrats Should Propose Alternative Offsets

    Authored by Bill King via RealClear Wire,

    Last week, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel, paired with a corresponding cut in the increased funding for the IRS included in the Inflation Control Act passed last year. The bill was almost unanimously opposed by Democrats, who lashed out at the new speaker and Republicans for holding aid to Israel hostage to providing tax cuts to the wealthy.

    The bill, which will be dead on arrival at the U.S. Senate, was mostly partisan theatrics, with Republicans attempting to placate their base that is pro-Israel but hates more funding for the IRS. Democrats, however, played along with the theatrics when they could have begun a serious conversation about our national debt.

    After all, it did just exceed $33 trillion and now equates to 123% of our gross domestic product. While that is down slightly from stratospheric levels at the height of the pandemic, these are levels we have not seen since WWII. So, I am completely okay with members of Congress insisting that any new spending be offset by cutting spending somewhere else.

    However, I do not agree with the Republicans’ proposal to reduce IRS enforcement. I pay my taxes and I suspect that the vast majority of you do as well. When someone is not paying their taxes that means that you and I must pay more.

    Many economists estimate that as much as 10% of our economy is conducted underground and is never taxed. Much of this is in the illicit drug and human trafficking trades. But there is also a large independent contractor community that largely does not pay the same income and payroll taxes that you and I do. At a GDP of about $28 trillion, if the 10% estimates are accurate, that is $2.8 trillion escaping taxation. The federal government collects about 20% for every dollar of GDP, so taxing the $2.8 trillion in the underground economy could yield as much as $500-600 billion annually. By the way, that would be enough to cut our current annual deficit in half.

    But beyond those completely avoiding taxation in the shadows, there is plenty of other fudging that goes on in the preparation of tax returns. For many years, I practiced commercial litigation. In a number of cases, I had the opportunity to review tax returns of prominent and successful individuals as part of the discovery process. I saw all kinds of schemes to reduce their tax bills that would not stand up in an audit. I saw one case where a couple owned a vacation home in a family limited partnership and wrote off the expenses as if it was a business. I saw another where the owners of a private company wrote off all of the expenses of their corporate jet, yet the logs showed that it was routinely used for purely personal trips.

    Those in the underground economy and those fudging their tax returns do so, and almost always get away with it, because the IRS is overwhelmed and only audits a tiny fraction, about .04% of returns filed. I am perfectly fine with Congress setting limits on the kinds of returns that can be audited – say only those over $500,000 and those failing to report their income altogether. But to just say we are going to starve the IRS of resources so they cannot enforce our tax laws is self-defeating and grossly unfair to those of us who do pay our taxes.

    And it’s not as though there aren’t plenty of other places to cut or loopholes to plug – loopholes which ultimately have the same effect as spending. For example, the carried interest loophole, which allows private equity investors to treat an interest they receive for putting to together a deal as a capital gain instead of regular income, costs the federal government as much as $18 billion annually – enough to fund the aid to Israel by itself.

    Of course, the cost of the aid to Israel, even if you throw in the aid to Ukraine and some money for the southern border (all of which enjoy widespread, bi-partisan support), are a rounding error on our national debt and deficits going forward. The Congressional Budget Office’s current baseline projections are that the federal government will run up another $15 trillion in debt this decade, mostly driven by the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The entire package proposed by Biden for Israel, Ukraine, and the border is only about 7% of the deficit this year and .05% of the deficit projected for this decade.

    Until we start talking about the fact that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not sustainable in their current forms, any discussion about the national debt and deficits is mostly partisan noise. But you must start somewhere. So, let’s hear it, Democrats. What is your alternative proposed offset to provide this aid to Israel and Ukraine and to strengthen our southern border?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 11/08/2023 – 18:20

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  • Malone: PsyWar & Washington DC's Bureaucracy
    Malone: PsyWar & Washington DC’s Bureaucracy

    Authored by Dr. Robert Malone via Substack,

    Lack of market force corrections combined with PsyWar propaganda yields unstoppable parasitic growth…

    My Dearest American Friends and Colleagues:

    Just in case you didn’t notice, since the 1980s we have developed a very big problem which is growing exponentially. The US national debt has become unsustainable.

    To a significant extent this debt is enabled by irresponsible printing and injection of fiat currency into the overall US economy by an unaccountable private “Federal Reserve” Bank. Today’s Federal Reserve routinely acts as a willing enabler rather than a check on administrative and deep state spending. The management of the Federal Reserve has become integrated into the interests and culture of the permanent bureaucracy. But that is merely one of many symptoms of a deeper problem.

    Many factors drive this explosion of debt, but near the top of the causation list is that the executive branch and its permanent bureaucracy (administrative state + deep state) just does not care. They have no pressing reasons to care. They have developed a whole special economic logic to justify and rationalize not caring, called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

    Functionally, unlike either industry (market forces) or the military (failed wars), there are no external forces currently limiting the expansion of the dysfunctional, counterproductive and (frankly) parasitic behavior of today’s Executive branch. Legislative branch oversight has been emasculated by consent with lobbyists collectively clamping down the Burdizzo, and in 1984 the Judicial branch conceded its authority to serve as a functional check on Executive/administrative branch arrogance via the Supreme Court Chevron Deference decision. And like the Federal Reserve, the informal “fourth estate” (corporate media), which historically provided a separate and semi-autonomous oversight function, has also been captured by this permanent bureaucracy.

    The administrative and deep state has been so successful in capturing and manipulating media and related communication (largely via CIA, FBI, CISA and intelligence community infiltration) that they are able to seamlessly deploy advanced modern propaganda, PsyWar technologies and financial giveaways to control all narratives and information which might otherwise cause the majority of the electorate to check their actions, and in this way they completely avoid accountability. The CIA, FBI, CISA and intelligence community have become enablers of administrative and deep state excesses and overreach. With this corrupted information ecosystem, there cannot be any accountability of the administrative and deep state. In cooperation with a variety of corporate and NGO partners via “public-private partnerships”, the executive branch has completely captured and co-opted all oversight mechanisms which could enable or enforce checks and balances. The “ballot box” is well on its way to being a mere inconvenience, because for the majority of voters the synthetic false reality projected by captured media is the only political “reality” they encounter.

    This is how modern nation-states abruptly collapse. As one recent example, recall the history of the USSR and most of the former communist Eastern European states. Modern nation-states fail by suffocating under the weight of bloated unaccountable bureaucracies whose primary objectives are to serve and sustain themselves rather than to promote and defend the general welfare and security of the citizenry. The social contract is stomped into dust by the boot of an uncontrollably arrogant, authoritarian, self-serving bureaucracy.

    To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?

    -John Marshall, Chief justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835

    To illustrate my point with one example of the current situation, please consider the following from “Heard Around the Hill”. This is a publication of the Council on National Policy, which has provided a snapshot of the current state of the Federal Budget stalemate between the Legislative branch – constitutionally tasked with managing the federal budget and funding the government, and the Executive branch (and it’s permanent administrative bureaucracy) – tasked with administering that budget.

    House Republicans passed a plan to address the nation’s debt ceiling Wednesday, tying the increase to desperately-needed spending limits and reforms.

    The package includes:

    • Limiting future spending to FY22 levels

    • Reclaiming unspent COVID money

    • Defunding 87,000 new IRS agents

    • Implementing work requirements for government assistance programs

    The White House refused to negotiate, insisting Congress give them a blank check for future spending and betting that proposed reforms could not garner enough votes in the House.

    Even Democrats have been critical of Biden’s refusal to negotiate. Senator Manchin described the approach as a “deficiency of leadership.” House Members have also disapproved of the tactic.

    “A Down Payment On Fiscal Sanity” is how economist and former Assistant Treasury Secretary Mike Faulkender detailed the Republican plan.

    In discussing the current state of US Federal government, these terms “Administrative State” and “Deep State” are often tossed about as if they are one and the same, but that is most definitely not the case. As described by Kash Patel, the Deep State is a type of shadow governance made up of informal, extra-constitutional, secret and unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a nation state’s duly elected political leadership, acting in pursuit of agendas and goals which are separate from the interests of the citizenry.

    Administrative State is a term used to describe the phenomenon of executive branch administrative agencies which exercise bureaucratic power to create, adjudicate, and enforce their own rules. The administrative state abuses congressional non-delegation, judicial deference, executive control of agencies, procedural rights, and agency dynamics to assert control over and above both republic and constitutional principles.

    Another related term often used to describe the modern American bureaucratic state is “Leviathan”, a word with biblical origins repurposed as the title of Thomas Hobbes’ monarchist 1651 book which advocates a strong centralized government. Hobbes argues that civil peace and social unity can be best achieved through the establishment of a commonwealth via a social contract. Hobbes’ ideal commonwealth is ruled by a singular sovereign power responsible for protecting the security of the commonwealth, while being granted absolute authority to ensure the common defense.\

    In many ways the modern American Administrative and Deep State, with its “public-private partnerships”, has come to resemble the 17th through 19th century British monarchy, with an entrenched bureaucracy (the permanent administrative state) functionally managed by a largely hereditary elite, surrounded by the concentric status rings of courtiers which comprise the Deep State (in the current embodiment). Within the growing hereditary ruling American oligarchy there is some degree of turnover and palace intrigue, as the fortunes of some wane while others rise. As with the rise of the British bourgeoisie and mixing of gentry with financially successful upper middle castes, this often reflects broader financial and technological trends within the overall geo-political and geo-economic context in which a globalized oligarchy competes.

    The obvious irony being that this type of system was precisely what the American Revolution was intended to overturn, and precisely what the US Constitution was written to prevent.

    And above all of this, we have now added a transcendently powerful new capability to the Leviathan of old. The rise of the CIA and its “Mockingbird/Mighty Wurlitzer” infiltration of both media and academia, the FBI and its politically weaponized COINTELPRO-type surveillance, infiltration and disruption capabilities, the DoD and its PsyOps/PsyWar capabilities designed for offshore conflicts but turned against domestic citizenry to support executive branch-defined “crisis” management, and the explosive growth of a new censorship-industrial complex has yielded a “Leviathan” with reality-bending information control capabilities the likes of which the historic British monarchy could only dream of. Propaganda has come a long way from the days of Edward Bernays’ seminal 1928 book by the same name.

    The Washington DC-based Administrative/Deep State has emerged as a separate entity unto itself, with its own culture, purpose, privileges and prerogatives. A key characteristic of this separate cultural phenomenon and mindset- often geographically referred to as the “inside the beltway” set (referring to the I 495 freeway loop encircling DC and environs)- is a focus on self-preservation and personal advancement, rather than on achieving a mission, producing a deliverable, or serving the needs of outside-the-beltway flyover state serfdom.

    Imperial DC beltway denizens form an incestuous culture, much like any historic imperial court. Passive-aggressive “slow walking” of initiatives has been refined to a fine art. Sexual favors are routinely exchanged to seal short-term alliances, both within agencies and between contractors and “Govies”. Nuances of administrative regulations are weaponized to enable petty counterproductive one-upmanship. “Beltway Bandit” corporations, lobbyists (registered and unregistered) and “think tanks” cultivate, collect and support Deep State “swamp monsters” when the political wing they are allied with is out of power for a period, anticipating that these courtiers will be rotated back in with the next political shift or Executive branch “change” in leadership. And all are tied together in a revolving maypole dance. Together, they collectively weave a Uniparty in which the commonalities of shared commitment to advancing the interests of the Administrative/Deep State court are far more important and lasting than any inconvenient superficial narrative about serving the interests of the general electorate and citizenry. In this beltway culture, actually solving national problems takes a back bench to the pageantry and Machiavellian machinations of the elite courtiers and their allies.

    No wonder the general populace often feels that their votes for elected Federal officials are irrelevant. Because they are, in fact, increasingly irrelevant. And as if that were not bad enough, the permanent administrative state considers elected and politically appointed officials to be “temporary employees”. The shadowy members of the unaccountable Senior Executive Service (SES) are the ones that actually administer the government.

    But with the advance of PsyWar capabilities, bolstered by advances in modern psychology, and combined with algorithmic control, censorship, and manipulation of all information, Deep State beltway denizens have been able to achieve a propaganda capability which rivals the Atomic Bomb in its political implications.

    These actors are now able to decouple their activities from objective truth. There can never be any accountability or consequences for mismanagement or misdeeds when they are able to effectively control all information and communication. Objective reality has become a theoretical post-modernist, surrealist construct, able to be contorted, moulded and enforced to comport with any synthetic version of reality which best supports Administrative State, SES and Deep State objectives. Corporate and social media lapdogs (rapidly becoming dominant via alliances with globalized investment funds), are bolstered and legitimized by coopted academia. Together they often act under the strong influence of Administrative State “intelligence” agencies and Deep State actors, and stand ever ready to create, control, propagate, and reinforce whatever narrative is needed.

    Desire to achieve this sort of reality-bending groupthink or mass psychosis has been a common feature of bureaucracies, aristocracies, monarchies and oligarchies for as long as historical records have been kept. But what is different now is the power and penetration of modern digital algorithmic control mechanisms. We now witness creation of a lobotomized servant caste which enables an administrative bureaucracy nirvana of complete lack of accountability is now within reach. What could possibly go wrong?

    I believe that a short answer is “paradigm shift”. This type of cognitive landscape, in which a synthetic reality is preserved and maintained despite increasing divergence from objective reality, is a setup for abrupt introduction of more adaptive alternatives. Examples of synthesized false realities include an unsustainable federal debt, a collapsing “safe and effective” COVID vaccine narrative, and the intrinsic contradictions of human activity-driven carbon dioxide levels representing a global existential crisis. Actively fabricated false realities create a situation where current governmental solutions drift further and further from optimal.

    At some point, an abrupt disruption in perception, power, global finance or available technology will occur – a paradigm shift. And when a system, technical or political, has been prevented by externals from adapting to changing conditions (such as happens with propaganda), then a crisis can trigger catastrophic realignment of divergent synthetic and objective reality. In politics, these “earthquake” moments reflect abrupt resolution of shifting internal forces which have built up tension along a fault line, and often result in either revolutions or catastrophic failures of economies and civilizations.

    Functionally, the US Government is now managed by disconnected Senior Executive Service (SES) “leadership”, acting in harmony with Administrative and Deep State castes, massive transnational financial institutions, public-private partnerships, corporate lobbyists and globalist non-governmental organizations such as the UN, WHO, WEF and Gates foundation. This supra-constitutional alignment has enabled permanent Administrative and Deep State “management” of an out-of-control federal budget which supports a grotesque obsession with their maypole dance, court drama, one-upmanship, and Machiavellian machinations. And all who object are censored, subjected to character assassination and labeled fringe outliers by captured media.

    Rather than solving the missions and problems which plague the electorate that they currently parasitize, these erstwhile public servants have removed any ability of citizenry and electorate to provide the oversight, control and correction function originally designed into the US Constitution by those with lifelong experience in dealing with an earlier Leviathan. One that was also characterized by arbitrary and capricious administrative authoritarianism. And in the current embodiment we now have amazingly powerful psychological tools placed in the hands of venal, self-serving, immature and all too often sociopathic individuals seeking self-gratification.

    Indeed, what can possibly go wrong?

    Abrupt, catastrophic economic and/or military collapse, that’s what.

    How many wars has the USA lost since WW II? And now this amazingly expensive and corrupt Ukrainian foreign adventure is deconstructing itself. Which (mis) adventure seems to have mostly worked to strengthen and hone Russian military might while depleting and fracturing NATO unity and capabilities. Biden sought to drain and exhaust Putin, thereby yielding Russian regime change. In an amazing feat of geopolitical jiu-jitsu, the precise opposite may well come to pass.

    And then we have the obscenely bungled public health and financial responses to the COVIDcrisis. And growing awareness that the “climate crisis” has been synthesized and weaponized to advance a variety of geopolitical power, control and financial objectives.

    This level of massive Administrative and Deep State mismanagement is not sustainable, even with US economic and natural resource muscle.

    History and archaeology is littered with the bones of civilizations and bureaucracies which became inwardly focused and lost track of their function and purpose. I would love to believe in a fairy tale world in which modest modifications in administrative agency guidelines and practices could result in a more functional ruling bureaucracy. But I am too old for fairy tales, and have myself spent too many years in the bowels of the Federal administrative state.

    I fear that the dysfunctional and fundamentally corrupt DC Beltway culture will not change until we have a massive paradigm shift of some sort or another. Resolving these structural problems will require a major correction. It could occur at the ballot box, but the power of the intelligence community/censorship-industrial complex to distort reality to protect itself may have already reached a stage where this cannot happen. However, the debt, the massive unsustainable debt, combined with the insatiable hunger of the Administrative and Deep State working cooperatively with the industrial masters of forever war and “biodefense” may soon trigger a global paradigm shift in power and finance.

    And if that happens, I can only hope that I have enough guns, ammo, farm infrastructure and a well developed network of like minded friends to ride out the following storm.

    But in such a brave new world, getting diesel for trucks and tractors will definitely be a problem. Probably time to dust off my equine teamster skills and train some horses to pull.

    *  *  *

    Who is Robert Malone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:45

  • Tlaib Censured By House For Saying Biden 'Supports Genocide' In Gaza
    Tlaib Censured By House For Saying Biden ‘Supports Genocide’ In Gaza

    Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was censured by the House Tuesday night after posting a video on X claiming that President Biden “support(s) the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

    The clip also shows pro-Palestine protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” – a refrain which Tlaib described as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate,” and Jews interpret as “kill all the Jews.”

    She was reprimanded by a vote of 234-188-4, with 22 Democrats joining the majority of Republicans to support the resolution, and four Republicans voting against it on free speech grounds (Buck (CO), Duarte (CA), Massie (KY), McClintock (CA)). Four voted present. Joyce (R-OH), Norcross (D-NJ), Spanberger (D-VA), Wild (D-PA).

    According to Business Insider:

    McCormick’s resolution focused on three aspects of Tlaib’s rhetoric:

    • Her use of the word “resistance” in her statement on the Hamas attack, where she argued that the “suffocating, dehumanizing conditions” in the Palestinian territories could “lead to resistance.”
    • Her claim that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza, despite contradictory evidence. She later acknowledged that the Gaza Health Ministry’s claims were in doubt and called for an independent investigation.
    • Her use of the slogan “from the river to the sea,” a slogan that many view as antisemitic but is viewed as a call for freedom and equality by many Palestinians.

    In a floor speech earlier on Tuesday, Tlaib argued that Republicans were trying to censor her and dehumanized Palestinians, while fellow Democrats argued that she has a right to free speech.

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    “It’s a shame my colleagues are more focused on silencing me than they are on saving lives, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000,” wrote Tlaib in a statement “Many of them have shown me that Palestinian lives simply do not matter to them, but I still do not police their rhetoric or actions.”

    Last week an effort to censure Tlaib failed, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a resolution accusing Tlaib of “leading an insurrection” on Capitol Hill during an Oct. 18 protest.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:25

  • DOJ Launches 'All Hands On Deck' Initiative Cracking Down On San Francisco Open Drug Market
    DOJ Launches ‘All Hands On Deck’ Initiative Cracking Down On San Francisco Open Drug Market

    Authored by Lear Zhou via The Epoch Times,

    A comprehensive response to the open air drug market in San Francisco, coordinated with joint federal, state, and local law enforcement was launched last week, announced Ismail J. Ramsey, the U.S. Attorney of California Northern District of California in a press conference.

    “‘All Hands on Deck’ was designed to change the basic cost/benefit analysis for fentanyl dealers,” said Mr. Ramsey.

    “Together with all our federal, state, and local partners, my office is using targeted wiretaps, arrests, and searches throughout the Bay Area to stem the flow of drugs and dealers coming into San Francisco from nearby counties.”

    With the new strategy Mr. Ramsey revealed, not only drug suppliers but even low-level street fentanyl dealers arrested by local law enforcement may also face federal charges, if they’re picked up on a random day once a week.

    U.S. Attorney of California Northern District of California, Ismail J. Ramsey speaks at the ‘All Hands on Deck’ initiative to crack down on San Francisco’s open drug market. He is joined by SFPD Chief Bill Scott (L) and FBI special agent Robert K. Tripp (R) on Nov 2 in San Francisco, Calif. (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

    In the last four months, more than 30 suspects have been charged with federal crimes. Meanwhile, nearly 50 kilos of fentanyl and 12 kilos of methamphetamine have been removed from the streets in Tenderloin, nearly double or a 169 percent increase compared with the amount seized in the same period last year, said Mr. Ramsey.

    From Feb. 12, 2020 to Feb. 12, 2023, there were 218 fatal overdoses in San Francisco, many of them due to fentanyl. There were another 8,974 non-fatal overdoses, and a map showed that hot zones of violent crimes overlapped with the locations where drug issues were dominant.

    Map shown at the “All Hands on Deck” initiative to crack down on San Francisco open drug market at 450 Golden Gave Ave on Nov. 2 (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

    “It is no secret that parts of this great city are infamously known for an open air drug market where substance use and crime have exploded,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Brian Clark of the San Francisco field division.

    “That is due in large part to tolerance for drug trafficking, permissive attitudes, fast profits, and a lack of penalties, [which] has been an open invitation for organized crime to come in and operate in San Francisco.”

    The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has identified two primary organizations responsible for flooding San Francisco communities with fentanyl: the Sinaloa and Holy School cartels, according to Mr. Clark.

    “These criminal enterprises rely on a global supply chain from chemical companies in China who supply the cartels with precursor chemicals, which are then manufactured in Mexico for distribution throughout the United States,” Mr. Clark added.

    The Sinaloa Cartel is primarily responsible for manufacturing and drug trafficking in the Tenderloin district and is primarily controlled by Honduran organizations whose members commute into San Francisco to peddle their poison. Dealers have often lived together in East Bay Area homes and purchased drugs from their network, according to Mr. Clark.

    This information was gathered with months of covert operations throughout the Tenderloin, Mr. Clark said.

    “We’ve seen numerous firearms, a variety of drugs, and over 1.6 million lethal doses of fentanyl,” he said.

    This operation has resulted in the arrest of more than 70 individuals in the past 90 days, many of whom are Honduran nationalists, Mr. Clark said.

    San Francisco Mayor London Breed thanked multiple agencies at state and federal levels for their help. Ms. Breed said these have been “of significant importance to us here in San Francisco.”

    “Our local law enforcement agencies … they have been working really hard to help combat this problem in the best way that they could based on many of our local laws, which in some ways provide a number of various limitations,” Ms. Breed said.

    “Well, this is happening, and it is here to stay. We are not letting up; even as APEC approaches, we are not letting up after APEC goes away from San Francisco.”

    San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said, “One of the challenges that my office has faced is having some of our judges take this issue seriously.”

    Prosecutors in the San Francisco DA’s office have filed almost 300 motions to detail drug dealers being charged, but only approximately 30 of those were granted, Ms. Jenkins said.

    From left to right: U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Shawn Bradstreet, ATF special agent Jennifer Cicolani, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins and SFPD Chief Bill Scott at the ‘All Hands on Deck’ initiative at the federal building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on Nov 2 (Lear Zhou/The Epoch Times)

    “We cannot allow our courthouses to be revolving doors for the people who are killing vulnerable San Franciscans and who are tormenting our neighborhoods and our children. The need for federal assistance in this effort was clear,” she added.

    Police Chief William Scott had a message for drug dealers: “So if you think you’re going to outlast us, you’re wrong. If you think you’ve got to adapt and are smarter, you’re wrong. If you think we’re going to go away and let you continue to kill people in our city in record numbers, you’re wrong.”

    “Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for adults in the United States between 18 and 49, and the entire Justice Department under the direction of Attorney General Garland is committed to focus our efforts to try to address the scourge,” Mr. Ramsey said.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 23:05

  • New Dehli Implementing Driving Bans Due To Polluted Air
    New Dehli Implementing Driving Bans Due To Polluted Air

    In move that we’re sure we’ll eventually see in U.S. cities as the climate change rhetoric continues to go parabolic (especially heading into the 2024 election), New Dehli is now implementing license plate based driving bans in order to try and restrict the number of cars on its roads at any given time.

    The measure, which separates cars into license plates ending with odd and even numbers, is going to be put in place on alternate days for a week beginning on November 13, Bloomberg reported this week. 

    The goal is to “lower vehicular pollution”, the report says. In addition to the car ban, heavy vehicles have also been banned from the capital city, with exceptions for essential services. 

    Bloomberg wrote that in recent days, Delhi has persistently emerged at the pinnacle of global pollution rankings, facing alarmingly toxic air quality conditions.

    In response, the regional administration has enacted emergency protocols, including the suspension of educational institutions, a moratorium on construction activities, and a push towards greater reliance on public transportation systems, the report says.

    Previously, the capital has resorted to episodic vehicular restrictions in an effort to mitigate the environmental crisis.

    On the judicial front, the Supreme Court of India is slated to address the issue of Delhi’s escalating pollution on November 7th. Anticipated at this hearing, representatives from Delhi and contiguous states will brief the court on the progress and measures adopted to ameliorate the air quality disaster.

    We’re certain shocked liberals in the U.S. will be beside themselves that there are other places in the world not “doing their part” to fight climate change. Has anyone in India considered taking a hammer to a piece or art to try and fix the problem?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:45

  • Yellen To Meet China's New Economic Czar This Week Ahead Of Biden–Xi Meeting
    Yellen To Meet China’s New Economic Czar This Week Ahead Of Biden–Xi Meeting

    Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is set to hold economic talks with her Chinese counterpart this week before a potential meeting between the top leaders of the world’s two largest economies.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (L) shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on July 8, 2023. (Pedro Pardo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    Ms. Yellen is scheduled to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Nov. 9 and 10, the Treasury Department announced on Nov. 6. The meetings will take place before the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, where Ms. Yellen will host the top finance officials and ministers from the 21 member states of APEC on Nov. 11.

    The Yellen–He meeting was also confirmed by China’s Foreign Ministry. Mr. He will visit the United States from Nov. 8 to Nov. 12, the ministry’s spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said on Nov. 6.

    The announcement came shortly after state media revealed that Mr. He became the head of two separate Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committees that Chinese leader Xi Jinping created in March, a move to bring the financial system under the Party’s direct control.

    ‘Serious Concerns’

    The upcoming Yellen–He meeting follows a series of diplomatic engagements between Washington and Beijing amid rising tensions. The U.S.–China relationship has been strained over issues ranging from the CCP’s military aggressions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to the U.S. export controls and investment bans on advanced technologies to counter the regime’s military modernization.

    Ms. Yellen said ahead of the meeting that the United States is seeking “a stable and healthy economic relationship” with China that requires a “rules-based, level playing field.”

    “This week, I will speak to my counterpart about our serious concerns with Beijing’s unfair economic practices, including its large-scale use of non-market tools, its barriers to market access and its coercive actions against U.S. firms in China,” Ms. Yellen wrote in a Nov. 6 Washington Post op-ed.

    “In certain sectors, these unfair practices have resulted in the overconcentration of the production of critical goods inside China.”

    The United States has responded by seeking to diversify its critical supply chains with a target of not triggering “a disorderly, wholesale private-sector pullback from China,” she wrote

    During her four-day trip to Beijing in July, Ms. Yellen told Chinese officials that the United States wouldn’t allow its national security to be compromised.

    “We continue to take targeted actions to secure our vital security interests,” she said.

    At the same time, Ms. Yellen emphasized that direct conversations with the regime’s senior officials could help reduce the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation. To facilitate the communications, the U.S. Treasury Department and China’s Finance Ministry in September launched two joint working groups to deal with economic and financial issues.

    Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (R) speaks during a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (not pictured) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on July 8, 2023. (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/Getty Images)

    China’s New Economic Czar

    Mr. He was recently appointed as the head of the office of the Central Financial Commission, a Party organ responsible for making policies and supervising the nation’s $61 trillion financial sector, state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Nov. 6.

    Separately, Mr. He also assumed the leadership role of the Central Financial Work Commission, a super financial watchdog that’s tasked with strengthening the CCP’s ideological role in the finance sector, according to the agency.

    The new appointments of Mr. He, a trusted ally of Mr. Xi, make him China’s new economic czar, heading the country’s top decision-making bodies in both economic and financial sectors.

    Mr. He first met with Ms. Yellen in July, when the Treasury chief traveled to Beijing to meet the regime’s senior officials as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reopen the high-level communication lines between Washington and Beijing.

    No ‘Smooth Sailing’ for Biden–Xi Meeting

    Following visits by four senior U.S. officials, as well as a bipartisan Senate delegation, to Beijing this year, the CCP sent its top diplomat, Wang Yi, to Washington in October. During the three-day visit, President Joe Biden hosted Mr. Wang at the White House after talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also met with Mr. Wang.

    President Biden is expected to meet Mr. Xi during the APEC summit, which would mark the first in-person meeting between the two leaders in a year.

    However, Beijing has yet to confirm whether Mr. Xi will travel to Washington for the summit.

    Mr. Wang, who also serves as China’s foreign minister, said the Biden–Xi meeting will be challenging.

    Speaking on the last day of his trip in Washington, Mr. Wang told the U.S. strategic community that arranging a meeting between President Biden and Mr. Xi “will not be smooth sailing” and that the two sides can’t rely on “autopilot” to make it happen.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:25

  • Supreme Court Appears Likely To Preserve Gun Law Disarming Domestic Abusers
    Supreme Court Appears Likely To Preserve Gun Law Disarming Domestic Abusers

    The Supreme Court spent much of Tuesday morning listening to the oral arguments from the Biden administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling striking down the law barring individuals with domestic violence protective orders from owning firearms. The Justices appeared unwilling to overturn the federal ban on firearm possession for people involved in domestic violence disputes. 

    In the first major gun case since last year’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which fundamentally changed how courts view gun control laws, the justices suggested they would reverse a ruling from the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down a 1994 ban on firearms for people under restraining orders.  

    Justices, conservative and liberal, appeared to be persuaded by the oral arguments of the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer to keep the longstanding practice of disarming dangerous people. 

    Several members of the court’s conservative majority said they didn’t interpret the Constitution’s Second Amendment as covering the gun rights of dangerous/non-law abiding people. 

    We previewed last Friday the Biden Department of Justice fast-tracked the case United States v. Rahimi to the Supreme Court in an attempt to nullify or limit the reach of the landmark NYSRPA v. Bruen decision from 2022. 

    “You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked the lawyer for Zackey Rahimi, a Texas resident and drug dealer convicted of violating a domestic violence restraining order by possessing a firearm. The man is challenging the 1994 law after a judge imposed a restraining order to protect a former girlfriend he was accused of attacking. 

    Biden’s top lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, told justices that the 1994 law is critical to the nation’s tradition of disarming dangerous people. 

    “Throughout our nation’s history, legislatures have disarmed those who have committed serious criminal conduct or whose access to guns poses a danger. For example, loyalists, rebels, minors, individuals with mental illness, felons and drug addicts,” Prelogar said.

    This is the High Court’s first test after the year-old NYSRPA v. Bruen ruling strengthened Second Amendment protections and established the constitutional right to carry across the US. 

    However, the implications of the ruling could go well beyond the realm of domestic abuse. It has the potential to result in a re-interpretation of NYSRPA v. Bruen. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 22:05

  • Jiu-Jitsu Associations 'Lead By Example' In Barring Males From Competing In Female Matches
    Jiu-Jitsu Associations ‘Lead By Example’ In Barring Males From Competing In Female Matches

    Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Three national jiu-jitsu associations have recently enacted policies prohibiting males from fighting in female brackets after several competitors went public with their experience in fighting a male opponent who identifies mentally as a female.

    Ansleigh Wilk and Jayden Alexander had to compete against a male in a July 2023 Jiu-Jitsu tournament. (Courtesy of Ms. Wilk and Ms. Alexander)

    “It was a huge turnaround in a really short time,” Marshi Smith, a former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimming champion from the University of Arizona and co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), told The Epoch Times. “We’ve never seen a sport enact change as quickly as Jiu-Jitsu has.”

    Ms. Smith co-founded ICONS with Kim Jones—herself a former NCAA tennis champion and mother of an Ivy League swimmer who had to compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

    ICONS was set up to give women like Ansleigh Wilk and Jayden Alexander, both of whom fought a man in his early 40s at a July competition in Marietta, Georgia, a platform, support, and a voice.

    “I was launched into this after seeing Lia Thomas win the national title, standing on the same podium where I achieved my greatest swimming accomplishment,” Ms. Smith said.

    Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas (2nd L) of Penn University and transgender swimmer Iszac Henig (L) of Yale pose with their medals after placing first and second in the 100-yard freestyle swimming race at the 2022 Ivy League Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 19, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images)

    Olympic gold medalists, American record holders, multiple world champions, and NCAA Women of the Year petitioned the NCAA for change but to no avail.

    Despite no response, ICONS has become a resource for advocacy for women’s sports in a time when the trans ideology is challenging and encroaching on the domain of women, as seen in an adult male registering in a Jiu-Jitsu tournament and being placed to compete with young women.

    “It’s too shocking for the public to ignore at this point,” Ms. Smith said.

    After Reduxx—a feminist media platform that spotlights the trans ideology’s corruption of women’s rights—began reporting on the issue, the Jiu-Jitsu associations responded with their change in policies.

    On Oct. 28, NAGA stated, “We will have divisions for only biological females. Transgender females will not be entered into these divisions.”

    For men who believe they are women, NAGA said, “Transgender females must compete in the men’s division. We hope that the simplicity of this revised policy will help to avoid any future occurrences where transgender females enter women divisions. If NAGA staff is informed that a transgender female is in a women’s division, they will be given the choice to go to the men’s division or given a refund.”

    ‘Obvious Differences’

    After Ms. Wilk’s post on X describing her experience, she was attacked as a bigot. But she also received support, getting the attention of J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, who told her, “You’ve done nothing wrong. This isn’t, and never was, about hate, it’s about fairness and safety for women and girls.

    “You stood up to protect your fellow athletes, which makes you a heroine in all sane people’s eyes. I know backlashes aren’t fun (believe me, I know) but there are things far more important than pleasing all the people, all the time. All power to you x.”

    Ms. Wilk, a former U.S. Archery World Champion, told The Epoch Times she began training in Jiu-Jitsu at 15.

    “I feel like it gives me an opportunity to not have anxiety when competing,” she said. “The competition mat is a place where I’m truly comfortable. All my social anxiety goes away when I get on those mats.”

    She was primarily at the July competition to coach her brother’s team but also sought to compete at a lower level to get back into the swing of sparring after her back surgery.

    However, she realized halfway through the match that something wasn’t right.

    Her opponent was too strong to be a person registered as a woman.

    Ms. Wilk was able to beat him but noticed that younger competitors were afraid.

    She felt blindsided, she said, and her suspicion was later confirmed when she looked up the person on Instagram and discovered that he was a man.

    “I don’t care how trans people want to live their life, I just think there should be transparency,” she said. “There are obvious differences between the male and female body, and I’m hoping these policy changes can spread to other sports to really show the vast difference between men and women.”

    ‘Absolutely Unacceptable’

    Ms. Alexander told The Epoch Times that her first impression was of her male opponent’s size.

    “I was just thinking, ‘Oh my God, that chick is huge,’” she said.

    But because tournaments are chaotic, she said, with everyone just scrambling to get through them, she went along with the match. But quickly realized there was a problem.

    The difference in hand sizes and strength eventually led her to realize that she was fighting a man, she said, and she began to feel unsafe.

    “At that point, there was nothing I could really do about it,” she said. “There was adrenaline pumping and I was in fight or flight mode. I was starting to panic.”

    A protester holds a sign outside the arena where Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas was competing in the 500-yard freestyle final at the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Ga., on March 17, 2022. (John Bazemore/AP Photo)

    She went into automatic mode, she said, and focused on her coach’s words.

    “Because my coach is super calm and precise in how he coaches, I was able to pull everything I had out of me to finish that match,” she said.

    Ms. Alexander won, but the experience was enough to bring her to tears when she returned to her team.

    Ms. Alexander self-excluded from later matches in which she would have had to fight males.

    She didn’t know what to do next, she said, because she didn’t want to be called transphobic.

    “If you know me personally, you know that’s not the case at all,” she said in her Instagram post. “The simple fact is that men signing up in a combat sport to fight women is absolutely unacceptable. We don’t deserve to be having to self-exclude from competitions to avoid fighting men. We deserve for there to be rules and regulations in place that keep us safe and that protect us from these situations happening in the first place.”

    Ms. Alexander said she wasn’t surprised by the associations changing policies.

    “Jiu-Jitsu is a very tightly knit, supportive community,” she said. “I’m shocked by how fast it happened but not shocked that it did happen.”

    It’s now set the bar for other sports, she said.

    “I think it’s leading by example,” Ms. Alexander said.

    An Uphill Battle

    But it’s been an uphill battle, Ms. Smith said.

    “We’re hoping that this is a trend,” she said.

    Earlier in October, Strongman Corp Canada created a separate category for trans athletes nine days after Maria Barwick, an ICONS-sponsored competitor, spoke out about having to compete against a male.

    “Before Jiu-Jitsu, that was the quickest policy change that we’ve seen recently,” she said.

    However, in February, Minnesota District Court Judge Patrick Diamond ruled that USA Powerlifting is no longer allowed to bar males who believe they are females from participating in the women’s category.

    Internationally, some governing bodies are moving toward making rules for trans athletes more stringent, she said.

    “They are relying on this 12-year-old timeline in which if you haven’t transitioned younger than 12, you can’t compete in the women’s category, which we do not advocate for,” she said. “What we believe at ICONS is, ‘female at birth,’ but they’re moving in the right direction.”

    The problem in America is that the U.S. governing bodies aren’t following their international overseers, she said, resulting in the U.S. conflicting with international rules.

    In addition, she said, there are sitting board members on national governing bodies for sports whose livelihood depends on their convincing children to medically transition, she said.

    “I don’t like the word transition because no one can actually transition,” she said. “It’s basically just medicalizing children for life. And there’s a ton of money on the opposite side.”

    Prisha Mosley had both of her breasts removed when she believed she was transgender, she is now hoping to receive reconstructive surgery. (Courtesy of Independent Women’s Forum)

    Because the trans ideology flourished in the United Kingdom before the United States, it’s also been ahead on “correcting and redirecting” issues in accommodating for trans-identifying individuals, Ms. Smith said.

    An organization in the UK with the same mission as ICONS called “Fair Play for Women” has been advocating for a change of policy in British sports.

    “Though we’re a couple of years behind them, I’m hoping that we can get our national leaders to get there, too,” she said. “At ICONS, we’re trying to shorten that amount of time because this is unsustainable. We cannot continue seeing these kinds of stories in which girls are getting concussions in volleyball, their teeth knocked out, or put on a Jiu-Jitsu mat with men.”

    ICONS continues to see men competing at every level in American sports, even taking national titles away from women, she said, “So, we still have a long way to go.”

    “But with every win, as we saw in Jiu-Jitsu and Strongman, it’s building a stronger and stronger foundation, and giving other governing bodies more and more security to be able to defend their women faster,” she said. “But it’s not fast enough. We need everybody to agree that women and girls deserve safe and fair competition.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 21:45

  • Possible Cyberattack? Massive Telecommunication Outage Leaves Millions In Australia Without Cellular Service
    Possible Cyberattack? Massive Telecommunication Outage Leaves Millions In Australia Without Cellular Service

    Global internet monitor NetBlocks has reported in a post on social media X platform that millions of Optus customers cannot make calls or use the internet due to a major nationwide outage. 

    “Metrics show Optus mobile services are down across much of Australia, leaving millions of customers unable to make calls or access internet since early morning; authorities said to be investigating possible cyberattack as trains and infrastructure disrupted,” NetBlocks said. 

    Optus is aware of an issue that may be impacting some of our mobile and internet customers,” the telecommunications company wrote in a statement. 

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

    Australian Broadcasting Corporation said, “Federal authorities are checking whether the outage is the result of a cyber attack, although, at this stage, they do not believe it is a hack.”

    *Developing… 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 21:25

  • Decisionmakers Never Pay The Price
    Decisionmakers Never Pay The Price

    Authored by David Lapp-Jost via RealClear Wire,

    The novel River City One tells a personal tale of a soldier long returned home, but permanently adrift. Partly the experiences of a man carrying the heavy weight of many white Middle American challenges, the story’s theme of brokenness coming from war is never too far in the background. Defying expectations, tropes, and stereotypes, River City One’s story is compelling and powerful.

    A novel like this must be readable, well-paced, and strike appropriate notes of plausibility and authenticity. River City One absolutely delivers as a modern American veteran’s story. The characters feel right. Their motivations, values, foibles, jobs, and dispositions command interest and draw the reader into the book’s community while at the same time not at all seeming exaggerated or caricatured. At welcome intervals, bleak-but-enjoyable segments bring a dry, fun humor to the text, usually relating to the narrator’s tragicomic job at a law practice.

    Significant stretches of the narrative reflect aspects of the white Middle American experience. White men are seen as the most privileged in our society, rightfully, but communities like the protagonist John Walker’s carry terrible burdens. Many characters have largely meaningless “Bullshit Jobs,” to cite a defining sociological book of our time, jobs that neither serve nor fulfill. Long dead is Bush-era religiosity; this is an era of secular disillusionment. The characters are driven by the harsh demands of money and work, and some are deeply lonely. People lack community and are unhealthy. While the opioid epidemic does not really make an appearance, drugs and sickness are present and a minor character lost a girl decades ago to a car accident – a painful recounting of a sort of catastrophe that claims 1 percent of American lives and hollows out people and communities, much as killing does. John is an insightful observer of brokenness, and honest about crises that others dismiss or ignore.  

    The driving focus of the text is relationships and the lack thereof, and the story starkly depicts the white male experience of loneliness, told through an ex-military lens. Men in general are lonely in the U.S., often having few friends, often relying heavily on one marital partnership that these days has a 50 percent chance of failure. Middle-aged white men commit suicide at about twice the national average rate (with veterans spearheading the trend at a rate that eclipses our losses in war). Some simply “die of loneliness” – an epidemic of health issues related to isolation that are not widely or well understood. And of course, war adds another element. Twenty years ago, conservative-leaning, white middle class Americans (as well as African Americans from the South) signed up in droves to go fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. These ex-soldiers face a heightened crisis of health and human relationship, as we see in John Walker’s circle of military connections, who seem to all have relationship problems. With its strong and effective focus on relationships, River City One humanizes and compassionately depicts a hurting veteran.

    In John’s life, we witness a deep loneliness, aimlessness, and a lack of friendship aside from an old war buddy and faintly sociopathic colleagues. “Friends don’t appear out of nowhere,” says Grace, John’s wife. “They develop over time – like, a long time, a lot longer than one week.” She intuitively understands the lack of human connection that drags John down. This crisis of relationship is seriously hurting our overworked, under-vacationed, “Bowling Alone” nation today, to name another relevant book. Sadly, Grace has faded away as an influence on John, and like so many men and especially men in masculine-coded sectors like the military, John doesn’t seem to have much connection with women as friends, or to have relationships with people who show him care and love.

    The legacy of war is a deep and powerful undercurrent of the text… and is also elusive. John’s acquaintances wonder what it was like to kill an Iraqi or Afghan (the settings – past and present, in war or in peace – are ambiguous) or how it was to lose a comrade. John does not offer a fixed answer or take a uniform approach to the question, and he actually doesn’t have a fixed answer. Our defining memories of trauma change over time, like our national memory of 9/11 or a child’s experience of losing a parent. Like insensitive acquaintances who ask John about killing and dying, we readers are partly-unwelcome interlocutors in John’s life, witnesses of a painful inner journey, not people entitled to a juicy story. Soldiers and veterans aren’t there to fulfill our fantasies or show us deep truths about honor or heroism. Their way is hard for anyone committed to holding onto goodness, and their job is not part of the purpose we humans are for. John teaches his son to pray for souls in purgatory even though he says “doesn’t know what that means.” Perhaps he does know, more than most.

    The author’s role in telling this story is a contribution to the world. But we as a society must consider the consequences of war not just for the soldier, but for the people he or she is supposed to be protecting, at home and (in theory) abroad. The perhaps $8 trillion that the United States expended on the War on Terror caused maybe a million to four-and-a-half million deaths – almost all poor people in Muslim countries – and shattered many communities, many families, many dreams. The war disillusioned millions of Americans and billions of people in the Global South.

    And the cost of the war precluded building the society that John needs and longs for, one that is beautiful, healthy, and rich in relationships and free time for its residents. Let us imagine John comes from an economically average U.S. city of 500,000. Its proportional financial share in the War on Terror was over $12 billion. Especially considering that investing in human capital and healthy development yields exponential returns, those $12 billion are a huge loss. They could have addressed drug dependence, mental health, urban beautification, safe and sustainable transit. Instead, the resources went to failed wars. As veterans like the author intuitively know, we as a country misused our resources. Money, yes, and even more than that, the youth and strength of young men and women who could have served in other ways.

    Those who have borne burdens for their service to our country don’t just deserve care, love, healing, and resources. As we offer support to those who have been harmed in body, mind, or soul, let us also learn from the caution of so many veterans. Do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Do not send more young people to be broken in expeditionary wars of choice. The failures of the administrations – all administrations – of the last decades must not be repeated. In the end, in this life, it is not the decision-makers who pay the price.

    David Lapp-Jost (M.Ed.) is a Friedensarbeiter (Peace Worker) with the German Mennonite Peace Committee, which since World War II has worked for peace in Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 21:05

  • 30,000 Pounds Of Tyson "Fun Nuggets" Hit With Recall Over Metal Shards
    30,000 Pounds Of Tyson “Fun Nuggets” Hit With Recall Over Metal Shards

    Tyson Foods has issued a recall for 30,000 pounds of its “Fun Nuggets,” a fully cooked chicken product targeted at children, due to concerns over potential contamination from metal fragments. 

    “A limited number of consumers have reported they found small, pliable metal pieces in the product, and out of an abundance of caution, the company is recalling this product,” Tyson wrote in a press release. 

    According to a release from the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the nuggets were shipped to distributors in Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin in 29-ounce packages.

    The Food Safety and Inspection Service said the problem was discovered after a number of customers complained about “small metal pieces” in the nuggets. 

    “There has been one reported minor oral injury associated with consumption of this product,” the food agency said. 

    Tyson’s recall was classified as “Class I,” indicating a “reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death,” according to the FSIS. 

    Consumers purchasing Tyson Fun Nuggets for their children might ask this question: How did the metal get into the nuggets? 

    Also, consumers should abandon the industrial-meat complex for proteins sold at local farms. There’s no telling what else could be in the nuggets.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 20:45

  • Data Analyst Defends 2020 Georgia Election Rolls Challenges
    Data Analyst Defends 2020 Georgia Election Rolls Challenges

    Authored by Dan Berger via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    One of the individuals who created the data to challenge thousands of voters during Georgia’s controversial 2020 election and subsequent runoff testified to the pains taken to ensure the lists were fair.

    True the Vote founder and president Catherine Engelbrecht makes a point during a presentation on ballot trafficking at the Arizona statehouse on May 31, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    Derek Somerville said he and data analysis partner Mark Davis used multiple databases and levels of comparison to identify Georgia voters who didn’t live where they were registered to vote and then to exclude many who were, in fact, legal voters.

    They are two of six individuals named, along with the True The Vote organization, in a federal lawsuit alleging that their work intimidated minority voters and was a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

    They are being sued by Fair Fight, an organization founded by two-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to fight voter suppression. Fair Fight seeks to stop True The Vote and the co-defendants from any election integrity work in Georgia. Their non-jury trial in Gainesville, in Georgia’s Northern District, before Judge Steve Jones, began on Oct. 26.

    Mr. Somerville returned to the witness stand on Nov. 3 after testifying the previous day. He testified that he and Mr. Davis compared state-published voter rolls, absentee ballot rolls, post office change of address records, and geospatial data.

    They first created a list of 364,000 voters who had moved from where they were registered to vote. They then used that and other data to “funnel” it down to 39,000 voters for whom there was “probable cause” to believe they were no longer entitled to vote where they were voting.

    He described some of the “funnels” they used to exclude people from the probable cause list. Those who move within 30 days of an election may vote at their old address. They went back 18 months, but no more, because federal law requires states to review and purge their rolls every two years, and that’s done after general elections.

    Military service members and their families, moving from base to base, may be entitled to vote from a home address elsewhere, as are college students in dorms or apartments away from their family homes.

    Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) claps during a presentation of ballot trafficking by True the Vote at Arizona’s statehouse in Phoenix on May 31, 2022. Next to her is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

    They used mapping data to locate and then eliminate thousands of people in those categories, he testified. He gave Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a historically black university and the alma mater of Martin Luther King, as one location where they performed that exclusion.

    They also used the mapping data to exclude those who moved within the same county, which had less effect on their voter eligibility.

    Those on the final “probable cause” list weren’t intended to be automatically disqualified from voting, he said. That would be up to their county board of elections, which would need to review and investigate a case before making that determination, he said.

    And, he said, in most cases being notified of a challenge to their voting status wouldn’t keep them from going to the polls because, in most counties, they were only told of the challenge if they showed up to vote.

    Mr. Somerville said his work was non-partisan, not examining the data for party registration, race, or gender, and only doing so after the fact to ensure their work had been accurate. It was, he said.

    Crowds of people gather as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    The defendants’ lawyers said in a trial brief that black voters represent about 29 percent of Georgia voters but only 27 percent of those on the list, showing there was no discriminatory intent.

    One of their lawyers, Michael Wynne of Houston, told The Epoch Times that Mr. Davis had been studying the issue for 30 years, going back to the last century, and that Mr. Somerville shared the interest. Their work was of interest primarily to computer and statistics buffs until the closely fought election of Nov. 3, 2020, made it a hot issue.

    Mr. Somerville said he had never heard of True The Vote until Dec. 15, 2020, when he was contacted by co-defendant Ron Johnson about the organization and then had dinner the same night with True The Vote co-founder Catherine Engelbrecht. That was only three weeks before the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff in which both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats were in play for control of the chamber. True The Vote sought to empower private citizens, who by law in Georgia can challenge voter registrations, to do so.

    And part of his interest in the issue, Mr. Somerville said, was to counter some of the more far-fetched election conspiracy theories purporting to show why then-President Donald Trump was running more than 11,000 votes behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Georgia’s tally.

    Their techniques, using public data and modern statistical analysis tools, gave those interested a more concrete and rational way to consider election results, he said. And he hoped that it would restore confidence in the system among those so disillusioned they hesitated to vote in the runoff.

    Both he and Ms. Engelbrecht have testified that state governments are years behind in their techniques for keeping their data up to date.

    Both have used the word “nerds” on the stand to describe themselves and each other: those who love data, computers, and what you can do with them.

    “We were relatively obsessive about it,” Mr. Somerville testified under direct examination by one of the defense attorneys, Cameron Powell of Houston.

    Their geeky demeanor on the stand belies the intensity of what transpired three years ago.

    Now-President Biden’s narrow lead in Georgia of 11,779 votes sparked recounts and not only then-President Trump’s repeated charges of electoral fraud, but his second impeachment over his efforts to overturn the state’s count and his pressuring of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a lengthy telephone call alleging many irregularities in the process and how they affected the count:

    “So, what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already.” And “Look Brad. I got to get … I have to find 12,000 votes and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state.” And, “You will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes, because Fulton County is totally corrupt.”

    The impeachment failed, but President Trump currently faces criminal conspiracy charges in Fulton County over the matter. Among 18 co-defendants are some who have pled guilty, making them available to testify against the former president.

    The turmoil also led to the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the Capitol, which Democrats and others have sought to label an “insurrection.”

    A year ago, Ms. Engelbrecht was in jail, where she and True The Vote’s co-founder Gregg Phillips spent a week for contempt of federal court in Texas over their refusal to identify a whistleblower giving them information in a different elections case.

    The trial involves a lot of fine points of federal law, including the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which makes voter intimidation easier to prove, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which directs states to update voter rolls regularly.

    The defense has sought to show that the defendants—True The Vote and the individual defendants—didn’t communicate with challenged voters or seek to intimidate them. After the plaintiffs rested their case in the morning, the defense moved to dismiss the case, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t supported the allegations they’d made.

    At the very least, defense attorney Jake Evans of Atlanta argued to Judge Jones, four of the six co-defendants, including Mr. Somerville, Mr. Davis, Ron Johnson, and James Cooper, should be dropped from the lawsuit because little testimony had born upon them and their connection to the case was so tangential.

    Judge Jones, appointed to the federal bench in 2010 by President Barack Obama, questioned plaintiffs’ attorneys, including Christina Ashley Ford and Uzoma Nkwonta, both of Washington, D.C., sharply over the four co-defendants but ended up declining to dismiss them from the lawsuit.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 20:25

  • California Spent $4 Million On Gender-Affirming 'Enhancements' For Prisoners
    California Spent $4 Million On Gender-Affirming ‘Enhancements’ For Prisoners

    California is helping prison inmates cope with their stints, having forked over more than $4 million of taxpayer funds on surgical sex changes and cosmetic “gender-affirming” enhancements for 157 inmates, including four who are on death row, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

    Dallas Rachael Goosen (left), Makayla Fennell and Jazzie Paradize Scott ride bikes in the prison gym at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville on June 11, 2019. (Sruti Mamidanna/KQED)

    Breaking it down, the state has coughed up:

    • Over $4 million for vaginoplasties

    • $180,000 for breast implants

    • $184,141 on facial feminization surgeries

    • $224,000 on laser hair removal

    • The state has spent over $1 million removing the breasts of female prisoners

    “People who think they’re transgender have rights, and they should be treated with dignity and respect, but it does not include taxpayer dollars being used to do surgeries that are experimental at best and scientifically unjustified at worst,” said attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who has represented California inmates.

    California’s lack of guardrails for trans-identifying prisoners stands in sharp contrast to its rules around inmate dental care, for instance, which don’t allow for root canals on back teeth, cosmetic tooth restoration or replacement, or treatment of oral ulcers—among other services.

    From 2017 through mid-July 2023, taxpayers have bankrolled at least 157 transgender procedures and treatments, spending nearly $2.5 million on vaginoplasties—the creation of artificial vaginas and vulvas—for 35 male prisoners, according to previously unreported records obtained by women’s prison advocate Amie Ichikawa and reviewed by the Free Beacon.

    Four people on death row have received sex reassignment surgery.

    Meanwhile, corrections officials have requested nearly $2.2 million in new funds just for transgender care, according to budget documents.

    The state’s mandate to cover sex-change procedures for inmates stems from a 2016 legal settlement with convicted male murdere Shiloh Quine, who is serving a life sentence. Quine was represented by the George Soros-funded Transgender Law Center.

    Quine secured the right for trans-identifying prisoners to have items typically prohibited to male inmates for security reasons—such as chains, necklaces, and scarves.

    In 2014, just 131 California inmates identified as transgender. At last count this month, that number was up to 1,847, including hundreds who identify as nonbinary. A February 2021 legislative report said the corrections agency “believes that the recent growth in the transgender inmate population is due to agency efforts” to transfer inmates based on their chosen “gender identity.” -Free Beacon

    Stunning and brave, and not what Californians voted for (or is it?).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 20:05

  • China's Grand Strategy & The Four Wars
    China’s Grand Strategy & The Four Wars

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    “There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.”

    – Sun Tzu

    China’s grand strategy to take its turn at dominance over the global scene depends on bogging down the USA in four wars at once.

    How’s it working so far? Pretty darn well.

    Amazingly, China hardly had to lift a finger to make it happen – though it did write some bank checks to the soulless old grifter sitting in the White House.  Our country has arranged its collapse and downfall masterfully on its own.

    War No. 1: There was absolutely no need to start the war in Ukraine, you understand, which has by now not only bled Ukraine’s young male population to the bone, but drained our own military of field weapons and ammunition. After the Soviet collapse, Ukraine existed as a poor backwater in Russia’s orbit, causing no trouble for anyone — except itself, due to world-beating corruption — until the USA started a push to include it in NATO. Our neocons made it clear that the purpose of this was to hem-in and weaken Russia. (Why? “Reasons,” they said.) This policy alarmed and infuriated the Russians who made it clear that NATO membership wasn’t going to happen.

    The US persisted, engineered a coup in 2014 against the Russian-leaning president Yanukovych, and spurred his replacements, first Poroshenko and then Zelensky, to pound the ethnic Russian provinces of the Donbas with rockets and artillery for years on end. Meanwhile, we trained, armed, and supplied a large Ukrainian army and refused to negotiate the NATO expansion in good faith until Mr. Putin had enough in 2022 and moved to put a stop to all this monkey business.

    After some initial mis-steps, the Russians began to prevail in early 2023. Now, there is a general consensus that Russia controls the battle space with its superior ordnance and troop strength, and the conflict is close to being over. Our NATO allies are not hiding their disgust over the fiasco. Ukraine is wrecked. What remains is how the “Joe Biden” regime reacts to yet another major overseas humiliation. As I see it, Mr. Putin must do his level best to not rub it in, since our country is in the throes of a psychotic fugue and might be capable of world-ending craziness.

    War No. 2: Little more than a month ago, the Middle East was thought to have reached a moment of praiseworthy stability, according to White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. We awaited an upgrade of the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Then, the savage Hamas operation of October 7 blew it all up. The Israeli-Palestinian quandary seems to have no possible solution.

    The Palestinians want their own state, of course, but they push to establish it in the entire territory that Israel occupies now. (From the River to the sea….) The Israelis have no intention of being pushed out, and they resist other possible divisions of the land there that might serve to satisfy the Palestinians’ wish for a country of their own. Israel understands that a basic tenet of jihadi Islam, expressed clearly and often, is to exterminate the Jews, and there is no way around that. Israel’s adversaries don’t seem to understand the meaning of “never again.”

    Israel now must deal with the latest affront to its existence and its clear goal is to disarm and destroy the Hamas terror organization. To the world’s horror, they are going about it brutally in Gaza because Hamas is dug-in in a vast tunnel network under the civilian overlay of houses, shops, schools, and hospitals. What else might Israel do? Probably seal off the tunnel system with Hamas in it, creating a gigantic graveyard of Islamic martyrs — a recipe for future cycles of vengeance.

    As you can see, there appears to be no way this ends well for anyone. Other big Islamic players wait on the sidelines, making only threatening gestures so far. I doubt that Iran will risk its oil infrastructure and its electric grid to intervene. And despite Mr. Erdogan’s drum-beating and his large army, the Turkish economy and currency (the lira) would collapse if he jumped in. Egypt has zero appetite for war. That leaves Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, on Israel’s northern frontier. If they amp things up enough, Damascus and Beirut could become ashtrays.

    So, I would expect that Israel grinds on methodically to put Hamas out of business and the region returns to its miserable stalemate status quo until the next generation of angry Palestinians starts a new cycle of violence. Meanwhile, Israel has its own fractious internal political problems to contend with. And also meanwhile, the Palestinians and Israelis compete by birth-rate to out-populate the other side — a contest that might stop suddenly with the economic collapse of the US and Europe, and the end of current global economic relations, including an orderly oil trade, that has produced nearly a century of global super-prosperity allowing populations to expand as they have. (There is also Israel’s 90-percent Covid vaccination rate to consider, with its detrimental effects on health and reproduction.) In a desperate scramble for resources that follows, things that can’t go on, stop.

    Bringing us to War No. 3: The US Government’s war against its own citizens. This has been going on since Mr. Trump stepped onto the scene, and has included a semi-successful war against Mr. Trump personally — except that not only has it failed to put him out of business as a politician, it has substantiated many of the claims he made about corrupt and perfidious government that resulted in his election in 2016. All of that has only enhanced his polling numbers. And the lawless, bad faith court cases lodged against him have demonstrated the US government’s grievous fall into willful malfeasance that has the DOJ arresting and unfairly persecuting hundreds of innocent Americans that support Mr. Trump.

    A big part of the government’s war against US citizens has been the bizarre Covid-19 episode and the long-running effort by public officials to deceive the population about it, including lockdowns and destruction of small businesses, the dishonest suppression of viable treatments, gross censorship about the harms of the mRNA vaccines, and trickery around the origins of the vaccines in the back rooms of our Department of Defense.

    Another front of this war is the wide-open Mexican border, a lawless state of affairs created as deliberate policy by our cabinet secretaries, and done at a time when there is tremendous animus against the US from many other nations who send thousands of sketchy young men into our country with no attempt by our border officials to determine who they are.

    It looks like “Joe Biden’s” hash will be settled shortly when the House, reorganized under a young and vital new speaker, reveals the Biden family’s bank records and begins the process of impeaching the president for bribery. “Joe Biden’s” party pretends that this is not happening and appears to have no plan to deal with consequences. For the moment, they still stupidly tout him as their candidate for the 2024 election, another arrant falsehood you can add to the thousand-and one affronts against the public that this party has tried to put over. Many Americans suspect there will not be a 2024 election, specifically that whoever is president in the coming year will invoke yet another national emergency order to postpone it on spurious grounds. Many are also far from persuaded that the 2020 election that installed “Joe Biden” was honest and legitimate.

    Which brings us to War No. 4: The American peoples’ war against a government gone rogue. Obviously, it is not underway yet, but it’s easy to see how it might develop.

    I think it could commence in the aftermath of a financial calamity that is visibly brewing in the debt markets. The net result will be a collapsed standard-of-living for everyone in the USA, the breakdown of supply lines and daily business, and a very sharp loss of legitimacy for the people who have been in charge of anything in this country.

    We emerge from this catastrophe a nearly medievalized society with a steeply-reduced population, unable to resist China’s attempt to colonize us. Pretty scary, huh? Just let’s keep doing what we’re doing.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 19:45

  • NYC Speed Cameras Have Issued 4.5 Million Tickets Totaling "Hundreds Of Millions" This Year
    NYC Speed Cameras Have Issued 4.5 Million Tickets Totaling “Hundreds Of Millions” This Year

    In the first 9 months of New York City’s school zone speed cameras, almost 4.5 million tickets have already been issued with fines totaling an astonishing “hundreds of millions of dollars”. 

    The speed cameras in New York City now monitor and issue citations continuously, operating 24/7 throughout the year, after a considerable enlargement of the program in August 2022, according to SILive.com.

    This expansion marks a significant shift from the previous restriction that limited speed camera operation to weekdays between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

    While there is a legislative limit of 750 school zones where cameras can be placed, the actual number of cameras exceeds this figure due to the allowance of multiple cameras within these zones, resulting in approximately 2,000 cameras deployed across all five boroughs.

    The report, analyzing data from the city’s Open Data page, notes that New York City’s speed cameras, restricted to within a quarter-mile of schools, have levied $50 fines on drivers going over the speed limit by 10 mph or more.

    From January 1 to September 26, 2023, these cameras recorded 4,458,783 violations, amounting to approximately $222.9 million in fines. Averaging 16,575 violations daily or 12 per minute over 269 days, Queens saw the highest number of fines, while Staten Island recorded the fewest.

    This intensive ticketing has prompted criticisms of the city’s reliance on cameras as a revenue source rather than a means to enhance public safety, especially among Staten Islanders.

    The Department of Transportation (DOT) disclosed in August that there was an average reduction of 30% in speed camera citations within the initial year following the implementation of round-the-clock enforcement, accompanied by a 25% decrease in traffic-related deaths during the periods covered by the extended enforcement hours.

    DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez commented: “One year ago we launched 24/7 speed camera enforcement, and the results are in: the program has reduced speeding, decreased the number of injuries, and made our streets safer. Speeding happens most often on nights and weekends, and expanded enforcement has been a highly effective tool to keep New Yorkers safe.”

    Here are the total sums of fines issued, from SILive:

    – STATEN ISLAND
      – Violations issued: 312,083
      – Total fines: $15,604,150

    – BROOKLYN
      – Violations issued: 1,400,365
      – Total fines: $70,018,250

    – MANHATTAN
      – Violations issued: 330,683
      – Total fines: $16,534,150

    – QUEENS
      – Violations issued: 1,739,351
      – Total fines: $86,967,550

    – THE BRONX
      – Violations issued: 676,301
      – Total fines: $33,815,050

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 19:25

  • Another Hugo Chavez-Style Idea On Electricity Rates From California's One-Party Regime
    Another Hugo Chavez-Style Idea On Electricity Rates From California’s One-Party Regime

    Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

    Cash-strapped California has proposed to set electricity rates based on one’s income, not one’s consumption.

    What could go wrong?

    According to San Diego’s right-leaning county supervisor, Jim Desmond:

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

    His tweet begins: 

    Earlier today, I had the opportunity to participate in the California Public Utilities Commission public meeting regarding the proposed new fixed-rate electricity plan.

    This proposal has sparked significant concerns, particularly for the residents of San Diego.

    If you’re unfamiliar with this plan, let me provide a breakdown of its essential components and the potential implications it holds for our community.

    The proposed fixed-rate bill fundamentally operates on an income-based charging model, where the more one earns, the higher the flat-rate electricity charges.

    This scheme would impose fixed monthly charges based on your income before a single kilowatt-hour is used.

    Here’s a breakdown of what this could mean for San Diegans:

    • *Households earning between $28,000 to $69,000 would face a monthly charge of $34.

    • *Those with incomes ranging from $69,000 to $180,000 would see a monthly charge of $73.

    • *Households earning above $180,000 would encounter a monthly charge of $128.

    Median-income households in San Diego would end up paying $876 annually for electricity, irrespective of their actual consumption.

    It’s also ridiculous that individuals who have invested in residential solar won’t be exempt from these fixed charges.

    So if you’ve been foolish enough to invest in solar energy as the state encouraged you to do in the name of saving the planet, hoping that $7,000 investment in the roof plates you shelled out for would eventually pay for itself through lower electricity rates, well, too bad about you.

    The danger here is that California is more likely than ever to see electricity shortages, given that the cost incentive to use less will be gone with this new proposed policy. People will just leave the power on, given that there is no difference in the rate for doing so.

    With that kind of incentive to overconsume, from the state with the most green mandates and highest electricity costs in the nation, you can be there won’t be electricity when it’s going to be needed. The coming heat waves, wild fires, and cold waves are going to be something else.

    This is one of the most Hugo Chavez-style ideas ever proposed in this economically mismanaged state.

    Back when Venezuela was a recognizable country in 2007, Hugo decided to expropriate all the electricity companies, public and private, in the name of achieving socialism and “equity,” and then turning their management over to ignorant Cuban government operatives whose only experience with electricity was in applying electrical shocks to dissidents.

    By 2010, Chavez had a full-blown “electricity emergency” on his hands, with artificially deflated costs to special interest groups and overconsumption the inevitable result. Not surprisingly, electricity rationing was the next step, with Chavez blaming the weather.

    According to Reuters

    CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a folksy new radio talk-show on Monday by declaring an “electricity emergency” in oil-rich Venezuela.

    Despite its huge crude reserves, the South American OPEC member relies on hydro-electricity for 70 percent of its power needs, and a drought has hit supply since late 2009.

    “We are ready to decree the electricity emergency, because it really is an emergency,” Chavez said in the first edition of a show on state radio air waves called “Suddenly Chavez.”

    With electricity cuts weighing on Chavez’s popularity ahead of important legislative elections in September, the government blames the shortages on the drought and soaring demand during five years of economic growth until 2008.

     That’s socialism in action and anyone who thinks it can’t happen here is delusional — it already is happening here. Why anyone would want to imitate that Venezuelan model, after what happened there, is the only mystery.

    The problem with this scheme is not only the inevitable supply crunch, but the invasion of privacy and erosion of human freedoms, with the state accessing tax records and spying on citizens to set rates. There will be a load of corruption to get the cheaper rates, while the residents who can’t get out of them will have another reason to flee the state.

    Once the hooks are in, the state will be free to impose any surcharges and rate hikes it likes, at its discretion, depending on how much money it wants to keep spending. The people who will have no sayso in the rate matter will be the taxpayers who consume electricity. That’s your one-party state for you and don’t think the rigging hasn’t already been set in place.

    What a nightmare this will be for Californians if the bat-brained idea is not stopped. Desmond recommends calling up the state’s public utilities commission, which has proposed this wokester scheme, and tell them it’s a no-go with the public. If it’s not done and this proposal shut down, it will be a heck of a lot harder to get rid of it and restore normal citizen freedoms. Desmond provides the names and numbers to call in his tweet and he should be heeded.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 19:05

  • World's Top Tractor Maker Slashes Outlook, Trims Jobs In Response To Slowing Sales 
    World’s Top Tractor Maker Slashes Outlook, Trims Jobs In Response To Slowing Sales 

    CNH Industrial, a global leader in farm equipment with top brands such as Case, New Holland, and Steyr, saw its stock prices tumble on Tuesday – the largest intraday drop since June 2020. The decline followed the company’s decision to cut its revenue outlook for 2023, attributing the downward revision to a global deceleration of agricultural machinery demand. Also, the company announced an immediate restructuring program that will result in a cut of 5% of its salaried workforce. 

    A quick look at the Italian-American company’s yearly forecast reveals net revenue forecast from industrial activities will be between 3-6% this year, down from a previous forecast of 8-11%. It also revised its free-cash-flow estimate lower to be between $1-1.2 billion from $1.3-$1.5 billion. 

    YEAR FORECAST 

    • Sees industrial net sales +3% to +6%, saw +8% to +11% 

    • Sees industrial free cash flow $1 billion to $1.2 billion, saw $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion

    Sales for the third quarter fell 1% to $5.33 billion, below Bloomberg’s estimate of $5.8 billion. 

    THIRD-QUARTER RESULTS

    • Adjusted EPS 42c, estimate 43c (Bloomberg Consensus)

    • Industrial net sales $5.33 billion, estimate $5.8 billion

    • Industrial Sales Constant Currency -3%

    • Agriculture net sales $4.38 billion, estimate $4.77 billion

    • Construction net sales $948 million, estimate $975.9 million

    • Agriculture Adj. Ebit $672 million, estimate $708.8 million

    • Construction adj. Ebit $60 million, estimate $49.3 million

    •  Agriculture adj. Ebit margin 15.3%, estimate 14.8%

    • Construction adj. Ebit margin 6.3%, estimate 5.04%

    The decline in sales is primarily due to falling tractor demand across South America and Europe: 

    In North America, industry volume was up 19% year over year in the third quarter for tractors over 140 HP and was down 7% for tractors under 140 HP; combines were down 4% from prior year. In EMEA, tractor and combine demand was up 4% and down 18%, respectively. Industry volume in Europe alone was down 7% for tractors and down 40% for combines. South America tractor demand was down 16% and combine demand was down 47%. Asia Pacific tractor demand was down 10% and combine demand was up 33%.

    As a result of the slowdown, the company announced an “immediate restructuring program targeting a 5% reduction in salaried workforce cost” and will be “coupled with a comprehensive rightsizing of the Company’s cost structure to be implemented early next year.” 

    Shares in Milan were repeatedly halted, while shares in the US fell 12%. 

    The news follows Caterpillar’s earnings seven days ago, where it warned about a more cautious fourth quarter and said order backlogs fell. 

    A softening in worldwide tractor sales could serve as a harbinger for a global slowdown, signaling growing economic turbulence due to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary tightening. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 18:45

  • Behind Mike Bloomberg's $500 Million Donation To 'Finish The Job On Coal'
    Behind Mike Bloomberg’s $500 Million Donation To ‘Finish The Job On Coal’

    Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Billionaire philanthropist and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $500 million in September toward shifting electricity production in the United States to wind and solar energy and shutting down its coal- and gas-fired plants.

    However, some experts say that Bloomberg’s millions, together with the billions being spent by the Biden administration, are paving a road to ruin.

    The donation from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which adds to the $500 million Mr. Bloomberg pledged in 2019, aims to “finish the job on coal” and “accelerate the clean energy transition to reach the goal of 80 percent of total electricity generation” from renewables, according to an official statement.

    “With 372 of 530 coal plants announced to retire or closed to date—more than 70 percent of the country’s coal fleet—this next phase will shut down every last U.S. coal plant,” Bloomberg Philanthropies stated.

    The effort also aims to “slash gas plant capacity in half, and block all new gas plants.”

    Many of those who study America’s electric infrastructure say this is taking us down a dangerous path.

    Then-Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg waits to be introduced during a campaign rally held at Minglewood Hall in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 28, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    “We’re following people here that are pied pipers,” physicist and energy analyst John Droz told The Epoch Times, referring to the literary character who led children to their doom through delusive enticement.

    “This whole business of promoting renewables as a solution is completely unproven, scientifically.”

    The transition is destabilizing America’s power grid, which could damage transformers and cause long-term outages, according to Steven Milloy, energy expert, news commentator, and publisher of Junkscience.com.

    “We are in this nonsensical, headlong rush to wreck our grid,” he told The Epoch Times.

    What’s overlooked in this drive to close coal and gas plants is America’s ability to keep the lights on. And while neither the Biden administration nor Mr. Bloomberg has produced a cost-benefit analysis for their plans, analysts say we can look to places such as Germany and Texas, which have taken the lead in transitioning to wind and solar, for a preview of what’s in store.

    German energy economist Lars Schernikau has assessed the results of his country’s “Energiewende” (energy transition) and warns Americans to not follow Germany’s example.

    “Wind and solar do not seem to work; otherwise, after 20 years of ‘Energiewende,’ power prices would be lower and Germany would not be in trouble,” he told The Epoch Times.

    Germany spent hundreds of billions of euros to build wind and solar facilities since 2002, doubling its power generation capacity and boosting the share of renewables to 60 percent from about 10 percent. However, its electricity production has been flat, while the cost of electricity skyrocketed.

    Wind and solar don’t increase output proportionately because of their significantly lower “capacity factor,” or the percentage that’s actually generated versus capacity built.

    The capacity factor for wind and solar is significantly lower than that for nuclear or fossil fuels. (Energy Information Administration)

    The capacity factor for wind and solar is about 35 percent and 25 percent, respectively, compared to roughly 92 percent for nuclear and 50 percent for coal and natural gas. That many utilities prioritize buying power from wind and solar facilities rather than from coal and gas plants artificially inflates the capacity factor for wind and solar, even from these low levels.

    For all the billions spent, Germany’s “Energiewende” has delivered an increasingly unreliable electric system at a cost to consumers that’s higher than virtually every other developed country.

    The process of shuttering coal and nuclear plants has left the country at the whim of the weather and unfriendly neighbors, such as Russia, and also dangerously short of dependable power that can be adjusted to meet fluctuations in demand.

    The capacity factor for wind and solar is significantly lower than that for nuclear or fossil fuels. (Energy Information Administration)

    Before the current trend of closing coal plants, electric utilities in the West typically ran their power generation systems with a 20 percent installed reserve margin over expected peak demand, to ensure that they could always meet consumers’ needs.

    That margin ensured that the electric grid would still function even during unpredicted events, such as a winter freeze in Texas or a summer heat wave in California.

    Depleting Reserves to Balance Renewables

    The transition to renewables is now eroding that safety margin. Germany, where peak demand is around 80 gigawatts, once had about 100 gigawatts of reliable, dispatchable capacity; now, reliable capacity is down to 80 to 85 gigawatts, according to Mr. Schernikau.

    “That means they are actually at the margin,” he said. “As soon as you get close to the margin, whether your reliable power supply equals or is barely above your peak power demand, you’re running into trouble, which is exactly what Texas has done.”

    Electric utilities in the United States, one by one, are following in Germany’s footsteps, and we’re already seeing similar results. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that coal and natural gas plants will account for 98 percent of plant closures in 2023 and that U.S. utilities have halted an average of 11 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity per year since 2015. 

    Utilities are rapidly shutting down coal and gas plants. (Energy Information Administration)

    The problem for the electric grid as a whole is that the electricity supply must always match the demand. If the system goes out of equilibrium, substantial damage to the grid’s hardware could result, leading to long-term outages.

    “Wind comes and goes, and you can’t operate off of something that’s an unpredictable source; you need an auxiliary source of power to balance it out,” Mr. Droz said. “Something like 99 percent of that balancing power is gas.

    “When these people say wind, that is deceptive because there is no such thing as wind by itself. What they should be saying is a wind-plus-gas package.”

    What many U.S. utilities are doing is expanding their wind and solar capacity but not adding reliable backup facilities to match it, he said. Instead, the utilities “just dump any excess need for balancing onto the system,” hoping that they can draw on other regions when there’s a shortfall.

    Increasingly, they’re also drawing on the emergency reserve.

    “The wind developers are using the reserve as the auxiliary, and that’s not supposed to be what happens,” Mr. Droz said. “They should not be allowed to take from the emergency reserve to balance their wind projects.”

    Workers at Gainesville Regional Utilities pinpoint a solar panel installation on the city’s electrical grid map, in Gainesville, Fla., on April 15, 2009. That year, the city of Gainesville became the first city in the nation to have a solar feed-in tariff ordinance, allowing owners of solar photovoltaic systems to receive 32 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced by the system over the next 20 years. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    ‘Reliability Chicken’

    Brent Bennett, policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, refers to this process as “reliability chicken.”

    “They’re having to play a lot of games now in order to justify building more wind and solar,” he told The Epoch Times.

    Among the utilities, Mr. Bennett said, “everybody is pointing at each other and saying, ‘We’re going to get energy back from these guys,’ and these guys over here say, ‘We’re going to get energy back from those guys.’”

    As long as there’s only a small percentage of wind and solar in the system, “they can get away with that,” according to Mr. Droz.

    “But when you get a more severe case, like the Texas freeze, all of a sudden that reserve that was built in for emergencies is completely gone,” he said.

    Texas’s winter storm Uri in 2021 caused hundreds of deaths, many from hypothermia, when power outages prevented Texans from heating their homes. In that case, utilities in the state came within minutes of collapsing the grid for weeks or longer.

    Karla Perez and Esperanza Gonzalez warm up by a barbecue grill during a power outage caused by winter storm Uri in Houston on Feb. 16, 2021. (Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

    Ultimately, Texas electricity operators were able to implement emergency rolling blackouts and shed enough load to rebalance the system in time to prevent an even greater catastrophe. However, experts warn that operating so close to the margin is a very dangerous game to play.

    Testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2015, former CIA Director James Woolsey was asked what would happen to Americans if the electric grid went down for an extended period.

    “There are essentially two estimates on how many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack of water, and from social disruption,” he said.

    “One estimate is that within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population would die. The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90 percent of the U.S. population would die.”

    Despite that risk, government policies are pushing utilities to move faster to shut down coal and gas plants.

    “All the incentives are for utilities to build more wind and solar,” Mr. Bennett said.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 18:25

  • Biden Briefed On China's Plans For First Military Base In The Middle East
    Biden Briefed On China’s Plans For First Military Base In The Middle East

    China is reportedly seeking to establish a permanent military base in the Middle East for the first time, which Washington will certainly see as a significant ‘challenge’ – also given the planned base would be in the Arab Gulf region, where the US also has major bases, as in the case of the Navy Central Command installations in Qatar and Bahrain. 

    “President Joe Biden has been briefed on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman, people familiar with the matter said, amid a broader effort by Beijing to deepen defense and diplomatic ties with the Middle East,” Bloomberg writes in its major Tuesday story.

    “Biden was told that Chinese military officials discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. They said the two sides agreed to more talks in the coming weeks,” the report continues.

    It’s as yet unknown precisely where the potential Oman base would be located. Just last August, Oman and China held a formal celebration for their 45 years of official diplomatic relations. 

    The Chinese and Omani militaries have in the recent past coordinated events and exercises, with Oman’s port of Muscat semi-regularly hosting Chinese PLA warships. Last month, the Omani and PLA militaries held joint drills, and pledged to work “to expand their naval defense and military cooperation.”

    China is also believed to have long eyed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a possible host country for another base. Currently, Beijing’s only other significant overseas military base is in the East African country of Djibouti. 

    Bloomberg suggests the deepened military ties between China and Oman parallels energy ties:

    Oman is sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East given that it follows a policy of neutrality and regularly acts as a mediator, including between the US and Iran. It’s also sought to balance between maintaining its partnership with the US and nurturing ties with China, which imports the bulk of its crude output. China also invested in the first stage of Oman’s Duqm special economic zone, which will be the site of the Middle East’s biggest oil-storage facility.

    The US itself doesn’t have a permanent, stand-alone military base inside Oman; however, it has a key agreement with the government to use Omani bases when needed for a variety of operations. 

    For example, the US Air Force uses RAFO Thumrait airbase, a military airport located near Thumrait in the country’s south. The US Navy also frequently patrols waters off Oman’s coast, looking for Iranian weapons and sanctioned oil or other shipments. One military publication has described of the Pentagon’s minimal presence (compared to other Gulf nations) in Oman as follows: 

    The U.S. maintains an ability to use Omani bases through the Oman Facilities Access Agreement, originally signed in 1980, and most recently renewed in 2010.55 This accord made Oman the first country among the Persian Gulf States to explicitly partner militarily with the U.S.56 According to the agreement, the U.S. can request access to these facilities in advance for a specified purpose. Some of the bases listed in this section are those the U.S. may access, but not necessarily where a presence is maintained. Oman has allowed 5,000 aircraft overflights, 600 landings, and 80 port calls annually. 

    Starting in 2021, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) began warning that China is not content with its Djibouti base on the continent’s east coast, but is looking to establish a military presence on the Atlantic. The US has long seen China as the top threat to the so-called “rules-based international order” (alongside Russia)–but Beijing very obviously lacks a global military presence like Washington has.

    China also has a small naval outpost at Pakistan’s major Indian Ocean port.

    Lately, every Chinese move to expand militarily is seen as a serious “threat” by US officials, and this is even more acute now with the Ukraine and Gaza wars happening, given Beijing often takes stances opposite Washington’s when it comes to these raging conflicts.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 18:05

  • Escaping The Socioeconomic Bullseye
    Escaping The Socioeconomic Bullseye

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    Imagine that it’s 5th August 1945 and you’re the only person in Hiroshima who knows that, the following day, the US will drop an atom bomb in your back yard.

    It goes without saying that you’d choose the fastest form of transportation available to you and head out of the city as quickly as possible.

    Where would you go? It wouldn’t matter very much. The goal would be to get as far as possible from Hiroshima, since you wouldn’t know how far out the damage would extend.

    For many years, I’ve been advising people on what I’ve perceived as a coming economic crisis that would carry with it both a political crisis and a social crisis of epic proportions.

    These three arrows would be concurrent, with each one exacerbating the other two.

    Not surprisingly, many people have been either unwilling or unable to accept that such a major series of events might take place.

    However, the writing is now very much on the wall and even those who don’t really understand the crisis have a feeling in the pit of their stomachs that unfolding events will end very badly.

    So, we’re at the Hiroshima moment – that brief time prior to the collapse stage of the crisis when it may still be possible to “get out of Dodge.”

    And much like Hiroshima, the devastation will have its epicentres. They will be the major cities of those countries that will be most greatly impacted.

    We can expect that New York City, London, Toronto, Tokyo, Melbourne and others will experience dramatic decline in quality of life. In fact, this is already under way and people have begun exiting the affected cities, not planning to return.

    We can imagine these epicentres as the bullseye in the image above. They represent the worst places to be caught in the coming years of crisis.

    But like Hiroshima, the areas immediately outside the city will be the second-riskiest places to be. We might see them as the red ring on the target in the image above.

    What locations might they be?

    Well, the fact that some of the world’s most prominent cities will be the epicentre tells us that the countries in which they exist have devolved to the point that their economies are deeply in trouble.

    Therefore, after an initial hit in the major cities, the remainder of each country will experience economic turmoil, which will generate political and social turmoil.

    And again, this has already begun in such countries as the US, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia.

    Therefore, those who were located in, say, New York, may have already left for perceived greener pastures in Colorado, Texas or Florida.

    But this solution may well prove to be very temporary, as the same governments that created the strife in the cities will impact those who have sought to escape but who remain within the country’s borders. Also, these locations are now filling up with “refugees” from cities, who often find themselves unwelcome by longtime residents.

    What locations, then, would constitute the white band above – the next band away from the bullseye?

    Well, that might be those countries that are not part of the former Free World, the host of countries that followed the US into prosperity after World War II, then followed it into destructive debt decades later.

    They would be the countries that have existed on a lower economic tier – failing to get on the A-team, but still having ridden on the coattails of the US, via trade agreements.

    Such countries would be heavily impacted by the collapse, but with less distance to fall. They would therefore not experience such dramatic change.

    Such countries might include Mexico, Spain, Colombia and a host of others.

    Then, even further from the epicentre would be the outer rings – those countries that have taken on a minimum of trade and/or other forms of dependence upon the US and its main partners.

    They would include Thailand, Uruguay and other far-flung “under-achievers.”

    Uruguay, for example, imports only about ten percent of what it consumes and almost all of that comes from other Spanish-speaking countries. It also exports only about ten percent of what it produces. Whilst this has caused Uruguay to remain a sleepy little country with minimal dynamics, it has allowed it to sit out major events elsewhere in the world. (In the last century, it sat out both World Wars and the Great Depression.)

    Therefore, those who recognize that their home country and its population centres may soon become less than livable, may find that, by moving to Cafayate, Argentina, Chiang Mai, Thailand, or Lake Chapala, Mexico, may dramatically decrease the odds of becoming a casualty of the unfolding crisis.

    But there’s another, final ring on the target above: the white ring. This one goes one step further.

    In times of crisis, wealth does not vanish. It simply changes hands and, often, geographical location.

    Therefore, as wealth exits the more troubled countries of the world, it will gravitate to the less-troubled jurisdictions. As the old saying goes, “Money flows to where it’s treated best.”

    When this occurs, the target jurisdictions will experience development, prosperity and trickle-down advances in social conditions. There will, therefore, be locations in the world that are on the rise, as other locations are in decline.

    In the West, there are only a handful of jurisdictions that stand to rise as a result of the crisis. However, in Asia, there are many. Indeed, in each of the more productive countries of Asia, the mood on the street is one of opportunity. In Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam and others, the mood is buoyant. Asians fully understand that this is their century.

    On any evening out with Asian businessmen, we find that the former perception of playing second fiddle to the West is gone, that the only obstacle remaining to Asians is China. Asian industrialists regard their main objective to be building up factories and exports to raise their position against their one great local rival.

    Over the coming decades, Asia will be in a literal gold rush as nations compete to challenge China’s present lead.

    The world is therefore a series of concentric circles of opportunity. The outer rings afford the greatest likelihood of prosperity.

    Conversely, the closer the individual is to the epicentre of the crisis, the poorer his chances are to thrive in what is certain to be a period of dramatic change.

    At such a time, it might be advisable for the reader to ponder which of the rings would best represent the one in which he presently resides and whether it might be advantageous or even necessary to choose another.

    *  *  *

    The political and economic climate is constantly changing… and not always for the better. Obtaining the political diversification benefits of a second passport is crucial to ensuring you won’t fall victim to a desperate government. That’s why Doug Casey and his team just released a new complementary report, “The Easiest Way to a Second Passport.” It contains all the details about one of the easiest countries to obtain a second passport from. Click here to download it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 11/07/2023 – 17:45

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Today’s News 7th November 2023

  • Young, Bold, & Angry: The Youth-Led Revival Of The Palestinian Cause
    Young, Bold, & Angry: The Youth-Led Revival Of The Palestinian Cause

    Authored by Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, op-ed via The Cradle,

    Global youth are smashing Israeli propaganda constructs to champion justice and humanity as they throw their support behind the armed struggle for Palestinian national liberation.

    For years, there’s been a prevailing notion that the Palestinian cause is losing its grip on the younger generations. This perception stems from the belief that, as globalization tightens its hold, the youth in West Asia, particularly in occupied Palestine, might become more disconnected from their historical roots and national affiliations. 

    With the spread of liberal ideas, many speculated that economic opportunities, technological advancements, and global exposure would shift their focus away from the Palestinian cause. Some even anticipated that the younger generation would turn against armed resistance to the Zionist occupation, owing to the small tide of Arab-Israeli normalization.

    But recent events, especially the US-backed Israeli genocidal war against Gaza, have shown a different story. Three weeks of nonstop atrocities have rekindled the flame of Palestinian identity, ensuring that at least three generations stand united against the west’s ‘rules-based order’ and in support of any resistance against the occupation state.

    Youth in West Asia

    Prior to the Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood military operation on 7 October, many believed that young Arabs were leaning more toward normalizing relations with Israel, prioritizing economic prosperity over solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians. 

    However, the stark contrast between Iranian-aligned Arab states, which struggle with sanctions and insecurity, and those Arab countries that have normalized relations and enjoy a better quality of life has made the youth question the old assumptions about resistance.

    The role played by Arab youth after the events of 7 October has reinforced the need to confront Israel. Tel Aviv’s behaviors, rife with criminality, aggression, and lies, have embarrassed its Arab partners, and now challenge the narrative that sought to separate Hamas from the rest of the Palestinian population.

    According to Pew Research Center’s generational divisions based on age, today’s younger generations can be categorized into two groups, and current children can be classified into a single category:

    After the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood, the west attempted to frame the narrative around the specific event – leaving out historical context – sought to characterize Hamas as ISIS, and emphasized Israel’s “right to self-defense” against “terrorism.” Ironically, it has been Israel’s brutal actions that countered these efforts, leading to the deaths of over 8,525 Palestinians, including 3,542 children and over 2,000 women. 

    This devastating toll was enough to label Israel as the real perpetrator of terrorism, and the images of innocent martyrs, especially children, became a powerful symbol in the defense of Palestinian rights.

    Agents of change 

    What’s truly remarkable is that the leaders of the new narratives are the youth of Generation Z, Y, and Alpha. Leveraging social media, and speaking directly to their peer groups, they conveyed the grievances of the Palestinian people to the world. Many had limited knowledge of Palestine, but their unfiltered sense of justice fueled their collective anger against Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

    Social media has also given rise to a new form of journalism, known as citizen journalism. Ordinary individuals on the ground have become frontline reporters, sharing live audio and video updates that effectively sideline mainstream news reporting. When traditional media fails to provide the full picture, platforms like X and Instagram became invaluable sources of information. For instance, during the first two days of the Gaza offensive, over 50 million posts flooded the X platform and provided real-time coverage of events on the ground.

    On social media, the younger generation is playing a crucial role in raising awareness about the Palestinian cause, galvanizing people across the globe to mirror their outrage. Today, in many countries, populations are taking to the streets in protest, boycotting companies supporting Israel, and expressing their solidarity across a wide variety of social media platforms. 

    Videos advocating for Palestinian rights appear in dozens of languages, reaching millions. Weeks after the aggression, hashtags like #فلسطين and #إسرائيل had billions of views on TikTok, leading the US to pressure Meta to ban influential accounts supporting the Palestinian cause.

    Crucially, the scenes of Israeli brutality on social media have led to widespread, unprecedented criticism of the US, a key partner in Tel Aviv’s war plans, oddly, from Jewish American youth. Thousands of critical Jewish voices have emerged, condemning Washington’s policies. Instead of fading, the Palestinian cause is regaining momentum worldwide, defying the intentions of both Washington and Tel Aviv.

    Influence on western youth

    According to a recent poll published by the Daily Mail, only 40 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 have a negative view of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas. Despite Israel’s efforts to label Hamas as ISIS, more than half of young respondents do not share this view. The same poll indicates that 32 percent have a negative view of Israel instead, while only 24 percent have a positive outlook. Significantly, among young people, those with a negative view of Israel outnumber those with a positive view.

    An Axios poll in the US reveals that less than half of young respondents (48 percent) believe that the country should support Israel. In contrast, this percentage rises significantly among older respondents, reaching 83 percent among those born between 1946 and 1964. Another poll by Generation Lab shows that 48 percent of US college students surveyed do not blame Hamas for the events of 7 October.

    A Quinnipiac poll shows that 51 percent of voters under the age of 35 do not support sending weapons and military equipment to Israel in response to the Hamas operation, compared to 77 percent for those aged 50 or older.

    Additionally, Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies conducted a survey on the war in Palestine among respondents aged 18 to 24, with the following key findings:

    • 47 percent believe that Hamas targeted the occupation army during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and not civilians.

    • 41 percent believe that Hamas fighters are military operatives and not terrorists.

    • 48 percent side with Hamas and not with Israel. (This rises to 91 percent for those aged 55-64)

    • Although 62 percent believe that Hamas’ actions are criminal, 52 percent believe that Hamas ‘ killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians can be justified because of the injustice inflicted on Palestinians.

    • 46 percent believe that law firms should not refuse to hire law students who supported Hamas and attacks on Israeli civilians.

    • 48 percent oppose the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel.

    • 54 percent believe that Iran has nothing to do with the Hamas attack on 7 October.

    • 59 percent believe that it was wrong for Israel to cut off electricity, water, and food to the Gaza Strip in order to retrieve its prisoners.

    • Only 30 percent believe that the US should support Israel in the war on Gaza.

    • 45 percent believe that Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

    • Only 24 percent believe that the US media reports events in Gaza in a fair manner.

    • 60 percent believe that the US should not intervene militarily if Iran strikes Israel.

    Commenting on these figures, Mark Penn, CEO of Stagwell and president of the Harris-Ball Foundation, says that “the war between Israel and Hamas is not an issue divided along party lines, but on the basis of age.” 

    Rachel Janvaza, an expert on the political culture of the younger generation, suggests that “seniors are deeply traumatized by the generational divide, but this tension has been brewing on social media and in universities for a while – both of which play a very powerful role in how young people see the world.” Others disparage this development – Brad Polombo, in an article for Newsweek, opines: “Gen Z is not okay.” 

    Recent events highlight the resilience of Palestinian youth in preserving their identity and defending their rights. They have leveraged innovative ways to keep the Palestinian narrative relevant globally, with youth solidarity in West Asia bringing Palestinian grievances to a worldwide audience via various social media platforms, in all languages. 

    The impact of these events on the younger generation will likely continue to shape their views and influence future decisions, and today has the potential to affect international opinion and shift foreign policy. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/06/2023 – 23:40

  • Why Do People Immigrate To The US?
    Why Do People Immigrate To The US?

    The U.S. is a country created and built by immigrants from all over the world. As a result, it’s home to more immigrants than any other country.

    As of 2021, more than 45.3 million people living in the U.S. were foreign-born, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants. But while some come to reunite with family, others are seeking work or escaping dangerous situations.

    So why do people immigrate to the U.S.? The following graphic, by Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach and Joyce Ma, using U.S. Department of State data compiled by USAFacts, shows the different reasons cited by new arrivals to America in 2021.

    Why Immigrants Came to the U.S. in 2021

    New arrival data in a given year includes non-tourist visas, new arrival green cards, refugees, and asylees.

    Each arrival falls under a broad class of admission:

    • Work: Includes visas for specialty occupations or temporary agricultural work, as well as new arrival green cards issued for employment.

    • School: Includes student visas and families of student visa recipients.

    • Family: Includes immigrant visas and new arrival green cards issued for relatives of American citizens.

    • Safety: Includes refugees and asylees, as well as immigrant visas and new arrival green cards issued for fears of safety or persecution.

    • Diversity: Entry through the Diversity Visa Program—also known as the “green card lottery”—which accepts applicants from countries with low numbers of immigrants in the previous five years.

    In 2021, the United States saw 1.53 million new arrivals. Here’s how the arrivals break down by class and origin:

    New arrivals for work were the largest cohort of entries to America, totaling 638,551 people or 41.8% of new arrivals. The majority came from neighboring Mexico, which accounted for 55% of incoming workers and was the largest single country of origin.

    School and education saw 492,153 people 32.2% of new U.S. arrivals, with the majority coming from Asian countries. China had the most school-related entries into the U.S. out of individual countries, accounting for 19.0% of total school-related entries, followed by India at 17.4%.

    Family entries to the U.S. comprised just 23.2% or under a quarter of incoming new arrivals. In these instances, the largest cohorts came from India (17.6% of family entrants) and Mexico (15.2% of family entrants).

    Compared to the larger classifications above, safety (1.9% of total entrants) and diversity (0.9% of total entrants) accounted for significantly fewer U.S. arrivals. The countries with the most citizens seeking refuge or asylum were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (4,876 refugees) and Venezuela (1,596 asylees) respectively.

    Growth of U.S. Immigration

    Though 2021 saw less entrants than before 2020 as a prolonged result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it still tracks with increased immigration to the U.S. in the long term.

    In 1965, the U.S. updated its immigration laws, removing a national origins quota system with regional caps and preferences “emphasizing family reunification and skilled immigrants.”

    Since then, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has more than quadrupled. As of 2022, immigrants accounted for 13.9% of the U.S. population, or nearly 1 in 7 people.

    U.S. Immigration from Global Perspective

    The U.S population contains a high level of immigrants, though immigration is an even more pronounced factor in some other countries in the world. For example, Canada’s foreign-born population accounted for 23% of the country’s total population in 2021.

    Some countries actually have immigrants constitute the majority of their populations. In the Persian Gulf, the United Arab Emirates saw 88% of its population in 2020 come from foreign countries, while Qatar saw 75%.

    Immigration levels have waxed and waned over time, but remains a vital part of the American story today.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/06/2023 – 23:20

  • Virulent Antisemitism And The Rot At Our Universities
    Virulent Antisemitism And The Rot At Our Universities

    Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClearPolitics.com,

    It is time for blunt talk.

    Jewish students at universities are being harassed and threatened in unprecedented numbers, with disturbing vitriol. That’s more than a danger for those students. It is a profound danger for a liberal, tolerant democracy.

    It is time to call it out and oppose it. It’s time to end it.

    The attacks and violent demonstrations shine a particularly harsh light on the sorry state of higher education. The public has watched mass demonstrations against Israel on campus after campus. The demonstrators never mention the victims of the Hamas massacres, never condemn the terrorists, and often go beyond their support for innocent Palestinians to cheer Hamas.

    University leaders, who postured on every fashionable issue, have responded with bland, spineless statements. It’s no surprise that parents are rethinking which universities their children should attend, and major donors are doubting whether universities are worthy of their support.

    For Jewish students, these threats are real. They face harassment, intimidation, and bullying. The situation has been deteriorating for years, but the scale and ferocity of the harassment rose dramatically after Hamas launched its terror attack.

    When some brave students have spoken out in Israel’s defense, they have faced the jackboots of campus bullies. Instead of protecting those students, universities have abandoned their fundamental duty to ensure a safe environment and promote open discourse about serious issues. The situation is most toxic at elite universities and schools in major cities, where anti-Israeli students are reinforced by angry local activists.

    It is too mild to say, “This is the gravest, most antisemitic environment Jewish students have faced in recent years.” It’s worse than that. This is the most hostile environment Jewish students have ever faced in America.

    Never before have Jewish students been subjected to this kind of venom simply for their heritage. True, their admission was limited by quotas until the mid-1960s. True, they were denied membership in fraternities and sororities and routinely excluded from the faculty. But they were never subjected to this kind of raw hatred. As the dean of Berkeley’s law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, a man of the left, put it, “Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now.”

    This open hatred puts the lie to three oft-told “justifications” for violence and intimidation on campus.

    1. It is just aimed at Israel, not at Jews.

    2. It is just aimed at creating a Palestinian state, not eliminating the Jewish one.

    3. It is just aimed at Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks.

    None of those are true.

    First, although the anger is focused on Israeli students and faculty, the evidence is overwhelming that it is directed at all Jews.

    There are countless examples. More on them later.

    The second lie is that these anti-Israel protests merely seek to establish a Palestinian state so they can live in harmony, or at least cold peace, with Israel.

    There are two serious problems with that claim. One is that a Palestinian state with full sovereignty would almost certainly form alliances with Israel’s most lethal enemies, who would supply them with weapons, funds, intelligence, and training and perhaps establish military bases within a few miles of Israeli cities. That ominous prospect puts sharp limits on Israel’s willingness to cede full control to any Palestinian state.

    As for a “two-state solution,” that aspiration is true for some, including President Biden, but it is not true for militants or their fellow travelers on campus and beyond. Their actual, stated goal is the slogan repeated at all demonstrations, “Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea.” A nation stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean would completely eliminate Israel.

    That’s hardly a new goal. Arab and Muslim rejectionists have demanded it since the Jewish state was founded in 1948. Hamas proclaims it in its charter. So do all Islamist organizations and many Muslim countries. They refuse to use Israel’s name, calling it “the Zionist entity.” Hamas’ flag makes the same point visually. Its map of Palestine covers all of Israel. Yet students constantly chant this slogan out of malice or ignorance. What they are openly proposing is a “final solution” for the Jewish state.

    The third lie is that these protests are entirely concerned with Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks.

    Israel’s military response has certainly intensified the protests, which will grow as the fighting escalates. But the protests began before any Israeli response. They began while Hamas was still marauding through villages, killing innocents, raping women, and taking hostages. Although these early protests merely claimed to support Palestine, many also celebrated the terrorists and spewed the vilest hate at Israel and America.

    A credulous mainstream media perpetuated all three lies.

    Some journalists probably believed them. Others didn’t bother checking because the false “facts” confirmed their worldview and advanced their political goals.

    The most obvious, despicable, and consequential of these media lies was that “Israel’s military killed up to 500 innocent people in an attack on a Gaza hospital.” The main problems with that story are that some of it never happened, and the rest was a vast exaggeration.

    Why did major media sources say it did?

    Because Hamas said so, and they believed it. The headlines did more than repeat the lie. They screamed it. The journalists and their editors failed in their basic duty to check the facts.

    From the outset, Hamas knew the story was a wild exaggeration. After all, they spun it up and spread it, cynically, because it aided their cause. Israel’s communication officials should have responded quickly and effectively (they didn’t) since they knew almost immediately that the story was baseless. It was a misfire by local Islamic terrorists, backed by Iran. That conclusion was supported by audio of terrorists talking about the misfire. About 30% of their rockets fail and kill their own people.

    Israel responded too slowly to these deliberate lies because their communications specialists were trying to verify the information amid the fog of war. Their due diligence was not replicated by Western media, the Arab-Muslim street, regional political leaders, or pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses and the streets of Europe and North America. All of them embraced the Hamas lie because it confirmed their prejudices and advanced their cause.

    Left-wing groups avoided questioning the lie for one additional reason. They are now tightly aligned with the hate-Israel movement and want to sustain their coalition with militant Muslims. It gives both groups more clout. Its most visible representation is “the Squad” in Congress. It also dominates campus politics. Pro-Israel students encounter this belligerent coalition every day.

    The lies about the hospital bombing have the same DNA as the “blood libels” leveled against Jews since the Middle Ages – throwing babies down wells, making Passover matzos out of Christian blood, and on and on. They were tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury. The fury was directed at Jews. It still is. The latest libel ignited massive protests across the Middle East and Europe and led Arab leaders to cancel their scheduled meetings with President Biden. Its resurgence in the West is a terrible sign for our democracy.

    Harrowing stories from universities underscore the gravity and pervasiveness of this aggressive anti-Israel movement and its inexorable morphing into antisemitism. We have learned, for example, of Jewish students locking themselves in a library on a Manhattan campus, trying to protect themselves from anti-Israel protesters pounding on the doors.

    We have seen countless videos of pro-Palestinian students shouting down peaceful Jewish protests. We’ve read vile social media posts from faculty calling Jews “pigs” and “excrement,” beyond the usual false charges of “apartheid” and “settler colonialism.”

    At Cornell, horrific, antisemitic messages were posted on the campus message board. One, cited by the student newspaper, bragged it was “gonna shoot up 104 West,” the address of Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living. It added, “Allahu akbar! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Glory to Hamas! Liberation by any means necessary” (posted October 29, 2023, by “kill jews”). We’ve learned of a Stanford instructor forcing all the Jewish students to sit in a corner, as a “Palestinian exercise.”

    We’ve seen the familiar call from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) that “Zionism must be dismantled” at all universities. That means expelling all Israeli students and faculty, abolishing study-abroad programs, ending faculty collaboration with Israeli scholars in medicine, science, and high technology, and eliminating all pro-Israel organizations on campus. That will never happen. But it’s the thought that counts.

    Some of these disturbing acts are isolated incidents. Many, though, are integral features of broader, antisemitic movements.

    Together, they have cumulated and taken a toll on Jewish students. They would have a different meaning if they prompted students of goodwill to unite in their condemnation and support of beleaguered Jewish students. That open support has been all too rare.

    What is on full display here is more than antisemitism, more even than the moral degradation of our universities. It is a rising, toxic tide of illiberalism, directed first at Israel, then at all Jews, and ultimately at what is most valuable in Western civilization.

    That movement germinated from neo-Marxist college faculty, beginning in the humanities, took hold with their students, spread to K-12 education, and won significant financial support from major foundations and leftist donors. That illiberal tide comes with strong support from militant Muslims. It has inundated Europe and is rising in America.

    Now is the time to turn it back. The stakes couldn’t be higher. They are the most profound, hard-won values of Western civilization, from free speech and free markets to democratic governance and religious freedom.

    Its enemies say they hate Israel. They do, but many of them hate all Jews. They say they love Palestine. They do, but they often go further: They cheer terrorist movements, harass Jewish students, burn flags of Israel and America, parade with maps promising the extinction of Israel, and chant slogans demanding it.

    They do all those things. And they won’t stop there. They never do.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/06/2023 – 23:00

  • Marine 'Mocked' For Low IQ, Outwits Most College Grads In Intelligence Test
    Marine ‘Mocked’ For Low IQ, Outwits Most College Grads In Intelligence Test

    In a fascinating episode from Jubilee Media’s “Ranking” series, a diverse mix of Gen-Z and millennial participants were tasked with assessing each other’s intelligence to establish a ranking within the group. Despite the varied backgrounds, the collective judgment of the group placed a young Marine at the lower end of the spectrum, whereas individuals with college degrees, including some from prestigious Ivy League institutions, were deemed the most intelligent. However, when it came time for the actual IQ test, the Marine outsmarted three college grads.  

    All participants “mocked and ridiculed the uneducated white Marine,” X user End Wokeness said. 

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

    Here’s the group’s perceived IQ ranking. Notice how everyone placed the Marine at number six?

    Now for the actual IQ test, the Marine is number three, beating three college grads. 

    What’s notable, and pay attention, Gen-Zers – you don’t have to go $100k in student debt for a degree that might not improve your intelligence.

    It seems like ‘woke’ gender studies at liberal universities are not making college grads smarter. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/06/2023 – 22:40

  • Research Flags "Concerning" Employment Losses At Nursing Homes Amid Biden Administration Staffing Push
    Research Flags “Concerning” Employment Losses At Nursing Homes Amid Biden Administration Staffing Push

    By Susanna Vogel of HealthcareDive

    Summary:

    • Healthcare employment growth fell across the board during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some sectors have had more difficulty rebounding than others, according to a new study — especially skilled nursing facilities, which face a controversial federal push for more staffing.

    • Employment in hospitals increased 0.4% per quarter before the pandemic, but that growth rate shrunk to 0.03% during COVID-19, according to the study published in JAMA. By comparison, employment at skilled nursing facilities was already declining before COVID, dropping at a rate of 0.2% per quarter. During the pandemic, the rate of job losses accelerated to 1.1%.

    • The Biden administration is seeking to impose mandatory nursing staffing minimums at skilled nursing facilities, or SNFs. The nursing home industry largely opposes the rule, arguing there are not enough workers available to meet the staffing mandate.

      The downward employment trend in SNFs is “concerning,” according to the study’s authors, who said it could be due to a variety of factors, including worker worries of contracting infectious diseases, lower wages and high turnover among long-term care occupations.

      Regulators, healthcare industry leaders and workers unions disagree on how to make such roles more attractive to workers.

      In September, the Biden administration proposed a rule that would require nursing homes to provide three hours of nursing care per resident per day. The proposed rule also stipulates that at least one registered nurse be on duty at long-term care facilities at all times.

      Supporters of the rule, including top Biden administration officials, say that increasing staff is associated with higher-quality patient care and lower levels of provider burnout and turnover.

      Critics, including nursing homes and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, have asked the CMS to scrap the proposed rule, warning that requiring the industry to comply with staffing mandates would jeopardize patients’ access to care and cause facilities that can’t adequately staff to close. 

      Over 80% of nursing homes in the country currently fall short of proposed staffing guidance, according to a September analysis from health policy nonprofit KFF.

      Last month, Sens. Kevin Cramer, D-N.D., and Angus King Jr., I-Maine, sent a letter to CMS warning that the mandate would threaten veterans’ access to long-term care. A separate group of 28 senators also sent a letter pushing CMS to abandon the mandate.

      The Biden administration is also facing pressure from stakeholders who want the staffing rule to be more robust. A group of 100 House Democrats plans to submit comments to the CMS today asking them to make the staffing requirements stricter, including raising the direct care requirement to 4.2 hours per patient per day, according to the Washington Post.

      The comment period for the proposed rule ends today.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 11/06/2023 – 22:20

    • Labor Shortage Hits US Coast Guard, Forces Reduction In Active Fleet Of Cutters 
      Labor Shortage Hits US Coast Guard, Forces Reduction In Active Fleet Of Cutters 

      As the Irasel-Hamas war rages on and threatens to erupt into a regional conflict across the Middle East, the US military faces problems meeting recruitment goals. The shortfall is on full display within the US Coast Guard, which lacks 3,500 service members, approximately 10% of its enlisted workforce, according to Forbes. 

      Vice Commandant Adm. Steven Poulin wrote in a statement that the service must readjust operations and “prioritize lifesaving missions, national security and protection of the Marine Transportation System” due to widespread staffing issues. 

      “The Coast Guard cannot maintain the same level of operations with our current shortfall – we cannot do the same with less. Conducting our missions is often inherently dangerous, and doing so without enough crew puts our members and the American public at increased risk,” wrote Adm. Linda Fagan and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Heath Jones. 

      Forbes said the 3,500-person shortfall would result in ten cutters going out of service, five tugs being transferred to seasonal activation, and 29 boat stations closing. 

      Reducing the number of operating cutters comes at the worst time when demand for service remains high in the coastal waters off the US amid ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. 

      None of this should be a surprise. We’ve explained countless times the US military is having problems meeting recruitment goals (here are the three reasons why). 

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 11/06/2023 – 22:00

    • Yuan De Facto Peg To The Dollar Looks Here To Stay
      Yuan De Facto Peg To The Dollar Looks Here To Stay

      By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

      The US dollar suffered its worse selloff since mid-July last week, bringing some relief to China’s policymakers. With the world’s second-largest economy effectively pegging the yuan to the greenback, Beijing can ride the likely wave of dollar weakness that will also see the Chinese currency depreciate on a trade-weighted basis.

      Dollar-yuan has traded around 7.30 since mid-August in both onshore and offshore markets: fluctuations, either upward or downward, have been less than 1%. The steady hand of PBOC helped suppress one-month implied volatility on the onshore yuan below 3%, to the lowest since February 2022. In offshore trading, where PBOC has relatively less clout, one-month implied vol is now lower than 4%, at levels last seen in April 2022.

      PBOC’s favorite tool for stabilizing the dollar-yuan exchange rate is its daily fixing. The Chinese central bank has kept such a tight grip on the reference rate, sending its volatility to almost zero, something that last took place 13 years ago. From the onset of global financial crisis in 2008 to the middle of 2010, Chinese authorities essentially pegged their currency at 6.82 per dollar.

      Suppressing swings in the dollar-yuan exchange rate is the main route on the road to financial stability. But with it comes side effects that can create headwinds for an economy struggling to recover.

      Between mid-July and early-October, the Bloomberg dollar spot index rallied almost 7% from its 2023 low to high. While the yuan declined against the dollar over the same period, on a trade-weighted basis it advanced nearly 4%. That’s because the Chinese currency held up much better against the greenback than other currencies under the PBOC’s support.

      Now, should the weakening dollar trend persist, the yuan will likely follow suit on a trade-weighted basis, helping boost the country’s competitiveness.

      “It would be too early to declare victory in preserving RMB stability and PBOC will likely phase out its FX policy support gradually,” Ken Cheung, chief asian FX strategist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. said in a client email on Monday. While outflows from onshore equities have moderated recently, China’s property market is still not out of the woods yet and the growth outlook remains generally bearish, Cheung noted.

      While the PBOC has practically left yuan’s daily fixings flat, the currency has kept trading on the weaker side over the past couple months, sometimes pushing the boundaries set by policymakers (yuan is only permitted to deviate a maximum 2% away from the reference rate in onshore trading). If the PBOC were to loosen its grip, market equilibrium will probably imply a much weaker Chinese currency despite a falling US dollar.

      Bearish dollar moves are “likely to do much of the work” for the PBOC, which makes it less likely for policymakers to “give up on their defense of the currency,” according to a research report from JPMorgan on Friday. The US bank believes a large downside move in dollar-yuan is unlikely given the easing policy stance, and favors selling 3-month volatility for USD/CNH.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 11/06/2023 – 21:40

    • Victor Davis Hanson: The Mindset Of Our Anti-Semites
      Victor Davis Hanson: The Mindset Of Our Anti-Semites

      Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via American Greatness,

      Peruse campus literature.

      Watch clips from university protests.

      Scan interviews with pro-Hamas protestors.

      Read the chalk propaganda sketched on campus sidewalks.

      Talk to raging students in the free speech area.

      And the one common denominator – besides their arrogance – is their abject ignorance.

      Take their following tired talking points:

      “Refugees” 

      We are told that the Palestinians after more than 75 years of residence in the West Bank and Gaza are “refugees.” If that definition were currently true, then, are the 900,000 Jews who were forcibly exiled from Muslim countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia after the 1947, 1956, 1967 wars still “refugees?”

      Most fled to Israel. Do they now live in “refugee” camps administrated by the UN? Are they protesting to recover their confiscated homes and wealth in Damascus, Cairo, or Baghdad? Do Jews on Western television dangle their keys to lost homes in Damascus a half-century after they were expelled?

      How about the 150,000-200,000 Greek Cypriots who in 1974 were brutally driven out of their ancient homes in Northern Cyprus? Are they today living in “refugee” camps in southern Cyprus? Are Cypriot terrorists blowing themselves up in “occupied” Nicosia to recover what was stolen from them by Turkey?

      Turkish president Recep Erdogan lectures the world on Palestinian “refugees,” but does he mention Turkey’s role in the brutal expulsion of 40 percent of the residents of Cyprus?

      Are there campus groups organizing against Turkey on behalf of the displaced Cypriots? After being slaughtered and expelled, are the Cypriots a cause celebre in academia? Do the “refugee” cities of southern Cyprus resemble Jenin or Jericho?

      For that matter, how about the 12 million German civilians who between 1945-50 were expelled, and mostly walked back from, East Prussia and parts of Eastern Europe, some with Prussian roots going back a millennium and more. Perhaps 1 million died during the expulsions.

      Are any current survivors still “refugees?” If so, are they organizing for war to get back “occupied”  “Danzig” and “Königsberg” for Germany? So why does the world damn Israel and romanticize the Palestinians in a way it does not with any other “refugee” group?

      “Apartheid”

      Israel is said to practice “apartheid,” although since 2005-06 Gaza has been autonomous. Mahmoud Abbas runs in his fashion the West Bank. Like the Hamas clique, he held elections one time in 2005, and then after his election, of course, cancelled any free election in the fashion of the one election, one time Middle East. Who forced him to do that? Zionists? Americans?

      At any time, Gaza could have taken its vast wealth in annual foreign aid and become completely independent in fuel, food, and energy, without need of any such help form the “Zionist entity.”

      Gaza could have capitalized on its strategic location, the world’s eagerness to help, and the natural beauty of its Mediterranean beaches. Instead, it squandered its income on a labyrinth of terrorist tunnels and rockets. Today, it snidely snickers at any mention of following the Singapore model of prosperity–a former colonial city whose World War II death count vastly surpassed that of the various wars over Gaza.

      Are the Israeli Arabs—21 percent of the Israeli population—living under apartheid?

      If so, it is a funny sort of oppression when they vote, hold office, form parties, and enjoy more freedom and prosperity than almost anywhere else in the Middle East under Arab autocracies. Are those in sympathy with Hamas fleeing from Israel into Gaza or the West Bank or other Arab countries to live with kindred Muslims under an autocratic and theocratic dictatorship, or do they prefer to stay in the “Zionist entity” under “apartheid?”

      Where then is real apartheid?

      The Uyghurs in China, fellow Muslims to Middle Easterners, who are ignored by Israel’s Islamic enemies, but who reside in China’s segregated work camps to the silence of the usually loud UN, EU, and Muslim world?

      How about the Muslim Kurds? Are they second- or third-class citizens in Muslim Turkey? And how about the tens of thousands of foreign workers from India, Pakistan, and other Asian countries who labor under the kafala system in the Arab Muslim Gulf countries, and are subject to apartheid protocols that allow them no free will about how they live, travel, or the conditions of their labor?

      Are campuses erupting to champion the Uyghurs, the Kurds, or the subjugated workers of the Gulf?

      “Disproportionate”

      Israel is now damned as “disproportionally” bombing Gaza. The campus subtext is that because Gaza’s 7,000-8,000 rockets launched at Israeli civilians have not killed enough Jews, then Israel should not retaliate for October 7 by bombing Hamas targets–shielded by impressed civilians— because it is too effective.

      Would a “proportionate” response be counting up all the Israelis murdered, categorizing the horrific manner of their deaths, and then sending Israeli commandoes into Gaza during a “pause” in the fighting to murder an equal number of Gazans in the same satanic fashion?

      Does the U.S. lecture Ukraine not to use to the full extent its lethal U.S. imported weaponry since the result is often simply too deadly? After all, perhaps twice as many Russians have been killed, wounded, or are missing than Ukrainian casualties. Should Ukraine have been more “proportionate?” Has President Biden ordered President Zelensky to offer the Russian aggressors a “pause” in the fighting to end the “cycle of violence?”

      Or did U.S.-supplied artillery, anti-armor weapons, drones, and missiles “disproportionally” kill too many Russians? Or does the U.S. assume that since Russia attacked Ukraine at a time of peace, it deserves such a “disproportionate” response that alone will lose it the war?

      For that matter, the U.S. certainly disproportionately paid back Japan for Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese brutal take-over of the Pacific, much of Asia, and China—and the barbarous way the Japanese military slaughtered millions of civilians, executed prisoners, and mass raped women. Should the U.S. have simply done a one-off retaliatory attack on the imperial fleet at Yokohama, declared a “cease-fire,” and thus ended the “cycle of violence?”

      Civilian casualties

      Campus activists scream that Israel has slaughtered “civilians” and is careless about “collateral damage.” They equate retaliating against mass murderers who use civilians to shield them from injury, while warning any Gazans in the region of the targeted response to leave, as the moral equivalent of deliberately butchering civilians in a surprise attack.

      So did protestors mass in the second term of Barrack Obama when he focused on Predator drone missions inside Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen to go after Islamic terrorists who deliberately target civilians?

      At the time, the hard-left New York Times found the ensuing “collateral damage” in civilian deaths merely “troubling.” No matter—Obama persisted, insisting as he put it, “Let’s kill the people who are trying to kill us.” Note Obama did not expressly say the terrorists in Pakistan or Yemen were killing Americans, but “trying” to kill Americans. For him, that was, quite properly, enough reason “to kill” the potential assassins of Americans.

      What would the Harvard President today say of Benjamin Netanyahu saying just that about Hamas?

      We have no idea how many women, children, and elderly were in the general vicinity of a targeted terrorist in Pakistan or Yemen when an American drone missile struck. Then CIA Director John Brennan later admitted that he had lied under oath (with zero repercussions), when he testified to Congress that there was no collateral damage in drone targeted assassinations.

      Obama was proud of his preemptive assassination program. Indeed, in lighthearted fashion he joked at the White House Correspondence Dinner about his preference for lethal drone missions, when he “warned” celebrities not to date his daughters: “But boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you, ‘predator drones.’ You will never see it coming. You think I’m joking.”

      Did the campuses erupt and scream “Not in my name” when their president laughed about his assassination program? After all, Obama had also admitted, “There is no doubt that civilians were killed who shouldn’t have been.” Did he then stop the targeted killings due to collateral damage—as critics now demand a cease fire from Israel?

      “Genocide”

      Genocide is now the most popular charge in the general damnation of Israel, a false smear aimed at calling off the Israeli response to Hamas, burrowed beneath civilians in Gaza City.

      But how strange a charge! Pro-Hamas demonstrators the world over chant “From the River to the Sea,” unambiguously calling for the utter destruction of Israel and its 9 million population. Are the Hamas supporters then “genocidal?”

      Is genocide the aim of Hamas that launched over 7,000 rockets into Israeli cities without warning? What is the purpose of the purportedly 120,000 rockets in the hands of Hezbollah if not to target Israeli noncombatants? Is all that a genocidal impulse?

      Do Hamas and Hezbollah drop leaflets to civilians, as does Israel, to flee the area of a planned missile attack—or is that against their respective charters?

      Hamas leaders in Qatar and Beirut continue to give interviews bragging about their October 7 surprise mass murdering of civilians. They even promise more such missions that likewise will be aimed at beheading, torturing, executing, incinerating, and desecrating the bodies of hundreds of Jewish civilians, perhaps again in the early morning during a holiday and a time of peace.

      Is that planned continuation of mass killing genocidal? Does the amoral UN recall any other mass murdering spree when the killers beheaded infants, cooked them in ovens, and raped the dead?

      Perhaps students at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Stanford will protest the real genocide in Darfur where some half-million black African Sudanese have been slaughtered by mostly Muslim Arab Sudanese. Did the Cornell professor who claimed he was “exhilarated” on news of beheaded Jewish babies protest the slaughter of the Sudanese? Did the current campus protestors ever assemble to scream about the Islamists who slaughtered the indigenous Africans of Sudan?

      Are professors at Stanford organizing to refuse all grants and donations that originate from communist China? Remember, the Chinese communist Party has never apologized for the party’s genocidal murder of some 60-80 millions of its own during the Maoist Cultural Revolution, much less its systematic efforts to eliminate the Uyghur Muslim population?

      These examples could easily be expanded. But they suffice to remind us that the Middle-East and Western leftist attacks on Israel for responding to the October 7 mass murdering are neither based on any consistent moral logic nor similarly extended to other nations who really do practice apartheid, genocide, and kill without much worry about collateral damage.

      So why does the world apply a special standard to Israel?

      To the leftist and Islamist, Israel is guilty of being:

      1) Jewish;

      2) Too prosperous, secure, and free;

      3) Sufficiently Western to meet the boilerplate smears of colonialist, imperialist, and blah, blah, blah.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 11/06/2023 – 21:00

    • You Get Nothing: Google Abandons Building 15,000 Homes In San Francisco
      You Get Nothing: Google Abandons Building 15,000 Homes In San Francisco

      The complete and total destruction of San Francisco and the surrounding area, consisting of streets overrun by drug addicts and corporations and retail establishments simply giving up on the city, is almost finished. Thanks, liberals!

      The latest chapter in the once great city’s demise came this week when Google pulled out of a $15 billion investment in Santa Clara County that would have built 15,000 homes, according to Gizmodo. 

      The report notes that Google and Lendlease have jointly terminated their $15 billion deal, originally struck in 2019, to develop housing and commercial spaces in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Mountain View, the latter being the home base for the tech giant.

      The ‘Downtown West’ project in San Jose was set to feature 4,000 affordable housing units, sufficient office space for 20,000 workers, a 300-room hotel, and 10 parks. Instead, San Francisco now “gets nothing”.

      Gizmodo wrote that in 2021 the San Jose City Council gave the green light for the Downtown West construction plans by Google and Lendlease, a project which, according to an active post on Google’s site, was shaped through close collaboration with the city and community members to support community building.

      The project’s progress was halted in April during the demolition stage, leaving its future uncertain and potentially becoming a blight on the San Jose landscape at a time when economic injections are sorely needed.

      Compounding the issue, the San Jose Spotlight has highlighted that opioid overdoses in San Jose have seen a threefold increase since 2018.

      In a press release issued Friday, Lendlease said: “The decision to end these agreements followed a comprehensive review by Google of its real estate investments, and a determination by both organizations that the existing agreements are no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”

      Alexa Arena, Google’s Senior Director of Development, commented to Gizmodo: “We’ve been optimizing our real estate investments in the Bay Area, and part of that work is looking at a variety of options to move our development projects forward and deliver on our housing commitment.”

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 11/06/2023 – 20:40

    • Medicaid Disenrollments Pass 10 Million As States Continue Eligibility Checks
      Medicaid Disenrollments Pass 10 Million As States Continue Eligibility Checks

      By Rebecca Pifer of HealthcareDive

      Summary

      • More than 10 million low-income Americans have lost Medicaid coverage as states continue checking eligibility for the safety-net program following the pandemic.

      • The U.S. passed that marker as of Nov. 1, according to a tracker by health policy nonprofit KFF, which started collecting data on Medicaid enrollment in April when states could begin redeterminations.

      • To date, 35% of the 28 million people with a completed renewal were disenrolled, while 65% had their coverage renewed. Disenrollments vary widely by state — Texas has the highest disenrollment rate at 65%, while Illinois has the lowest at 10%, KFF found.

        Disenrollment rates have been rising steadily since this summer, as more states start rechecking their Medicaid members’ eligibility for the program.

        The Biden administration enticed states to put those checks on hold during the COVID-19 public health emergency in exchange for more generous federal funding. That continuous enrollment period caused Medicaid’s rolls to swell to some 94 million people earlier this year, making the program the largest source of insurance coverage in the U.S. during the pandemic.

        Millions of people were expected to lose coverage at the end of Medicaid unwinding, though the actual number is currently very much in flux. Patient advocates, Democrat lawmakers and health policy researchers have raised concerns about redeterminations, as high numbers of people have lost coverage for administrative errors, not actual ineligibility. In addition, states’ different strategies are complicating efforts to get a clear national picture of how redeterminations are playing out.

        Disenrollment figures are almost certainly an undercount, due to data lags, KFF noted.

        But across states with available data, 71% of all people disenrolled lost coverage for procedural reasons like not filling out paperwork by the deadline, or the state being unable to contact them. That’s a small dip from earlier this year, when the KFF found 74% of terminations were procedural.

        The Biden administration has taken a number of steps in an effort to curb procedural disenrollments, including offering states more flexibility in how they pursue redeterminations. To date, all states have taken the CMS up on the additional assistance, except Florida.

        Regulators have also threatened state agencies with sanctions over an administrative glitch that improperly removed children from Medicaid coverage, and forced states with high levels of procedural terminations to pause redeterminations.

        Those actions are resulting in more Medicaid members rejoining the program after being kicked off, according to health insurance executives.

        In recent third-quarter earnings calls, Centene, Molina and Elevance — all of which contract with states to manage the care of their Medicaid beneficiaries — said they’re seeing the rate of reconnects accelerate as compared to earlier this year.

        In addition, states are revising rates to reflect changing acuity as payer’s membership rolls change, which should insulate insurers from extreme unexpected medical costs.

        Despite that, however, redeterminations continue to stress payers’ financial outlooks. Earlier this year, Centene lowered its 2024 earnings guidance due to expectations that Medicaid redeterminations will increase spending and lower premium revenue next year. And Molina in October lowered its member retention expectations after redeterminations are completed, from 50% to 40%.

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 20:20

      • Home Depot Founder Calls Biden A "Dunce," Says President Is A "Puppet"
        Home Depot Founder Calls Biden A “Dunce,” Says President Is A “Puppet”

        Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, who has railed against “socialism,” corporate “wokeness,” and the Biden administration, recently spoke with FOX Business Charles Gasparino about why he is in a “particularly pissed-off mood” these days. 

        “I’ve said this to all of my friends, anybody who would listen: if this election goes the way the last one went, this country will be a Third World country,” the 94-year-old billionaire told Gasparino. 

        Marcus blames the social and economic mess consuming the country on President Biden, calling the president a “dunce” and saying he’s the “most divisive president we’ve ever seen.” Labeling half the country as a ‘MAGA Republican’ was never a way to promote ‘unity,’ he continued. 

        The billionaire then talks about Biden’s deteriorating mental state, saying, “Somebody is feeding him like a puppet.” He warned against the massive spending increase and numerous policy errors that triggered high inflation and an explosion in debt. 

        Marcus acknowledges some positives during the Trump administration, such as increased wages, higher employment among minorities, and low inflation. However, he expresses concerns about Trump’s personality, particularly his inability to “keep his mouth shut . . . I’m afraid if he’s elected, the first thing he does is go after his enemies, starting with the Republicans.” 

        Marcus said, “I think [Trump] has the policies if he would just follow the script and do what he has to do.”

        Gasparino asks the billionaire if he could build another Home Depot in today’s environment. The short answer is ‘no’: “Regulations and all this woke crap” have made starting a public company near impossible, he said. 

        He added: “I ran a business for 60 years… I would never get involved with a social issue outside of business. That was not my business.”

        Marcus said there was some hope for the future of the company as Americans were quickly turning on radical leftists. The example he gave was the Bud Light boycott:

        “They were No. 1 . . . and they turned stupid overnight,” he said. “The American people remember; their sales are going to stay down.”

        He concludes by saying the American people are worth saving from what he believes is a progressive apocalypse… 

        In a separate interview earlier this year, Marcus told Americans to “wake up” to the reality that the economy is in “tough times” following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. 

        Months before that, in December 2022, he railed against “socialism” for why nobody wants to work and warned capitalism is in dire straits. 

        Marcus’ warning is similar to co-founder and retired CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, who recently warned that “socialists are taking over” and ‘capitalism cannot be replaced with disastrous socialism.’ 

        The positive takeaway is that the Bud Light boycott serves as a barometer of American sentiment, indicating widespread discontent with progressive policies across the corporate world to local, state, and federal governments.

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 20:00

      • Woke Teachers Trying To Ban Classic Novel From Schools To "Protect Students"
        Woke Teachers Trying To Ban Classic Novel From Schools To “Protect Students”

        Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

        The Washington Post reports that “progressive” teachers in in Washington state are attempting to get To Kill a Mockingbird, authored by Harper Lee, banned in schools in order to “protect students.”

        The report notes that The Mukilteo School District teachers are adamant that the classic novel, published in 1960, is “outdated and harmful.”

        Set in the deep South during the Great Depression, the book deals with themes of racial injustice, gender roles, and rape to name a few. While it was awarded the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was voted the best book of the past 125 years by New York Times readers in 2021, it has long been criticised for use of racial slurs by characters, with critics also suggesting the novel relies too heavily on stereotypes.

        The report notes that “Students shared their discomfort with the way the 1960 novel about racial injustice portrays Black people,” adding “One Black teen said the book misrepresented him and other African Americans… Another complained the novel did not move her, because it wasn’t written about her — or for her.”

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        The Post adds that another student “spoke about how a White teen said the n-word aloud while reading from “Mockingbird,” disobeying the teacher’s instructions to skip the slur.”

        The teachers filed a motion challenging the place of the novel on the list of approved books, and successfully got it removed from ninth-grade classes.

        “To Kill A Mockingbird centers on whiteness,” the teachers wrote, further claiming that “it presents a barrier to understanding and celebrating an authentic Black point of view in Civil Rights era literature and should be removed.”

        Commentators note that while the novel might contain ‘difficult’ themes, it has a place in history, adding that it’s not explicit sexual material or gay porn, which has been found and challenged in many schools, prompting leftists to accuse conservatives of pushing ‘book bans’.

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        In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

        Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 19:40

      • "Tough Place": Implosion Of Downtown San Francisco Forces McDonald's To Close After 30 Years
        “Tough Place”: Implosion Of Downtown San Francisco Forces McDonald’s To Close After 30 Years

        The unraveling of San Francisco’s office sector has been stunning so far. The once-thriving urban center is now grappling with a record-high 30% vacancy rate in office buildings, attributed mainly to the shift towards remote and hybrid work in a post-Covid era, as well as a mass exodus of companies who no longer felt their office workers were safe because ‘defund the police’ policies backfired and sparked a citywide violent crime tsunami. Now, the ripple effects of a plunge in office workers, no longer walking the streets and spending money at brick-and-mortar shops, have darkened the city’s recovery.

        On Friday, McDonald’s restaurant at 235 Front St. in the Financial District served its last Big Mac after a three-decade run, according to San Francisco Business Times. 

        Scott Rodrick, the McDonald’s franchise owner, said the “post-pandemic realities of operating the downtown restaurant simply became unbearable for the franchisee and McDonald’s Corp.” 

        “The economics of running a franchised restaurant in San Francisco continue to be a challenge, particularly in a downtown that is impacted by high office building vacancy rates and visitor trends that have not recovered since the pandemic,” Rodrick wrote in an email to the local media outlet. 

        Rodrick said San Francisco “continues to be a very tough place to own and operate a restaurant business, irrespective of price point.” He said traffic at the restaurant had dropped off a cliff. 

        “Office building vacancies, the environmental atmosphere of downtown sidewalks and a tepid return by tourists and conventioneers all drove the decision” to close the restaurant, Rodrick wrote.

        This is a troubling development for the commercial real estate industry because the crisis is spreading. And given that retail businesses rely heavily on office workers – this spells disaster for any recovery in the local economy in the short term. 

        For retail shops to thrive, foot traffic generated by office workers and tourists is needed. 

        In recent weeks, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, San Fran’s largest employer and anchor tenant in the city’s tallest skyscraper, urged radical Democrats in City Hall to reverse course on defunding the police. This call from Benioff, alongside other top business leaders, suggests a growing separation from previously ‘woke’ policies pushed by City Hall. However, these calls to reverse disastrous progressive policies could be too late. 

        We noted earlier this year that pressure on Democrat Mayor London Breed was increasing as she embarrassingly reversed course on her defunding the police initiatives. 

        Perhaps in the next local election, law-abiding taxpayers in San Francisco may consider demanding accountability from Democratic leaders for the city’s collapse, which has led to some areas in the metro area being comparable to the hellholes of Detroit and Baltimore City. 

         

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 19:20

      • Ron Paul: Don't Worry, It's Not Foreign Aid…It's Corporate Welfare!
        Ron Paul: Don’t Worry, It’s Not Foreign Aid…It’s Corporate Welfare!

        Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

        Faced with growing American frustration over more than $100 billion spent on a failed proxy war in Ukraine, President Biden’s handlers have hit on a gimmick to convince us that this foreign aid is actually an investment in our own economy!

        In his recent television address, Biden explained that as we transfer more weapons to Ukraine we then will build new weapons at home to replace them.

        That, explained Biden, means more American jobs and a stronger American economy.

        So “Project Ukraine” is not really about foreign welfare, but rather domestic corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex. Should that make us feel any better?

        There is no denying that this nearly two-year Ukraine/Russia war has been a boon for the US weapons industry. Profits at the military-industrial complex are back to record highs after a brief slump during the Covid scare. And the money that goes to the weapons manufactures also saturates Washington, DC: a little of it goes to the think-tanks promoting war, another little bit goes to the political campaigns of candidates who promote war, and so on.

        As Connor O’Keeffe reminds us in a recent article at the Mises Institute, the arguments that more war spending is good for the economy ignore the “broken window fallacy” as first explained by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his essay, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen.” In the tale, a shopkeeper has a window broken and must pay to have it replaced. The locals view the mishap favorably, as they see the $50 for a new window to be a benefit to the glazier which he will then spend, thus improving the economy as a whole. What is not seen, however, is what the shopkeeper might have done with that same $50 had he not been forced to replace a broken window. Perhaps he would have invested it in a way that created far more wealth and more jobs.

        Unfortunately, Biden is not alone in coming up with new gimmicks to enable Washington to operate in a “business as usual” manner.

        New House Speaker Mike Johnson has also been busy trying to convince us that sending money overseas is actually good for our own economy. Over the weekend he appeared on Fox News to tell us that sending another $14 billion to the wealthy nation of Israel is Republicans “trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s resources.” How is that? Well he came up with the gimmick that they would cut $14 billion from the IRS and send it to Israel.

        Said Johnson, “Instead of printing new dollars or borrowing it from another nation to send over to fulfill our obligations and help our ally, we want to pay for it, what a concept, we are trying to change how Washington works.”

        See the trick here? They are not “paying for it” by sending the money overseas, and they are not “changing how Washington works” by doing the exact same thing they always do: stealing from the poor at home to send to the rich in foreign countries.

        Instead of trying to trick Americans into thinking that foreign aid and corporate welfare are good for our economy, why not just stop breaking all of our windows? Just end all foreign aid and corporate welfare!

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 19:00

      • Zelensky Invites Trump To Ukraine, Saying He Can't Negotiate Peace
        Zelensky Invites Trump To Ukraine, Saying He Can’t Negotiate Peace

        Has Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just initiated his next publicity stunt? After all, just days ago he publicly complained that war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas is “taking away the focus” from the Ukraine conflict.

        Now, he’s lashed out at former President Trump while inviting him to come and see the war in Ukraine for himself. Zelensky said the provocative words in a new NBC “Meet the Press” interview. He sarcastically batted down Trump’s prior claims that he could negotiate peace within 24 hours.

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        “Former President Trump said that about 24 hours, that he can manage it and finish the war,” Zelensky said in response. “For me, what can I say? So he’s very welcome as well.”

        “President Biden was here, and I think he understood some details which you can understand only being here,” Zelensky added. “So I invite President Trump. If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes,” he said in a swipe and direct challenge to Trump. 

        Zelensky then emphasized that achieving peace or a ceasefire deal is not an option so long as President Vladimir Putin is in power. He’s maintained this staunch position since nearly the start of the war.

        “He can’t bring peace because of Putin,” the Ukrainian leader told NBC further. “If he’s not trying and if he’s not ready to give our territory to this terrible man, to Putin, if you are not ready to give it, if you are not ready to give our independence, he can’t manage it.”

        Many outside observers have emphasized that the only way to lasting ceasefire is to get Kiev to agree to territorial concessions in the east – but this is the very thing that Zelensky says in a non-starter. The Zelensky government has also held on to the dream of ‘liberating’ Crimea, which has been under clear Russian control for well over half a decade. 

        Trump over the weekend reiterated that he’s the only candidate who can prevent World War Three, telling the Florida Republican Party’s “Freedom Summit” in Kissimmee that “we are closer than anyone understands” to “obliteration.”

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        Trump also told the crowd that “When you think of it, how important elections are, you’d have millions of people alive right now if the 2020 election was not rigged. They would be alive. Ukraine, Israel. The attack would have never been made. All of these people would be alive, the cities would be thriving.”

        This type of rhetoric has not only angered the Ukrainian government, which sees in Trump a manifestation of GOP resistance to a ‘black check’ approach to funding Kiev, but also ardent Ukraine supporters and hawks, including the neocons. 

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 18:40

      • Jack Smith Could Be On Shaky Ground In Trump Charge: Analysts
        Jack Smith Could Be On Shaky Ground In Trump Charge: Analysts

        Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

        Two analysts have noted that special counsel Jack Smith might be on shaky legal ground in his federal election-related case against former President Donald Trump.

        Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, said that the Trump charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding hasn’t been “extensively litigated” over the past several decades, adding that a ruling could come on whether it is appropriate in the former president’s case.

        Multiple defendants who were charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach have “argued that Congress certifying the electoral votes was not an ‘official proceeding’ and courts have universally rejected that argument,” she told Newsweek last week.

        “This bigger question is, what satisfies the ‘corruptly’ requirement? Is it any criminal conduct, such as trespassing in the Capitol building or submitting fake electors? Or does the corrupt conduct have to relate to the other subsections of 1512, which prohibit destroying or concealing evidence?” she asked.

        She continued: “If the corruption requires consciousness of guilt, then Trump can argue that he genuinely believed the election was stolen. Either way, this issue will likely end up before the United States Supreme Court because it is a novel issue that affects hundreds of criminal defendants, including the former president.”

        Lawfare’s Roger Parloff wrote in a recent article that the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently won two “fragile” victories in two cases involving Jan. 6 defendants, and Mr. Smith has “relied on [a] statute” that was used by other prosecutors to charge at least 317 individuals in the Jan. 6 case.

        “Smith has relied on that statute and its conspiracy equivalent, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k), for two of the four counts in his indictment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election,” Mr. Parloff wrote. “Those counts, whose legal sufficiency Trump challenged in a motion to dismiss this week, are the most serious leveled against Trump in that case, carrying a maximum 20-year term of imprisonment.”

        Three appellants in a Jan. 6 case are now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review a recent appeals court ruling that favored the DOJ, he noted, but he said that the D.C. appeals court judges “can’t agree about its holdings, and its holdings determine the viability of a 20-year felony that an ex-president and major presidential candidate now stands charged with violating.”

        “Moreover, at the appeals court level, judges’ acceptance of the Justice Department’s interpretations of that law have been 100 percent correlated with the political party of the judge’s appointer,” he wrote.

        “If that trend continues, and if either case climbs one more rung up the appellate ladder, the department (and Mr. Smith) faces bleak prospects indeed.”

        The comments come as constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley warned that the gag order targeting President Donald Trump is “unconstitutional” and said that an appeals court ruling to rescind the order last week was a “quite significant” development.

        Several weeks ago, District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan placed a gag order on the former president in the Jan. 6-related case, saying President Trump cannot speak about potential witnesses, court staff, or prosecutors. An appeals court in the district froze Judge Chutkan’s order late last week, with oral arguments being set for Nov. 20.

        “They could have left it to continue, to continue while they reviewed it, but they decided perhaps in an abundance of caution to order this stoppage until they can give it a full review,” Mr. Turley, a professor for George Washington University, said on Fox News on Nov. 3. “The reason I think this could be quite significant is because I think the order is unconstitutional.”

        He added that it is “very odd” to issue the order because the same court “insisted on having this trial before the election, sort of shoehorned it in before Super Tuesday,” referring to the key GOP presidential nominating date.

        “And everyone in this election is going to be talking about these cases,” the law professor said, “except one person under this gag order and that is Donald Trump.”

        With the order, the former president “can’t criticize the prosecutors, he can’t criticize witnesses, and special counsel Jack Smith just asked for this order to be expanded in an equally unconstitutional way, and that has drawn the criticism even of the ACLU, which is a staunch critic of Donald Trump, but the ACLU has said look, this is flagrantly unconstitutional,” Mr. Turley said, referring to the American Civil Liberties Union.

        On Nov. 3, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote they were pausing Judge Chutkan’s order to provide them more time to consider the former president’s request while his appeal continues. The three judges on the appeals court panel were all appointed by Democratic presidents, while Judge Chutkan was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

        Judge Chutkan had ruled against President Trump’s attorneys and argued that the gag order was not illegal because the former president is a criminal defendant. The gag order was issued at the request of special counsel Jack Smith’s team of prosecutors, who claimed that the former president’s criticism of witnesses, the judge, prosecutors, and Washington itself threatened the integrity of their case.

        The Trump legal team had argued that the order denied him the right to free speech, especially while he is the leading GOP candidate for president.

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 18:20

      • Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Looming Battles Over Biden Impeachment, Shutdown
        Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Looming Battles Over Biden Impeachment, Shutdown

        In 12 days, Mike Johnson (R-LA) will need to whip out a compromise between House conservatives and Senate Democrats along with RINO republicans in order to keep the government from default, yet again.

        Johnson is also going to need to appease the renewed vigor for a Biden impeachment among House Republicans – which we wouldn’t be surprised to see linked to shutdown negotiations.

        According to Punchbowl News, Johnson has been keeping his cards close to his vest and hasn’t shared much of his thinking with his leadership team.

        The GOP whip operation is not currently in action at all. Remember, when GOP speakers move government funding bills, the majority leader and whip operation typically hold listening sessions and begin to work the vote days — if not weeks — in advance. That hasn’t happened yet.

        The House Republican Conference is slated to meet on Tuesday behind closed doors and sources in the speaker, majority leader and majority whip’s office told us that they don’t expect much of an answer on the path forward until after that gathering.

        Here are Johnson’s options, per Punchbowl:

        1) A ‘clean’ bill would allow federal funding agencies to operate until the middle of January, Johnson’s preference in terms of duration of this latest band-aid. This would be the ‘path of least resistance’ for Johnson.

        2) Pairing an extension with H.R. 2, the GOP immigration bill which would strengthen the US-Mexico border. That said, H.R. 2 is broad, and has provisions that most senators will reject. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they’re working on a separate border plan which they insist won’t amount to a conservative wish list, and which they’ll seek to attach to the national-security supplemental funding bill. House Republicans could also cherry pick aspects of H.R. 2.

        That said, if Johnson and crew attempt to slash federal spending in relation to a two-month stopgap, they’re gonna have a bad time.

        3) A ‘laddered approach’ – pushed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), which would extend government funding for each agency for different periods of time. This has exactly zero support in the Senate.

        Impeachment?

        While Democrats impeached Trump for simply asking Ukraine about obvious (and increasingly evidenced) Biden corruption, and then impeached him again over Jan. 6 (using a MSM producer to choreograph the ‘show’), Republicans are spinning their wheels over Biden, because they suck at this.

        Johnson has cautioned over rushing an investigation, calling impeachment the “heaviest power that we have.”

        That said, as a prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee, Johnson insisted that bribery is “what happened here.”

        The White House has vigorously denied any wrongdoing by Biden and noted that even as Republicans have pored over the business dealings of his brother and son, they’ve failed to connect the president to their work overseas.

        But as Johnson takes the helm from a former Speaker who at times seemed reluctant to pursue the matter, he said last week the House would soon have to determine how to move forward with an investigation shared across three committees. –The Hill

        “I do believe that very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it,” Johnson said on Thursday.

        “I have been very consistent, intellectually consistent in this, and persistent that we have to follow due process, and we have to follow the law,” he continued. “That means following our obligation on the Constitution and doing appropriate investigations in the right way at the right pace, so that the evidence comes in, and we follow the evidence where it leads. You follow the truth where it leads.“

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        “We’ve not predetermined the outcome of this. We’ve not prejudged it,” Johnson said. “But I think everyone can see how it is unfolding.”

        The underlying allegation stems from when Biden was Vice President and threatened Ukraine’s former president with a quid-pro-quo to withhold US foreign aid unless they fired the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s employer.

        “The president bribed or pressured a foreign leader to fire that country’s top prosecutor because the prosecutor was investigating his son, and he used $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to have that bidding done, and then he bragged about it on video,” Johnson said on Fox News in August.

        According to Rep. James Comer, it’s up to Johnson.

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        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 18:00

      • Elon Musk's Free Speech Stance Is "Dangerous", Columbia Journalism Fellow Warns
        Elon Musk’s Free Speech Stance Is “Dangerous”, Columbia Journalism Fellow Warns

        Authored by Matt Lamb via TheCollegeFix.com,

        A Columbia University journalism fellow said Elon Musk’s support for free speech on X, formerly known as Twitter, is both “immoral” and “dangerous.”

        Anika Navaroli used to work on Twitter’s “Trust and Safety Team,” the unit within the company that censored information, oftentimes true. Musk eliminated the team. She now is a senior fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

        “What has now become clear is that Musk’s vision of speech on X is one of the greatest dangers to democracy, especially leading into the 2024 elections,” Navaroli (pictured) wrote on Thursday in The Hill.

        She praised workers like herself for “thanklessly” working behind the scenes to defend “institutions.”

        Navoli and her co-workers, in her telling, “were one of the last defenses to American democracy leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on Congress” which “led ultimately to our deplatforming former President Donald Trump.”

        She wrote:

        Much like poll workers, social media trust and safety workers toil thanklessly and behind the scenes for years to protect the safety and integrity of our most vital democratic institutions. Rather than invest in that crucial work, Musk took a page out of Trump’s playbook, repeatedly and publicly attacking trust and safety workers. He unleashed the Twitter Files, which revealed the names, images, and contact information of former Twitter trust and safety employees.

        The journalism fellow said speech is “evolving,” “complicated,” and “sticky.”

        “It requires tradeoffs, flexibility, and tough decisions. It shouldn’t be dictated by an autocratic CEO with absolutist ideologies,” Navoli wrote, repeating prior statements she has made on the subject.

        “Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom,” she previously said during a Congressional hearing.

        “So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the winds so that people can speak freely.”

        She is correct in that our conceptions of speech are complicated – I do not think there is some broad First Amendment right for the authors of pornographic books targeting kids to have their works in libraries.

        Nor are men cross-dressing and scandalizing kids equal to the concerned parent speaking out at a school board meeting about sexualized curriculum  in terms of the First Amendment. (Neither does the Biden administration, which favors the former but not the latter).

        But I don’t think it is “complicated” that there was true and verified information about Hunter Biden’s laptop that the Twitter team censored.

        Navoli’s fears are just the latest that began more than a year ago, prior to Musk’s completion of his purchase of the platform in October 2022.

        For example, a Vanderbilt law professor said the purchase was “deeply troubling.”

        University of California Berkeley Professor Robert Reich also believes Musk’s support for open debate on social media is a threat to “democracy,” calling it “the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth.”

        “In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone,” President Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary wrote.

        X is still plagued with throttling problems, as The College Fix has seen. But overall the platform has improved and truthful speech (i.e. on gender) is better respected.

        That is a good thing and not complicated at all.

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 17:40

      • Woke Wikipedia Editors Fight Over Matt Taibbi (Et. Al) $100,000 National Journalism Award
        Woke Wikipedia Editors Fight Over Matt Taibbi (Et. Al) $100,000 National Journalism Award

        After journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger won a $100,000 award from the National Journalism Center / DAO for excellence in investigative journalism regarding the Twitter Files, WikiPedia editors threw a fit – with one, who goes by “Specifico”, removing all mention of the award until other editors were in ‘consensus for inclusion.’

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

        First, from Taibbi’s acceptance speech:

        More than two dozen reporters worked on the Twitter Files at different times, including Lee Fang, Paul Thacker, David Zweig, Aaron Maté, Matt Farwell, and many others, across the political spectrum. Journalists from left-leaning publications and reporters with conservative backgrounds both worked on this story, which was unique enough to employ pseudonymous citizen journalists like “Techno Fog” and Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Schmidt. Susan is here tonight, and has a new Twitter Files piece coming out on Twitter and Racket in the coming days.

        This was apparently too much for Wikipedia – which has been the de-facto leftist ministry of bullshit for years.

        An editor who goes by “SPECIFICO” took it upon themselves to nuke the DAO award from Taibbi’s profile, writing “I reverted the addition of this item. PPlease see the reason im my edit summary. It should not be re-added prior to consensus for inclusion.”

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

        Another editor replied: “I am curious. How does one determine that an award is not “credible”?”

        Specifico, as it were, is a total weirdo. Shocker, we know.

        Fortunately, less-woke minds prevailed, and the award is now visible on Taibbi’s page.

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

         

        Tyler Durden
        Mon, 11/06/2023 – 17:20

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      Nov 06

      Today’s News 6th November 2023

      • The Great Reset, Part 2: A Camp With No Outside
        The Great Reset, Part 2: A Camp With No Outside

        Authored by Simon Elmer via Off-Guardian.org,

        ‘Today, it is not the city but rather the camp that is the fundamental biopolitical paradigm of the West.’

        – Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, 1995

        In Part 1 of this article, I identified the apparatuses of biopower by which our freedoms and our democracies are threatened in the West today, and which I described as the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.

        As I devote a chapter of my new book, The Great Reset, to each of the last three of these apparatuses of biopower – the UN’s Agenda 2030, the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty and Central Bank Digital Currency – I’m only going to discuss the first of them here, although it comes up throughout my book, because a system of Digital Identity is the gateway to the digital camp in which the other three will imprison us.

        They all rely on it being in place for their own enforcement, and in this respect it is the most important and the one that has to be most resisted and defeated. Some form of Digital Identity has been talked about for some time, and although everyone appears to know what it is, there doesn’t seem to be much opposition to its implementation in the UK, which I’d suggest indicates that in reality we don’t understand it at all.

        THE GATEWAY OF DIGITAL IDENTITY

        During the lockdown of the UK, Digital Identity was discussed in relation to the China Health Pass, which is now fully operative and linked to the Chinese system of Social Credit, and which like a traffic light has three signals of access to different aspects of the public realm and services: green for freedom of access; amber for limited access or only on condition of further proofs or acts of compliance (like taking a PCR test); and red for prohibition on everything from receiving a bank loan, accessing your bank account, using public transport, passing between zones of a city to being permitted to leave your home itself. In Europe, a lot of the member states of the European Union universally or partially imposed — for instance, on members of certain industries, like health, education, police and other public services — the use of the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which was collectively known as the ‘Green Pass’. The technology for this was subsequently taken up by the World Health Organization, which in June 2023, in tandem with the European Commission, announced the WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network, which it invited all member states — which includes the UK — to adopt and participate in developing.

        In the UK itself, we had the NHS COVID Pass, which was never enforced as a requirement of employment except for care workers, but which private businesses were permitted and encouraged to enforce as a condition of employment, access to their premises and use of their services. In April 2022, as coronavirus-justified regulations were lifted in the UK, the Department for Health and Social Care awarded the £18 million contract to develop the NHS COVID Pass to the Danish IT firm, Netcompany Ltd. The specification for the project stated:

        The government may introduce a mandatory COVID Pass to access high-risk venues if the data suggests further measures are necessary to protect the NHS. In preparation for this eventuality, we have built the changes to support two levels of domestic passes. The functionality will be toggled off until required. This enables a quick response if/when the Government invokes mandate. If a citizen is fully vaccinated, medically exempt or has been in a clinical trial, they will be eligible for an ‘all venues’ (mandatory) pass. If a citizen only has natural immunity or negative test results, they will only be eligible for a ‘limited venues’ (voluntary) pass.

        In anticipation of this mandate and the functionality of Digital Identity being ‘toggled on’, in the first three months of 2023 the UK Government conducted a consultation on draft legislation for what it called — presumably in an attempt to distance it from the widely opposed ‘vaccine passport’ — ‘identity verification’.

        The consultation closed on 1 March, 2023; but the legal framework for a system of Digital Identity was first put in place by the Digital Economy Act 2017, which removed the legal barriers to data sharing in the UK. It was initially anticipated that the Statutory Instrument implementing a system of Digital Identity in the UK would be made in July 2023, but we are still waiting for the Government mandate.

        What will this system do?

        At present, the UK Government is promoting Digital Identity in terms of ease of access, greater convenience and increased safety. So, under the Online Safety Act 2023, Digital Identity will be a requirement of access to the internet, not in order to censor what we can see, read and write but to protect children from pornography and grooming gangs.

        Under the Elections Act 2022, it will be a requirement of voting, not in order to further discourage public participation in the electoral process but to stop illegal voting. It will be a requirement of receiving Universal Credit or, in the future, Universal Basic Income, not in order to force the immiserated and unemployed into obligatory retraining and work but to stop fraudulent benefit claims. It will be a requirement of gaining access to public transport, medical care, education and employment, not in order to control us whenever the World Health Organization declares a new pandemic but to protect the population from future health crises. It will be a requirement of travel and movement between nation states and within the UK, not in order to enforce the restrictions on our freedoms imposed by Agenda 2030 but to stop illegal immigration into the UK and save the planet from ‘global boiling’. It will be a requirement of opening a bank account, not to force us into opening a Digital Pound account but to stop financial crime.

        And just as it is in China, the system of Social Credit that relies on Digital Identity for its enforcement will not be restricted to individuals, but will apply to both privately-owned companies and publicly-funded institutions. US asset managers like BlackRock, for example, have made it clear that adherence to the behaviours written into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Environmental, Social and corporate Governance criteria by which they are enforced are now a condition of employment, bank loans, investment and other aspects of business formerly determined by the employment and trading laws of a sovereign state; and the monitoring and enforcement of compliance with these new norms will be increased exponentially with the development and expansion of systems of Digital Identity across the globe.

        This enforcement of the biopolitical requirements of citizenship outside of the juridical frameworks of nation states or international law is consistent with the way the NHS COVID Pass was employed in the UK during the two years of lockdown. The decision to require this pass was made by the UK Government, but it wasn’t mandated through legislation, even in the daily coronavirus-justified regulations being made into law. Rather, the responsibility for the enforcement of the COVID Pass was passed onto the private sector. Ultimately, although we have been promised a Statutory Instrument making its requirement into law, I believe the UK’s system of Digital Identity will be handed over to the UK’s businesses, in both the public and private sectors, where it will be enforced as a condition of employment and custom by both employers and those who trade with and make loans to their businesses.

        As I will discuss in far greater depth in this book, once the requirements of citizenship are taken out of a juridical framework and become, as Foucault wrote, ‘distributions around the norm’, the more difficult those norms are to challenge. This is the goal of biopower.

        The first question any public consultation on Digital Identity should be asking the British public is not — as it did — whether and to what extent it meets this or that objective required by the Digital Economy Act 2017, but rather whether the British public wishes for such a system. The Government has no mandate for its imposition in its election manifesto, and its failure to inform the British public about the system of surveillance and control of which Digital Identity is the key constitutes a dereliction of the duty of any elected executive body to receive informed consent before interfering with the rights and freedoms of those it has been elected to govern. The Government’s sham consultation, to which I responded, provided none of the contexts necessary for the public to make such informed consent. Worse, it assumed the imposition of a system of Digital Identity as a fait accompli. Indeed, by couching its consultation in terms of undisclosed ‘benefits’ to the public and undefined and ideological terms like ‘well-being’, the consultation deliberately concealed the real import, reach and purpose of Digital Identity.

        Contrary to what the Government has told us, a system of ‘identity verification’ does not benefit individuals of households or improve public services. We saw this with the UK Health Security Agency’s proposals for the NHS COVID Pass that were nearly introduced in the UK on the justification of tracking and limiting the movements of UK citizens under lockdown. What is more accurately called a system of Digital Identity only benefits those who wish to use such a system to monitor, regulate, correct and, when necessary, to punish those who do not comply with whatever new codes of behaviour, including our speech, the Government and the unelected international technocracies formulating those codes impose upon us.

        The ‘Green Pass’ introduced across Europe demonstrated that these will be imposed through prohibitions on our movements, sanctions on our consumptions, extra-legal fixed penalty notices and the removal of our human rights and civil liberties, all of which the Governments of the West have demonstrated they are willing to enforce with extraordinary and in many countries unprecedented levels of police brutality.

        Once it is imposed, however, the intervention of the police and the juridical framework within which they loosely act will become less and less necessary, as we move into the biopolitics of stakeholder capitalism. As the UK Government well knows, Digital Identity is not being implemented in isolation from, but in conjunction with, other technologies and programmes for the surveillance and control of the UK population, including the Bank of England’s Digital Pound, 15-Minute Cities, the London Mayor’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, the requirements of Agenda 2030 and the enforceable obligations of the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. Currently being implemented as mere upgrades to the infrastructure of the UK state, these will fundamentally — and, as I have said, perhaps irreversibly — change the ability of the British people to scrutinise, influence or hold our rulers to account. And yet, few members of the British public are even aware of these programmes, let alone how they will be used. We certainly haven’t voted for them. Nor, as the Government’s sham consultation on ‘identity verification’ demonstrates, will we be asked to do so. Digital Identity is the gateway to this collective system of surveillance and control that truly deserves the description ‘totalitarian’.

        So little has been divulged about how it will function that it is difficult to say what it will contain; but as part of system of Social Credit, Digital Identity will certainly hold our credit history. It will almost undoubtedly hold our online browsing history. And as the World Health Organization’s Global Digital Health Certification Network indicates, it will definitely hold our biometric data. It will equally certainly hold a record of our social compliance, and what we can learn from China is that social compliance will not only be with the regulations of biosecurity set by a juridical framework but also with the new norms of behaviour we have already so readily accepted and normalised since March 2020. These now include censorship of speech and opinions contrary to those espoused by our Government; increased conditions imposed on our previously inalienable rights and freedoms; and adherence to the dictates of technocracies over whose membership and decisions we have no influence. It will be used to monitor, limit and control our movement through and out of not just our countries but also the 15-Minute Cities currently being imposed on the justification of reducing everything from air pollution to global warming. To this spurious end, it will record and restrict our consumption of energy, heat, food and water.

        In practice, it will monitor and record our behaviour, opinions and compliance with the new orthodoxies of woke ideology. And in doing so, it will condition our access to everything from the internet, banking and employment to healthcare, welfare and education. One day, if the Bank of England has its way, it will be the condition of accessing the only kind of currency still in existence, over which it will have complete control.

        A CAMP WITH NO OUTSIDE

        Why, then, is the British public showing so little interest in, presenting so little opposition to, and demonstrating such passive acceptance of our enclosure in the biosecurity camp to which Digital Identity is the gateway? It’s in order to try and answer this question that, in addition to writing about these new apparatuses of biopower, the second part of my book looks at what are not, properly speaking, technologies of biopower but, rather, the ideologies indoctrinating us for its implementation as the dominant paradigm of governance in the West.

        The first of these, of course, is the US proxy war in the Ukraine, which although started in February 2014 with the overthrow of the democratically elected Government, in the minds of most Westerners began in February 2022, as we were emerging from two years of lockdown restrictions. The transition, therefore, from the so-called ‘war on COVID’ to the war on Russia was an almost seamless one, and those obedient to the terms of the former have proven the loudest advocates of the lies of the latter, most obviously about when and why it began.

        In certain respects this is a new form of warfare, insofar as the US asset managers that have been driving US foreign policy for some time now are not using the lives of young US soldiers to enforce their interests, as they have in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, but are now using the lives of the citizens of foreign countries — in this instance hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian victims — to force the public assets, natural resources and even the economy of the Ukraine into their hands. It’s a matter of indifference to them that, in doing so, they have reduced parts of the country to ruins, its people to poverty and its institutions to political impotence, except insofar as the carnage justifies them calling on even more US taxpayers’ money to ‘rebuild’ what they have demolished.

        Ukraine is a bloody example and warning to the world of what can be done to a formerly sovereign state when the bodies and lives of its people are subject to a war whose goal is biopolitical control over an entire people. Indeed, Ukraine is the testing ground for the digital transformation of the infrastructure of an entire state, including online education and health services, Central Bank Digital Currency, so-called e-governance, including a civil service replaced by smartphone apps, COVID certification on the same, and a judiciary and military run by artificial intelligence. As an image of its dystopian future drawn direct from Hollywood cinema — Ukraine’s 32-year-old Deputy Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has dubbed it ‘Judge Dredd’ — the country has already piloted an AI system that produces pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports that assess the risk of a suspect offending.

        It’s to the same end, although employing different means, that the orthodoxies of transgenderism have attained their now unquestionable status as part of the official ideology of stakeholder capitalism in the West in a period of time barely longer than it took to impose the equally official orthodoxies of the war in the Ukraine. Few appear to have considered why, in the middle of the vast upheavals we have undergone since March 2020, governments, corporations and public institutions otherwise struggling to save humankind from any number of manufactured ‘crises’ should suddenly devote so much time and effort and money to writing the orthodoxies of ‘trans’ into our laws, implementing them in our policies, promoting them in our media, indoctrinating them through our institutions of education and normalising them in our culture industries.

        It is my belief, for which a chapter of this book provides the argument and evidence, that the orthodoxies of trans are not incidental to the revolution in Western capitalism we are undergoing but, rather, instrumental to the new biopolitical paradigm of citizenship to which we will be expected to adhere — and compelled to obey by the technologies of biopower — in the Global Biosecurity State under construction.

        Over the last few years I’ve written many times about the ideology of woke, which has now taken its place as the official ideology of stakeholder capitalism, having infiltrated the Cabinets of Western governments along with Klaus Schwab’s Young Global Leaders, and with just as much brazenness and indeed pride.

        In my penultimate chapter, I look at how the discourse of White racism developed by woke is being used not only to silence opposition to the regulations, programmes and technologies of the Great Reset of the UK, but also to force through the changes in attitudes, beliefs and behaviours they require for our acceptance and compliance with such blatant attacks on our freedoms.

        As with the apparatuses of biopower, therefore, my aim in the second part of my book is to show how the orthodoxies of woke — which now include dehumanisation of the Russian people and the Lysenkoism of transgenderism — are instrumental to the incorporation of the judicial institution, through which the limits of citizenship have until now been made in law, into a biopolitical paradigm, in which the requirements of citizenship in the Global Biosecurity State are normalised by technologies of power, as Foucault wrote, ‘centred on life’.

        Finally, the body of my book is topped and tailed by two short texts. The first introduces the book with the argument that one of the conclusions we can draw from the last three-and-a-half years is that the already questionable division of our parliamentary politics into Left and Right no longer has any descriptive or practical purchase on the paradigm of governance by which we are now ruled, and should be abandoned by anyone serious about forming opposition to it. The second text, in the absence of the comforting dreams with which the UK Left has rocked itself to sleep over the past forty years of neoliberalism, concludes my book by proposing one of the ways in which we can resist — initially at least — the construction of the digital camp being built not only around and between but also within us by the technologies of biopower.

        In the UK, as across most of the Western World, we lived through an extreme two-year period of lockdown in which almost all our human rights and civil liberties were removed by wave after wave of legislation on the justification of combatting a respiratory virus which anyone who troubled to look at the statistics and the criteria by which they were produced knew had the infection fatality rate of seasonal influenza. Even that’s not quite accurate since, unlike influenza, coronavirus has no effect on the young, who despite being masked for two years, deprived of their education and injected with experimental gene therapies, are as statistically immune to COVID-19 as they are statistically vulnerable to the myocarditis, pericarditis and other damages to their health and immune systems caused by the messenger RNA sequencing the UK state injected into their arms as a vaccine.

        Now, however, the West has entered into a more generalised crisis carousel whose names change, week by week, from global boiling to Russian aggression to the cost-of-living to the resurrection of the threat of Islamic terrorism and, as I write, another made-to-order viral strain. But whatever their ostensible cause, the ultimate goal of the technologies of biopower whose imposition these crises justify is to make permanent what were the temporary restrictions on our rights and freedoms under lockdown.

        Indeed, the best way to understand these crises is to ask how these new agendas, these new treaties, these new programmes and these new technologies make the State of Emergency under which we lived for two years permanent. Unfortunately, very few people are asking that question, of themselves or others. Under lockdown, thousands of people were forced into quarantine camps, most famously in China; but the digital camp into which we’re being corralled now, and which is enclosing and dividing us even as we return to bickering about Brexit and immigration, is co-extensive with the space of the state itself.

        How is it being built? As I’ve said, Digital Identity is the gateway to this camp, over which is written not Arbeit Macht Frei — for there is no escape from a space without an outside — but rather ‘Freedom is Slavery’. And if we imagine this camp and try to visualise its structure, the Internet of Things, which includes the digital panopticon of quick response codes, facial recognition technology and now ULEZ cameras, and the Internet of Bodies to which it connects us, which as I argue in my conclusion includes smartphones, is the camp’s system of surveillance.

        15-Minute Cities, which despite being proposed by the World Economic Forum — a corporate think-tank with no legislative authority over the populations of nation states — are being imposed on UK citizens by our local councils and metropolitan authorities, are the barracks into which the different areas of the camp are divided. Despite their vociferous denials to the contrary, as soon as a municipal authority or legislative body decides when, how, where, how often and in what its citizens can move about in their own country, you are on the road to fascism. 15-Minute Cities are the beginning of the transformation of the space of the state itself into a permanent spatialisation of the State of Emergency, which is why they are both justified as a means to ‘save the planet’ and denied as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

        And in case we’re naïve enough — which the UK public has demonstrated itself to be beyond the dreams of even the most cynical globalist — to believe that the limits on our freedom of movement will only apply to cars, and are therefore a good thing, Transport for London has already proposed what it calls, with the ubiquity of one of the most powerful information technology companies in the world, ‘smart transport’. Employing not just facial recognition cameras but the AI technology within them, the purpose of smart transport is not merely to monitor our actions but also to learn from our behaviour, turning public transport into a vast training camp for the digital guards of our future.

        Finally, Central Bank Digital Currency, in this spatial visualisation of a digital structure, is the perimeter fence of the camp, which it renders impossible to escape; for once this fence is constructed there will no longer be a space outside its extent and reach, or at least, no space inhabitable by a human society larger than a small commune, and most likely nowhere in the West.

        Although the Internet of Bodies is ready and waiting to insert its system of monitoring inside us, with the proto-cyborgs for the future already implanting computer chips under their skin and ingesting them into their bodies, these technologies of biopower are, for the present, being implemented through the nation’s smartphones. This includes, of course, a system of Digital Identity; but, initially at least, Central Bank Digital Currency wallets will also go through a smartphone software application.

        In anticipation of which, in March of this year the Government launched its Emergency Alert System, which was then tested the following month on the 82 million smartphones in the UK. It has not been made public how many of their owners responded; but what the UK public needs to understand, and soon, is that when the technologies of biopower constituting the digital camp are in place, this alert will not be used to inform us of whatever crisis the Government has invented to terrorise us with next, but rather to instruct us in the operational status of mechanisms of compliance it will be impossible to disobey except at the cost of our liberty.

        I say it again, once the legal framework for citizenship is incorporated into a biopolitical paradigm of governance administered by a continuum of regulatory apparatuses, then legislative, legal and political means of contestation will no longer exist except as spectacles of a democracy long since dismantled. In reality, Western democracy, for some time now, has only existed in the fantasies of an endlessly deceived electorate. But it’s a measure of how far we have come since March 2020, how far we have declined as a citizenry worthy of the name, and how ready we are for the totalitarianism of biopower, that there was no protest and little outrage in response to this trial of our abject obedience. On the contrary, the same mouths and faces were wheeled out by the media to repeat the mantra of the unfailing obedient: ‘Well, if it saves lives . . .’ This is the essence of biopower to which the politics of the West is being reset by stakeholder capitalism. And, somehow, the people of the West have to stop it, if we don’t want to live in a camp with no outside.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 23:50

      • South Korean Stocks Soar After Country Inexplicably Bans Short Selling Until June 2024
        South Korean Stocks Soar After Country Inexplicably Bans Short Selling Until June 2024

        Coming soon to a “developed” capital market near you.

        On Sunday, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission shocked markets when it announced it would prohibit stock short-selling until June 2024 to allow regulators to “actively” improve rules and systems, a move analysts said was “unusual” and “unwarranted” when no (obvious) financial crisis or external shock that would lead to a sell-off exists. The news sent Korean stocks surging in early Monday trade.

        In a rehash of various short selling bans implemented in the US during periods of market turmoil, the commission announced that trading with borrowed shares will be banned for equities on the Kospi 200 Index and Kosdaq 150 Index from Monday until the end of June.

        “Amidst market turmoil, we’ve discovered massive illegal naked short-selling by global investment banks and circumstances of additional illegal activities,” Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Joo-hyun told a briefing. “It’s a grave situation where illegal short-selling undermines fair price formation and hurts market confidence.”

        Lee Bokhyun, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service watchdog, told reporters about 10 global banks will face investigations which account for most short-selling transactions in South Korea.

        Translation: stocks are lower than where we want them to be, and so we will blame the short sellers, a familiar refrain. The only problem is what happens when stocks now crash for real, and this time the country won’t be able to blame shorts.

        During the ban, South Korea will seek a “fundamental improvement” to level the playing field for retail investors in the coming months, including seeking ways to narrow the different short-selling requirements and conditions between institutions and individual investors, Kim said.  Authorities will also seek stronger punishments on illegal short-selling activities. They will continue to look into short-selling transactions of global banks with the introduction of a special investigation team on Monday.

        South Korea started allowing short-selling of stocks on the two indexes in May 2021 while keeping a pandemic-era ban in place for more than 2,000 equities. Reimposing the full ban on the widely used trading practice could hinder the nation’s efforts to seek an upgrade in a key global index, according to Smartkarma Holdings Pte. analyst Brian Freitas.

        “The short-sell ban will further jeopardize Korea’s chances of moving from Emerging Market to Developed Market,” Freitas said. “Expect bubbles to form in pockets of the market that are favored by retail investors as short selling no longer acts as a brake on absurd valuations.”

        Hilariously, short selling accounts for a tiny portion of the nation’s $1.7 trillion stock market — about 0.6% of the Kospi’s market value and 1.6% of the Kosdaq’s, according to exchange data. And yet, according to regulators, it is the evil short sellers who are responsible for the market not complying with central planning mandates.

        According to Bloomberg, the regulator’s announcement comes ahead of general legislative elections to select National Assembly members in April. Some ruling party lawmakers have urged the government to temporarily end stock short-selling in response to demands by retail investors who have staged protests against the practice.

        The investors say short-selling leads to unfair advantages for foreign and institutional investors.

        South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his party have campaigned on reforms, including changes to the pension
        system and the prevention of market monopolies. Yoon’s popularity has edged up in recent months to a high of 34% on Friday, after dipping last year.

        The regulator’s ban coincides with a nascent recovery in the main South Korean equity benchmark index. The Kospi has climbed in November after suffering its worst monthly drop in October amid foreign sell-offs. The index is still down more than 10% from its August peak. The small-cap Kosdaq Index also bounced back from the lowest level since January, but is down 17% from its July peak.

        Following news of the ban, the Kospi surged 4%, extending its recent gains.

        The response from analysts and traders was one of puzzled confusion, with consensus that the move to ban short-selling is “unusual” and “unwarranted” when no financial crisis or external shock that would lead to a sell-off exists (suggesting that it would be warranted to ban short-selling when there is a crisis, which is why markets remain a complete farce 15 years after Lehman). Here are some thoughts from Wongmo Kang of Exome Asset Management.

        The ban’s impact could be “more limited” compared to such policy in the past as South Korea has been allowing short selling on companies listed in Kospi 200 Index and Kosdaq 150 Index

        • As South Korea is heavily influenced by retail investors, individual investors might exhibit increased confidence and willingness to engage in the stock market after the measure; that could lead to perception that downside risks are relatively restricted when short selling is prohibited, which may not necessarily be true
        • Funds that employ long-short strategies may need to adjust their long position in accordance with limitations on short position; that may potentially lead to sell out in their long positions
        • There is a possibility that international investors may lose trust and opportunity in the Korean market
        • This policy reversal in short selling is unwarranted now as South Korea is increasingly viewed with excitement and as being diverse as its popular music and electric vehicles. Given this view, short selling should be encouraged as a means of building an efficient market
        • Although financial system improvements to prevent illegal and inefficient activities are necessary, there seems to be a need for efforts to evaluate true values through short selling, especially in markets like South Korea where there are significant surges in “theme” stocks without any clear reasons and company fundamentals

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 22:40

      • The 7th Circuit Holds That AR-15s Aren't Protected By The Second Amendment
        The 7th Circuit Holds That AR-15s Aren’t Protected By The Second Amendment

        Authored by Andrea Widburg via American Thinker,

        Illinois desperately wants to ensure that, within the state’s borders, only criminals have guns.

        When it comes to law-abiding citizens, the state will do anything to disarm them.

        That includes passing a law that pretty much bans “assault weapons” (a non-existent category that really covers AR-15s, America’s most popular gun) and large-capacity magazines (which really do exist). A federal district court issued an injunction against that part of the law, but a three-judge panel reversed the injunction on grounds that are so asinine and juvenile that they could come only from judges.

        The three-judge panel in Barnett v. Raoul (Case No. 23-13530 consisted of a Reagan appointee, a Clinton appointee, and a Trump appointee. Only the latter supported the trial court. The other two judges came up with some astounding logic. I’ve summarized the judges’ logic, along with my commentary (in bolded text).

        1. The Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms irrespective of active involvement in a formal militia, said that the Second Amendment is not a completely unlimited right. This is true. Heller said that.

        2. The Heller decision said that the arms meant to be protected under the Second Amendment were those that were not dedicated solely to military use but were of the type that ordinary citizens would ordinarily have. To that end, the court held that “the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes….” America’s law-abiding citizens own around 20 million AR-15s, which they use for law-abiding purposes.

        3. In the military, there is a weapon known as the M16.

        4. M16s, because they are military weapons, can be calibrated to function as fully automatic weapons (they keep firing as long as you keep your finger on the trigger) or fired in three-round burst modes per single trigger pull. AR-15s are semi-automatic weapons. This means that you don’t have to manually place a new bullet into the chamber after every shot. Instead, after you fire a shot, a new round is automatically chambered. Every shot requires the user to pull the trigger.

        5. Bump stocks can turn the AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon.

        6. Both M16s and AR-15s use the same ammo and “deliver the same kinetic energy.”

        7. Therefore, the court held that the AR-15 is essentially an M16, making it a weapon of war that can be denied to ordinary civilians.

        A few things need to be said here:

        First, all civilian weapons can be used in war.

        By this logic, because all civilian weapons can be used in war, all civilian weapons are weapons of war and, therefore, are not protected under the Second Amendment. This is insanely stupid logic.

        Second, the ammo used for AR-15s and M16s isn’t very powerful.

        That’s why the AR-15 is not a good hunting weapon for medium to large game—it’s cruel to the animals because it may injure them without killing them. The reason the military opted for 5.56 ammo is because it meant that soldiers wouldn’t be so weighed down by their ammo. In other words, civilians aren’t using military ammo; the military is using civilian ammo.

        Third, the court is saying that the possibility that a weapon can be augmented to become more powerful (i.e., military-esque) removes it from the reach of the Second Amendment.

        Again, that’s insane.

        Of the 20 million AR-15s in use in America, it’s impossible to imagine how small the percentage is of people who use bump stocks. Most Americans don’t want automatic weapons. They chew up ammo, which means that their time-utility is limited, and the average citizen would have to be weighed down with hundreds of bullets.

        Image: A civilian’s long guns.

        I’m unsurprised that a Clinton judge would be behind this risible “logic.”

        I’m saddened that a Reagan judge would be, and I can’t even guess his motives.

        However, given my very deep disrespect for judges, I’m ready to be very unimpressed by both judges’ intelligence.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 21:30

      • Israel, Palestine, & The "Weaponized Morality" Of The Media
        Israel, Palestine, & The “Weaponized Morality” Of The Media

        In his inimitable style, comedian JP Sears dares to touch the third rail of ‘whose side to be on’ – Israel vs Palestine in his latest clip.

        The satirical conversation between two individuals cynically discuss being pro-war and anti-peace, highlighting a grim acceptance of conflict as inevitable.

        “I think we’re on the brink of World War III. I’m very happy for the military-industrial complex.”

        The discussion is framed to suggest that their enthusiasm for war is not genuine, but rather a product of media influence, which is depicted as “weaponized morality.”

        “I’ve effectively been manipulated by weaponized morality via the media.”

        The two ‘Sears’ imply – in their ironic manner – that the media’s portrayal of events has the power to manipulate public sentiment, skewing perceptions of the conflict to support a war agenda.

        “The media is just telling us what’s going on, it just so happens that hearing what they tell us has swayed us all to want an incredibly deadly thing.”

        Throughout the conversation, there’s a mocking acknowledgment of the reciprocal nature of the aggression and the underlying causes of the conflict. The speakers sarcastically agree on the necessity of retribution against Hamas for attacks on Israeli civilians, while simultaneously noting the disproportionate response that leads to Palestinian civilian casualties; highlighting the polarized views around the world, including extreme positions that echo historical prejudices and the actions of the Israeli government that some deem unjust.

        “There’s just no justice in peace.”

        The dialogue also references the role of US foreign policy and its financial involvement in the region, hinting at the possibility of a hidden agenda behind the support of both sides, where governments might be conspiring to instigate conflict to serve undisclosed goals (and leveraging media narratives to rally public support).

        “The US is funding both sides of the war, giving $6 billion to Iran to give to Hamas, and we’re sending billions to Israel to aid in their military effort.”

        JP encapsulates this ‘conspiracy’ by noting Netanyahu’s recent presentation at the UN (showing a map of the MidEast with no Palestine on it) and the insinuation that the Israeli government’s previous funding of Hamas could be part of a calculated plan to justify military actions against Palestine.

        “War was the goal all along meant to accomplish a further goal that’s not being honestly shared by certain governments.”

        Enjoy JP’s satirical take on the debacle…

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 20:55

      • Trump Campaign Fights For Place On Michigan Ballot
        Trump Campaign Fights For Place On Michigan Ballot

        Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times,

        Attorneys for President Donald Trump have filed suit in the Michigan Court of Claims in a preemptive effort to preserve his place on the state’s 2024 ballot.

        The proactive move is designed to counter at least two pending lawsuits that are attempting to have President Trump disqualified under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for being an alleged “insurrectionist” in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 rally-turned-riot at the Capitol Building in Washington.

        Because the factual allegations of both anti-Trump suits overlap with one another, this article will focus on LaBrandt et al. v. Benson, filed on Sept. 29, 2023.

        The plaintiffs are four registered voters from Michigan.

        They are represented by Michigan attorney Mark Brewer and five Massachusetts lawyers from the group Free Speech for People (FSP).

        According to its website, FSP is a national “non-profit, non-partisan” political advocacy organization.

        The defendant in the suit is Michigan’s Democrat Sect. of State Jocelyn Benson.

        FSP has also filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Minnesota.

        Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks in Detroit, Michigan, on Aug. 18, 2020. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

        A separate high-profile case against President Trump is currently being tried in Colorado.

        Court Order Could Disqualify Donald Trump

        In the Michigan complaint, the plaintiffs asked the court to declare President Trump ineligible to hold public office ever again.

        They also asked the court to permanently enjoin Ms. Benson from including President Trump as a candidate in the upcoming Feb. 27 Michigan Republican presidential primary and the Nov. 5, 2024, general election.

        Michigan law requires the secretary of state to compile and issue a list of the presidential candidates generally recognized by the national news media and place them on their party’s primary ballot by Nov. 10.

        Political Cover?

        The plaintiffs assert in their complaint that legal action is necessary because, on Sept. 13, 2023, Ms. Benson published an op-ed in the Washington Post claiming that she lacks the legal authority to investigate and determine whether a presidential candidate should be ineligible to run for office because of a Fourteenth Amendment violation.

        “She has declared that she will place Trump’s name on the Michigan 2024 presidential primary ballot unless a court prevents her from doing so,” reads the complaint.

        Political observers see Ms. Benson, a former law school dean, as a strong candidate to succeed Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer when both are term-limited out of their present positions in 2026.

        Serious Allegations

        The pleadings allege that President Trump concocted a “scheme to overthrow the government” and “to retain power even if he lost.”

        They also allege, “Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion and is thus disqualified from public office,” pursuant to Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

        The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 for the purpose of keeping ex-Confederates from holding office in the reconstructed Union.

        The complaint also alleged that President Trump “attempted to enlist government officials to illegally overturn the election.”

        Not Since Rutherford B. Hayes

        In the hotly contested presidential election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, the race could not be decided by the Electoral College because the disputes over the electors from four states could not be resolved. Congress created a special Electoral Commission that ultimately sorted things out in favor of Mr. Hayes in March 1877.

        This precedent was the basis for the Trump strategy of January 6, 2020.

        The 1877 procedure was banned in a bill passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in Dec. 2022.

        “On January 4, 2021, Trump and his then-attorney John Eastman met with then-Vice-President Mike Pence and his attorney Greg Jacob to discuss Eastman’s legal theory that Pence might either reject votes on January 6 during the certification process or suspend the proceedings so that states could reexamine the results,” alleges the complaint.

        Article Two, Section One of the U.S. Constitution requires the vice-president, in his capacity as President of the Senate, to preside over the counting of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress.

        Plaintiffs’ pleadings quote a portion of President Trump’s explanation of the procedure from the speech he delivered at the scene of the Save America Rally held on Jan. 6, 2021, in the Ellipse, a large park south of the White House.

        Referring to Mr. Pence, President Trump is alleged to have said, “All he has to do is refer the illegally-submitted electoral votes back to the states that were given false, fraudulent information where they want to recertify.”

        Earlier in the program, Mr. Eastman is alleged to have told the crowd, “All that we are demanding of Pence is, this afternoon at 1 o’clock, he let the legislators of the states look into this so we get to the bottom of it.”

        Incendiary Rhetoric?

        The complaint makes much of what it calls President Trump’s incitement of the crowd to violence. This is important, say the plaintiffs, because, though President Trump committed no overt acts of insurrection, his remarks tie him to the criminal conduct of some of his supporters at the Capitol Building.

        The complaint cites a couple of quotes from President Trump’s Ellipse speech as examples of his inflammatory talk.

        President Trump is alleged to have said: “We want to go back, and we want to get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there, and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.

        “And we’re going to have to fight much harder.

        “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

        Similar Remarks

        Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Michigan’s Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer repeatedly said in public statements, “I will fight like hell” to preserve the right to obtain an abortion.

        To date, no legal action has been taken against Ms. Whitmer for her choice of words.

        Ten Thousand National Guardsmen

        The complaint does not mention that, days before the Ellipse rally, President Trump asked then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to concur with his request to deploy 10,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol—something they declined to do.

        However, the complaint does list several instances on Jan. 6, in which President Trump appealed to the large and boisterous crowd to remain peaceful.

        March ‘Peacefully and Patriotically’

        In his Ellipse speech, President Trump is quoted in the complaint as allegedly saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

        Among several other appeals for peace and calm by President Trump cited in the complaint are the following:

        At 2:38 p.m., Trump posted on X: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

        Later, at 4:17 p.m., the complaint states that President Trump released a video on Twitter directed to the protestors in which he allegedly said: “I know your pain. I know your hurt…I know how you feel, but go home, and go in peace.”

        The Trump Team Sues Benson

        Representing President Trump in his lawsuit against Ms. Benson is constitutional lawyer David Kallman and his partner Stephen Kallman of the Kallman Legal Group of Lansing, Michigan, as well as Mark Meuser of the Dhillon Law Group.

        In a complaint filed on Oct. 30, 2023, President Trump’s legal team asserted that “President Trump did not engage in an insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

        His attorneys argue that neither the secretary of state, other state officials, nor the state courts have the legal authority to decide whether a candidate for president is ineligible to appear on the ballot. They contend that the Constitution commits to Congress the responsibility of determining matters of presidential candidates’ qualifications and that the amendment is not self-enforcing but requires an operative act of Congress to carry it out.

        None of President Trump’s constitutionally protected free speech concerning the Jan. 6 protest meets the “stringent requirements for ‘incitement’ both because the content itself is not sufficiently explicit and because it does not evince a specific intent to engage in unlawful activity,” reads his complaint.

        President Trump’s lawyers asked the court to declare that, as “a matter of federal constitutional law” and according to Michigan statute, Ms. Benson lacks the authority to determine whether a presidential candidate may be disqualified.

        A Preemptive Blow

        They also asked the court to enjoin Ms. Benson from refusing to place President Trump on the ballot based on allegations relating to Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

        As early as Aug. 18, 2023, Trump attorney David Warrington of the Dhillon Law Group sought confirmation from Ms. Benson that, pursuant to Michigan law, she would include President Trump’s name on the Secretary of State’s list and be placed on the ballot.

        According to the Trump complaint, Ms. Benson did not respond.

        The Michigan Office of the Secretary of State does not comment on pending litigation.

        All three cases are scheduled for hearings on Nov. 9 at the Michigan Court of Appeals courtroom in Grand Rapids.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 20:20

      • Florida "Booty Patrol" Driver Busted, Cops Mocked
        Florida “Booty Patrol” Driver Busted, Cops Mocked

        Sheriffs in central Florida are being mocked online after an 18-year-old man accused of “impersonating law enforcement” was ticketed for plastering “Booty Patrol” on his truck, which he styled to look similar to a Border Patrol vehicle.

        The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office warned the public about the Florida Teen, Gabriel Luviano, who they slapped with a $113 citation for adding red and blue rights to his Chevy Silverado, which also features a green diagonal stripe and a logo which reads “National Booty Behavior Protection” in addition to “BOOTY PATROL.”

        Luviano told NBC 2: he choose “Booty Patrol” because “it’s the closest you could get to Border Patrol and still have the B in it,” adding that it was never his intention to impersonate federal agents.

        “It was just to have a little fun, you know?” he said, adding that “It was never my intent to pull over people or nothing.”

        Luviano told the outlet that local cops – aside from the guy who pulled him over, love the truck.

        “I have videos of cops coming up to me and they just want a picture,” he said.

        Facebook Warning

        “We want to emphasize that DCSO located the vehicle on Sunday, and our initial post aimed to raise awareness about this incident, ensuring that the public can avoid being duped by such individuals,” deputies posted on Facebook. “We extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who called in with information about the suspicious vehicle, as your continued support is crucial in helping us maintain a safe and secure community for our residents.”

        According to the NY Post, the comments section was full of hilarious replies.

        “Is this serious? If anyone thinks this is a real officer they have a problem. I have seen this drive around all the time and I always get such a chuckle out of it,” said one Floridian. “Leave the man alone.”

        ““It’s a little sad to see this happening to the car community,” wrote another person. “This is just merely a show truck. Always has been. Never seen him have his blue lights on and seen him all over Desoto, Manatee, and Sarasota county.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 19:45

      • Netanyahu's 'Political Days Are Numbered': White House
        Netanyahu’s ‘Political Days Are Numbered’: White House

        Via The Cradle,

        Joe Biden and top White House aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “political days are numbered,” and are gauging potential successors as the popularity of the Israeli prime minister continues to plummet following last month’s successful Hamas attack on Israel, Politico reported on 2 November. 

        The topic of Netanyahu’s anticipated fall from power has come up in recent White House meetings including following Biden’s most recent trip to Israel in which he met with Netanyahu following the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October, according to two senior administration officials.

        Biden has even suggested to Netanyahu that he should think about lessons he would share with his eventual successor, the two administration officials added.

        Separately, a current US official and a former US official both confirmed that the Biden administration believes Netanyahu will not remain in office for long. The current official believes Netanyahu’s term as prime minister may last a just matter of months due to the Israeli public’s anger resulting from the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October and the intelligence failures that appeared to have occurred to allow it.

        Some 1,400 Israelis died during the Hamas attack, including soldiers and civilians. Some were killed by Hamas fighters, while others were killed in the crossfire as Israel used overwhelming force to eliminate Hamas fighters who had taken many Israelis captive.

        Hamas managed to take over 200 Israelis captive back to Gaza, and the Israeli public and even the captives themselves have been harshly critical of Netanyahu and his right-wing settler government, which have prioritized targeting Hamas and killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the captives’ safe return.

        Further, many Israelis believe the government deliberately allowed the Hamas attack to happen, citing the slow response of the army and police as Hamas fighters penetrated deep into Israeli territory and targeted both military bases and settlements in the Gaza envelope.

        Netanyahu has promised to investigate the intelligence failings, but refuses to do so until the war is over, which may take months or even years.

        “There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,” said the official who, like others, was granted anonymity to detail private conversations.

        “Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.”

        Biden’s trip to Tel Aviv last month was one largely of support, but the current US official said that Netanyahu’s tenuous hold on power is always “in the background” during internal Biden administration talks about West Asia. And Biden aides already are engaging an array of other Israeli politicians, both in the government and the opposition, in the war effort.

        According to the two senior administration officials as well as the current and former US official, “those talks have also provided a way to gauge the thinking of various Israelis who might take the helm of the country,” Politico wrote. 

        This suggests the US may be looking to choose Netanyahu’s successor, as they did in Ukraine following the 2014 coup against then President Viktor Yanukovych.

        US officials have taken note of Netanyahu’s falling approval ratings and predict that any forthcoming Israeli or US assessments about the intelligence failure will likely be even more damning for the prime minister.

        Biden administration officials have offered public declarations of solidarity with the Israeli government, despite condemnations from human rights groups that Israel has targeted Palestinian civilians “on a mass scale.” But they are nevertheless concerned with who Netanyahu’s successor may be, and what the “day after” will look like in Gaza if Hamas is defeated. 

        The Israeli government has prepared plans to ethnically cleanse and annex Gaza, forcing the strip’s 2.3 million residents to flee to Egypt as refugees, never to return. The White House included funding for relocating Gazans to Egypt’s Sinai in its recent supplemental funding request to Congress, suggesting approval of such an effort. 

        At the same time, White House officials have also floated the possibility of installing the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, in power in Gaza, or possibility of sending a multinational force, though not necessarily one with US troops, to control the territory.

        Netanyahu and Biden were at odds even before the war. Netanyahu was a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, and did not appear pleased that Biden defeated him in the 2020 election. Biden has also distanced himself from Netanyahu following the prime minister’s effort to overhaul Israel’s judiciary upon regaining power in elections last December. Netanyahu has also been critical of US efforts to negotiate with Iran and the Biden White House’s lax efforts to enforce sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. This is presumably due to the influence of China, Iran’s biggest purchaser of oil, on Biden through business dealings with his son Hunter. 

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 19:10

      • Appeals Court Freezes Trump Gag Order Issued By Out-Of-Control Woke Judge
        Appeals Court Freezes Trump Gag Order Issued By Out-Of-Control Woke Judge

        A federal appeals court late Friday slapped down a gag order issued against former President Donald Trump, after his legal team filed an emergency motion Thursday to lift it while his appeal plays out before the court regarding the Biden DOJ’s charges of conspiracy for challenging the results of the 2020 election.

        According to a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the gag order from District Judge Tanya Chutkan is “administratively stayed pending further order of the court.”

        The gag order prohibited Trump from making any public statements that might “target” the prosecution and defense legal teams, court staff, supporting personnel, and any “reasonably foreseeable” potential witnesses in the case. Trump had originally asked Chutkan to halt the gag order – which she briefly did, before later reimposing it after the prosecution handed her (Chutkan)

        “The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.”

        The move by the appeals court is the latest in the gag order saga, which was triggered by a request by special counsel Jack Smith and imposed when Judge Chutkan issued the order on Oct. 17.

        President Trump has been outspoken in the past about Mr. Smith, who is leading the election interference case against him, and others.

        The former president has pleaded not guilty in the case. –Epoch Times

        Chutkan, a US District Court judge in the District of Columbia, previously worked at a law firm that represented Fusion GPS, the company that helped orchestrate the Russia collusion hoax targeting former President Donald Trump. During her stint with Boies Schiller Flexner, the Democrat-friendly law firm also reportedly represented Clinton Cabal foot soldier Huma Abedin, the former wife of disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner.

        Trump, Judge Tanya Chutkan

        If it’s any indication of how radical-left Judge Chutkan is, two of the appeals court judges are Obama appointees, and one is a Biden appointee.

        In August, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution to censure Chutkan “for showing open bias and partisanship in her official duties on the bench.”

        “Judge Tanya Chutkan’s extreme sentencing of January 6th defendants, while openly supporting the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, showcases a complete disregard for her duty of impartiality and the rule of law,” Mr. Gaetz said.

        Mr. Gaetz’s resolution points to a few other cases of “open partisanship,” including the fact that the Obama-appointed district judge had donated thousands of dollars to his presidential campaign, and that during another Jan. 6-related sentencing she “lamented” that President Trump “remains free to this day.“

        More via The Epoch Times:

        ‘Heckler’s Veto’

        President Trump’s attorneys have argued that their client had made public statements about the Washington election case “for months” but that the Justice Department has so far “submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice.”

        “The prosecution’s claim that his core political speech suddenly poses a threat to the administration of justice is baseless. The prosecutors and potential witnesses addressed by President Trump’s speech are high-level government officials and public figures, many of whom routinely attack President Trump in their own public statements, media interviews, and books,” they wrote in court filings.

        They argued that the gag order reflected bias and animosity against President Trump and was meritless.

        “The prosecution’s request for a Gag Order bristles with hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint and his relentless criticism of the government—including of the prosecution itself,” his attorneys wrote in the filing.

        “The Gag Order embodies this unconstitutional hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint. It should be immediately stayed,” they said.

        “No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant who is actively campaigning for public office—let alone the leading candidate for President of the United States,” his attorneys continued. “Given the Gag Order’s extraordinary nature, one would expect an extraordinary justification for it. Yet none exists.”

        As Jonathan Turley wrote two weeks ago regarding Chutkan’s order;

        As has long been the case, many are turning a blind eye to the implications of this order. They cannot see beyond the name at the top of the caption page. But this order would allow any judge to effectively strip a political candidate of the ability to contest the merits and motivations involved in his own prosecution, including challenging the veracity of prosecutors or witnesses.

        In some of these cases, there is ample reason for such criticism. While I have long said that the Mar-a-Lago prosecution by Smith is well-supported in both law and facts, other prosecutions currently ongoing are clearly politically motivated. The most obvious is the prosecution brought by Alvin Bragg in New York — a case that contorts existing law in an attempt to bag a political figure unpopular in his jurisdiction.

        While the Chutkan gag order does not extend to the other cases, they constitute a daisy-chain of trials that will have Trump running between courts before the election. There is much to criticize in Smith’s second indictment, which will be tried before a judge who previously denounced Trump in a district where 95 percent of the voters opposed Trump.

        After Chutkan ordered a trial just before Super Tuesday, she is now gagging only one candidate — the very candidate who is campaigning against the weaponization of the criminal justice system. You do not have to like or support Trump to recognize the serious problem inherent in such a gag order.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 18:35

      • Tverberg: Today's Energy Bottleneck May Bring Down Major Governments
        Tverberg: Today’s Energy Bottleneck May Bring Down Major Governments

        Authored by Gail Tverberg via OurFiniteWorld.com,

        Recently, I explained the key role played by diesel and jet fuel. In this post, I try to explain the energy bottleneck the world is facing because of an inadequate supply of these types of fuels, and the effects such a bottleneck may have. The world’s self-organizing economy tends to squeeze out what may be considered non-essential parts when bottlenecks are hit. Strangely, it appears to me that some central governments may be squeezed out. Countries that are rich enough to have big pension programs for their citizens seem to be especially vulnerable to having their governments collapse.

        Figure 1. World supply of diesel and jet fuel per person, based on Middle Distillate data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, produced by the Energy Institute. Notes added by Gail Tverberg.

        This squeezing out of non-essential parts of the economy can happen by war, but it can also happen because of financial problems brought about by “not sufficient actual goods and services to go around.” An underlying problem is that governments can print money, but they cannot print the actual resources needed to produce finished goods and services. I think that in the current situation, a squeezing out for financial reasons, or because legislators can’t agree, is at least as likely as another world war.

        For example, the US had trouble electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives because legislators disagreed about funding plans. I can imagine a long shutdown occurring because of this impasse. Perhaps not this time around, but sometime in the next few years, such a disagreement may lead to a permanent shutdown of the US central government, leaving the individual states on their own. Programs of the US central government, such as Social Security and Medicare, would likely disappear. It would be up to the individual states to sponsor whatever replacement programs they are able to afford.

        [1] An overview of the problem

        In my view, we are in the midst of a great “squeezing out.” The economy, and in fact the entire universe, is a physics-based system that constantly evolves. Every part of the economy requires energy of the right types. Humans and animals eat food. Today’s economy requires many forms of fossil fuels, plus human labor. This evolution is in the direction of ever-greater complexity and ever-greater efficiency.

        Right now, there is a bottleneck in energy supply caused by too much population relative to the amount of oil of the type used to make diesel and jet fuel (Figure 1). My concern is that many governments and businesses will collapse in response to what I call the Second Squeezing Out. In 1991, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed, following a long downward slide starting about 1982.

        All parts of economies, including government organizations and businesses, constantly evolve. They grow for a while, but when limits are hit, they are likely to shrink and may collapse. The current energy bottleneck is sufficiently dire that some observers worry about another world war taking place. Such a war could change national boundaries and reduce import capabilities of parts of the world. This would be a type of squeezing out of major parts of the world economy. In fact, shortages of coal seem to have set the stage for both World War I and World War II.

        Each squeezing out is different. When there are physically not enough goods and services to go around, some inefficient parts of the economy must be squeezed out. Payments to pensioners seem to me to be particularly inefficient because pensioners are not themselves creating finished goods and services.

        World leaders would like us to believe that they are in charge of what happens in the world economy. But what these leaders can accomplish is limited by the actual resources that can be extracted and the finished goods and services that can be produced with these resources. When there are not enough goods and services to go around, unplanned changes to the economy tend to take place. These changes work in the direction of allowing parts of the system to go forward, without being burdened by the less efficient portions.

        [2] The importance of diesel and jet fuel

        Diesel and jet fuel are important to today’s industrial economy because they fuel nearly all long-distance transportation of goods, whether by ship, train, large truck, or airplane. Diesel also powers most of today’s modern agricultural equipment. Without the use of modern agricultural equipment, overall food production would decline drastically.

        Without diesel, there would also be many other problems besides reduced food production. Diesel is used to power many of the specialized vehicles used in road maintenance. Without the ability to use these vehicles, it would become difficult to keep roads repaired.

        Without diesel and jet fuel, there would also be an electricity problem because transmission lines are maintained using a combination of land-based vehicles powered by diesel and helicopters powered by jet fuel. Without electricity transmission, homes and offices without their own solar panels and batteries wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on. Gasoline pumps require electricity to operate, so they wouldn’t operate either. Without diesel and electricity, the list of problems is endless.

        [3] Green energy is itself a dead end, but subsidizing green energy can temporarily hide other problems.

        Green energy sounds appealing, but it is terribly limited in what it can do. Green energy cannot operate agricultural machinery. It cannot make new wind turbines or solar panels. Green energy cannot exist without fossil fuels. It is simply an add-on to the current system.

        The reason why we hear so much about green energy is because making people believe that a green revolution is possible provides many temporary benefits. For example:

        • The extra debt needed to subsidize green energy indirectly increases GDP. (GDP calculations ignore whether added debt was used to produce the added goods and services counted as GDP.)

        • Manufacturers can pretend that their products (such as vehicles) will operate as they do today for years and years.

        • The educational system is given many more areas to provide courses in.

        • Citizens are given the hope that the economy will grow endlessly.

        • Young people are given hope for the future.

        • Politicians look like they are doing something for voters.

        Unfortunately, by the time that the debt comes due to pay for subsidized green energy, it will be apparent that the return on this technology is far too low. The overall system will tend to collapse. Green energy is only a temporary Band-Aid to hide a very disturbing problem. Its impact is tiny and short-lived. And it cannot prevent climate change.

        [4] Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem.

        Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem partly because the human population has tended to increase ever since early humans learned to control fire. At the same time, resources, such as arable land, fresh water supply, and minerals of all kinds, are in limited supply. Extraction becomes increasingly difficult over time (requiring more inputs to produce the same output) because the easiest-to-produce resources tend to be exploited first. Extracting more fossil fuels to meet the energy needs of a growing economy may look like it would be easy, but, in practice, it is not.

        As a result of energy bottlenecks, civilizations often collapse. Sometimes war with another group is involved. In such a case, the population of the losing civilization falls.

        [5] The standard supply and demand model of economics makes it look like prices will rise in response to fossil fuel shortages. The discussion in Section [4] shows that energy supply bottlenecks often occur. When they do occur, the response is very different.

        Figure 2. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.

        The model of many economists is far too simple. Based on the model shown on Figure 2, it is easy to get the idea that a shortage of oil will lead to a rise in prices. As a result, more oil will be produced, and the problem will be solved. Or perhaps efficiency changes, or substitution for a different type of fuel, will fix the problem.

        When bottlenecks appear, the real situation is quite different. For example, increases in oil prices tend to cause food prices to rise, and thus increase inflation. Politicians know that citizens don’t like inflation and therefore will not vote for them. As a result, politicians tend to hold down prices. The resulting prices tend to fall too low for producers, and they start producing less, rather than more.

        Energy products of the right kinds are essential for making every part of GDP. If there is not enough of the right kinds of energy products to go around, what I call some kind of “squeezing out” is likely to take place. Early on, there may be changes that reduce energy consumption, such as cutbacks in international trade. More businesses may fail. Eventually, some parts of the world economy may disappear, such as the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. Or war may take place.

        [6] When there is not enough energy of the right kinds to go around, spreading what little is available “thinner” doesn’t work.

        As an example, if people need to eat 2,000 kilocalories per day, and if the food supply that is available would only supply 500 kilocalories per day (on average), giving everyone the same quantity would lead to everyone starving. Similarly, if a communist government gives every worker the same wage, lateness and “slacking off” become huge problems. Experience in many places has shown that equal pay for all, regardless of native abilities, responsibilities, or effort, simply doesn’t work. Somehow, diligent work and greater responsibility needs to be rewarded.

        When an energy bottleneck occurs (leading to too little finished goods and services in total being produced), what I call a “squeezing out” takes place. Such a squeezing out may be initiated in many ways, including a war, angry citizens overturning a government, financial problems, or a shift in climate. The winners in a squeezing out end up ahead; the losers see collapsing institutions of many kinds, including failing businesses and disappearing government organizations.

        [7] Most people do not understand the interconnected nature of the world economy, and the way the whole system tends to evolve.

        The Universe is made up of many temporary structures, each of which needs to “dissipate” energy to stay away from a cold, dead state. We are all aware that plants and animals behave in this manner, but businesses of all kinds and government organizations also require energy of the right kinds to grow. They get much of their energy from financial payments that act as temporary placeholders for goods and services that will be made in the future using various types of energy, including human labor.

        Strangely enough, because of the physics of the situation, business and government organizations are also temporary in nature, and in some sense, they also evolve. In physics terms, all these structures are dissipative structures. Physicist Francois Roddier writes about this broader kind of evolution in his book, The Thermodynamics of Evolution. In fact, economies themselves are dissipative structures. I have written about the economy as a self-organizing system powered by energy many times, including here, here, and here. All these self-organizing structures eventually come to an end.

        History is full of records of economies that have collapsed. The book Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin and Serjey Nefedov analyzes eight of these failed economies. Populations tend to grow after a new resource is found or is acquired through war. Once population growth hits what Turchin calls carrying capacity, these economies hit a period of stagflation. This period lasted 50 to 60 years in the sample of eight economies analyzed. Stagflation was followed by a major contraction, typically with failing or overturned governments and declining overall population.

        [8] Logic and some calculations suggest that the world economy is likely to be reaching a major downturn, about now.

        One way of estimating when a major contraction (or squeezing out) would occur would be to look at oil supply. We know that US oil production hit a peak and started to decline in 1970, changing the dynamics of the world economy. This started a period of stagflation for many of the wealthier economies of the world. Adding 50 to 60 years to 1970 suggests that a major downturn would take place in the 2020 to 2030 timeframe. Since it was the wealthier economies that first entered stagflation, it would not be surprising if these economies tend to collapse first.

        There have been several studies computing estimates of when the extraction of fossil fuels would become unaffordable. Back in 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover of the US Navy gave a speech in which he talked about the connection of the level of fossil fuel supply to the standard of living of an economy, and to the ability of its military to defend the country. With respect to the timing of limits to affordable supply, he said, “. . .total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.”

        Confusion arises because some people would like to believe that fossil fuel prices can rise to extraordinarily high levels, and this will somehow permit more fossil fuels to be extracted. However, as I discussed in Section [5], the problem is really a two-sided one. Politicians want to hold fossil fuel prices down to prevent inflation, while oil producers (such as those in OPEC+) choose to reduce production if prices are not sufficiently high to meet their needs.

        An easily missed point is that tax revenue from the sale of oil is often a large share of the total tax revenue of oil exporting countries. Because of this issue, in order for prices of oil to be adequate for oil exporters, they must include a wide margin for payment of taxes. These taxes are used to support the rest of the economy. For example, in Saudi Arabia, taxes provide support for huge building programs that provide jobs for citizens, but are of questionable long term value. These projects keep citizens happy, at least temporarily. Without adequate subsidy from tax revenue, citizens would want to overturn governments–a form of collapse.

        [9] Energy problems are easily hidden because “scientific models” are considered to be important in forecasting the future. These models tend to be misleading because they leave out important elements regarding how the economy really works.

        The easiest models to make are the ones that seem to say, “the future will be very similar to the recent past.” These models miss turning points. They assume that growth will continue even though resource extraction can be expected to become more difficult. Some examples of overly simple models include the following:

        • Money is a store of value. (Not if the economy has stopped functioning properly because insufficient energy resources are available.)

        • Forecasts of Social Security payments recipients will be able to receive in the future are overstated. (It takes energy of the right kinds to produce the goods and services that the elderly require. If the economy is not producing enough goods and services because of energy extraction limits, the share that pensioners can receive will need to fall so that workers can be paid adequately. Inflation-adjusted benefits to the elderly must be much lower or disappear completely.)

        • Climate models give high estimates. (These models miss the real-world difficulty of extracting fossil fuels. They also assume the economy can grow indefinitely, greatly overstating future CO2.)

        • Future energy supply based on “Reserve to Production” ratios give high estimates. (Reserve amounts are often puffed-up numbers to make an oil exporting country look wealthy.)

        • Energy Return on Energy Invested models greatly overestimate the value of intermittent wind and solar energy. (It is easy to assume that all types of energy are equivalent, but intermittent wind and solar cannot replace diesel and jet fuel.)

        [10] Added complexity is not a solution to our energy problems.

        Many people believe that if we can just be smarter, we can solve our energy problem. We can add more fuel-efficient engines, more advanced education, and more international trade, for example. Unfortunately, many things go wrong, leading to an upward energy complexity spiral. Difficulties include:

        • The complexity changes with the best payback tend to be discovered and implemented very early.

        • Added complexity may lead to higher energy consumption if cost savings result. For example, more vehicles may be sold if reduced fuel consumption makes their operation more affordable to a wider number of users.

        • Wage disparity results because the wages paid to highly educated employees and those in managerial positions leave little funding available to pay less-skilled workers.

        • Less-skilled workers indirectly compete with similarly skilled workers in low-wage countries, further holding their wages down.

        It is clear that we are now moving past the limits of complexity. For example, international trade as a percentage of GDP has been falling for the world, the US, and China.

        Figure 3. Trade as a percentage of GDP based on World Bank data for the World, the United States, and China.

        Countries are now actively trying to bring supply lines back closer to home. Trips for goods across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans are being reduced, saving diesel and jet fuel.

        [11] Repayment of debt with interest acts like a Ponzi Scheme if there is inadequate growth in the energy supply.

        Most people today do not realize the extent to which the entire financial system is dependent on growing inexpensive-to-produce energy supply of the right kinds. It takes physical resources of the right kinds to produce goods and services. Resources such as fresh water, copper, lithium, and fossil fuels require more and more energy consumption to produce the same amount of supply because the easiest-to-extract resources are extracted first.

        When the economy is far from limits, adding more debt (or other types of promises, such as shares of stock) does seem to increase “demand” for finished goods and services, and this, in turn, tends to increase the production of fossil fuels and other commodities. Thus, for a while, increased debt does indeed increase energy supply.

        But when we start reaching extraction limits, instead of producing more fossil fuels and other commodities, higher debt tends to produce inflation. (In other words, more money plus practically the same amount of finished goods and services tends to lead to inflation.) This is the issue central banks are up against today. Central banks raise interest rates in response to the higher level of inflation, partly to compensate lenders for the inflation that is taking place, and partly to make their own economies more competitive in the world economy. The combination of higher interest rates and higher inflation is problematic in many ways:

        (a) Ordinary citizens find that they must cut back on discretionary goods and services to balance their budgets. This tends to push economies in the direction of recession and debt defaults. Some citizens find they need to apply for government assistance programs for the first time.

        (b) Businesses find it more difficult to operate profitably with higher interest rates and inflation. Businesses increasingly expand in programs supported by government subsidies, such as those for electric cars and batteries, as it becomes increasingly difficult to make a profit without a subsidy. In the US, defaults seem especially likely on commercial real estate loans.

        (c) Governments become especially squeezed. Many of them find that their own tax revenue is falling at precisely the time when citizens need their programs most. Governments also find that with higher interest rates, interest costs on their own debt rises. Subsidized programs increasingly seem to be needed to keep the economy operating. The number of retirees also grows year after year. Government debt levels spiral upward, as shown for the US on Figure 6.

        With all these issues, the world becomes increasingly prone to war. Political parties, and even groups within political parties, find it increasingly difficult to agree on solutions to problems. The stage seems to be set for an array of worrisome outcomes, including major debt defaults, failing governments, and even widespread war.

        [12] The world economy was able to grow rapidly in the 1950 to 1980 period because of a rapid rise in energy consumption. Now, there is an energy bottleneck. The recent increases in interest rates seem likely to burst debt bubbles. They may even squeeze out some major economies with pension programs for their citizens.

        Figure 4. Measures of average interest rates of 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year Treasury Securities, in a chart produced by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.

        On Figure 4, the significant increases in interest rates up until 1981 corresponded to a huge increase in world energy consumption in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5).

        Figure 5. World per capita energy consumption, with the 1950-1980 period of rapid growth highlighted. World Energy Consumption by source, based on Vaclav Smil’s estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy for 1965 and subsequent years. Population estimates used to produce per capita amounts are based on estimates by Angus Maddison for dates prior to 1950. They are based on UN estimates for more recent years. Chart prepared by Gail Tverberg in 2018.

        The rapid rise in fossil fuel consumption in Figure 5 was the reason why the economy was able to grow as rapidly as it did in the 1950 to 1980 period. Raising interest rates acted like brakes on the economy and lowered oil prices. The Soviet Union was the economy most harmed by these low oil prices. It also had a communist form of government that did not work well, compared to capitalism. Ultimately, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

        Now, the rise in interest rates during 2022 and 2023 on Figure 4 correspond to a very different situation. Extraction of fossil fuels, and in particular the heavy oil used to produce diesel and jet fuel, is no longer growing rapidly. Instead, what has been growing is debt, especially government debt. Figure 6 shows US government debt through April 2023. US government debt spurted upward in 2020 and is still rising rapidly.

        Figure 6. US Public Debt, based on a chart prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

        The business closures in 2020 and interruptions in travel reduced oil prices and provided a good excuse for more government debt. All this debt added buying power, but it didn’t actually produce very many goods and services. Instead, it added a debt bubble. Similarly, investing in close-to-useless green energy temporarily added GDP, but it mostly added a huge debt bubble. Raising interest rates is likely to burst these debt bubbles.

        The US and other rich countries have also put in place pension plans for the elderly. These are not treated as debt, but they depend upon resources of all kinds being available to feed, clothe, and provide shelter to a growing army of retirees. If there is not enough diesel to allow as many goods and services to be produced as are produced today, there is likely to be a huge problem if payouts to pensioners aren’t significantly reduced. Other citizens will be unhappy if retirees get a disproportionately large share of the reduced supply of goods and services. Some will say, “Why work if retirees on pensions get more than those of us who are still working?”

        Thus, the world seems to be increasingly in a situation where more squeezing out will take place. Major governments, especially those with pension plans for their citizens, seem especially vulnerable. No one understood that there had been a temporary rapid rise in energy consumption per capita in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5) that led to a temporary spurt in interest rates on bonds. This temporary rise in interest rates made pension programs look far more feasible than they really are for the longterm.

        [13] How does the problem resolve itself?

        It seems to me that the problem of debt bubbles and of unaffordably generous pension plans is very widespread. Analysts of all kinds have missed the hidden brakes on economies caused by inadequate energy resources of the right kinds, relative to rising populations. Collapse of at least some central governments seems possible. Perhaps some of these collapses can be postponed by rollbacks in government-sponsored programs, particularly those for the elderly and for those who are not working.

        But even aside from the pension problem, there is a problem with many debts not being repayable in an economy that is forced to slow, as described in Section [11]. Many other promises become iffy as well. For instance, derivatives may not be able to pay as planned.

        If there are problems with inadequate supply of essential materials, they are likely to spill over to asset values. For example, a farm that cannot purchase fuel for its agricultural equipment is, in some sense, not worth very much, since workers with simple tools like shovels cannot produce very much food. Likewise, a factory with permanently broken supply lines is not worth much.

        I wish I could provide a happy-ever-after ending. The closest I can come to such an ending is to say that it appears to me that there is a literal Higher Power that is somehow providing an enormous amount of energy in a way that allows the Universe to continually expand. This literal Higher Power is, in some way, influencing the world today, through the self-organizing nature of the economy. The book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, by Ward and Brownlee, explains that life could not have happened on the Earth, as quickly as it did, by chance alone. Perhaps things will turn out differently than we expect.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 18:00

      • Blinken Tells Abbas He Asked Israel To Use 'Smaller Bombs' On Gaza
        Blinken Tells Abbas He Asked Israel To Use ‘Smaller Bombs’ On Gaza

        US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on another multi-day tour of the Middle East, where this time Arab leaders have finally acquiesced to meet with him as the Gaza crisis continues, at a moment the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say that Gaza City is surrounded.

        On Sunday Blinken visited Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to meet with President Mahmoud Abbas of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority (PA). Blinken reportedly told Abbas that the US is pressing Israel to “minimize civilian harm”. He had some interesting ideas on how to do that.

        Via Reuters

        Blinken had previously again met with Netanyahu Friday where according to fresh reports he pressed the Israeli prime minister to use “smaller bombs”. 

        “U.S. officials told the Israelis that they could reduce civilian casualties if they improved how they targeted Hamas leaders, gathered more intelligence on Hamas command and control networks before launching strikes, used smaller bombs to collapse the tunnel network and employed their ground forces to separate civilian population centers from where the militants are concentrated,” The New York Times reported.

        Blinken of course stressed Israel’s “right to defend itself” but still pressed for a humanitarian “pause”. In Ramallah, he vowed to Abbas that the US will step up humanitarian aid efforts to the besieged Gaza Strip.

        According to the latest grim figures, some 1.5 million Gazans have now been internally displaced: 

        The UN agency OCHA has said that of them, 710,275 are sheltering in 149 UNRWA facilities, 122,000 people are in hospitals, churches, and public buildings, 109,755 people are in 89 non-UNRWA schools, and the remainder are residing with host families.

        Palestinian Authority leaders have charged that Israel is conducting “ethnic cleansing” – also by encouraging Palestinians to leave the entire northern half of the Strip while under bombardment.

        Abbas has yet to publicly condemn Hamas’ Oct.7 terror attack, with the NY Times saying if he did so it would create severe backlash among his own population, also at a moment of increased sporadic fighting in the West Bank:

        Still, he has not publicly condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, largely out of fear of inflaming sentiment among Palestinians, with whom he is deeply unpopular. He has called more generally for a cease-fire and protections for Palestinian civilians, including in the West Bank.

        Mr. Abbas echoed those messages on Sunday in his meetings with Mr. Blinken, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. It said Mr. Abbas had called for “an immediate halt” to the war in Gaza and an end to the attacks in the West Bank, which he described as “no less horrific.”

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        Interestingly, Abbas told Blinken that the Palestinian Authority could assume power in a post-conflict Gaza. This comes after Blinken earlier said the US remains open to the possibility of an international peacekeeping force to assume control in Gaza. Abbas stipulated the following:

        But Abbas said the Palestinian Authority would only assume power in Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the Palestinians’ official WAFA news agency. Abbas condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as a “genocidal war” and urged Blinken “to immediately stop them from committing such crimes,” the agency reported.

        Over the weekend the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza surpassed 9,500 killed – with some half of these being women and children. Some 240 Israeli and foreign hostages are still being held in the Gaza strip, though there are reports some may have been killed. Possibly dozens of IDF troops have been killed and wounded amid the ground operation, but Israel has been slow to publish these figures.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 17:45

      • Democrats Rattled After NYT Poll Shows Trump Beating Biden In Majority Of Swing States
        Democrats Rattled After NYT Poll Shows Trump Beating Biden In Majority Of Swing States

        Democrats are in panic mode after a NY Times poll released on Sunday shows Trump wiping the floor with President Biden in 5 out of 6 battleground swing states that Biden carried in 2020. In short, if the 2024 election were held today, according to the Times, Trump would absolutely clobber Biden.

        According to the poll from NYT and Sienna College, Biden would lose to Trump by margins ranging from three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, while Biden only leads Trump by 2% in the 6th state, Wisconsin.

        As Axios sums up:

        • Biden led Trump in Wisconsin but is down 4 points in Pennsylvania, 5 in Arizona, 6 in Georgia, 5 in Michigan, and 10 in Nevada.
        • 71 percent said Biden was “too old,” including 54 percent of Biden’s supporters.
        • Only 39 percent of those voters felt the same about Trump, who would be the oldest president ever inaugurated and has shared no details about his health.
        • Swing state voters said they trust Trump over Biden on the economy by a 22-point margin, 59 to 37 percent.
        • Trump and Biden are effectively tied among voters under 30 — a large shift from 2020.

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        What’s more, Biden is also polling weaker than alternative Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris. According to the poll, Trump leads Biden by 5 points and Harris by 3, while a generic, unnamed Democrat would fare even better with an 8-point lead over Trump (13% better than Biden).

        According to Democratic strategist David Axelrod, it’s ‘very late to change horses’ in terms of Biden’s 2024 run, and this poll will “send tremors of doubt thru the party.’

        “The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” Axelrod continued.

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        Former Obama senior advisor and Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer wrote a blog post on how Democrats should react to the “very bad NYT Poll,” and said that he didn’t want to sugarcoat it: “While some of Trump’s gains among Black, Hispanic, and young voters may be hard to believe, numbers like these are broadly consistent with the trendlines in recent polls. This poll shows that not only can Trump win, he might now be a slight favorite to do so. Even if we don’t take the results literally, we should take them very, very seriously.“

        In short, Democrats have to win back demographics they’ve lost since 2020:

        Instead of doom-scrolling and tweeting through our panic, we should see this poll as a roadmap on how to reconstitute the anti-MAGA majority. We have to persuade the voters we have lost since 2020. Here’s one place to start. -Message Box News

        Team Biden downplayed the poll, with re-election campaign spox Kevin Munoz telling Axios that “predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later.”

        “We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll,” he continued.

        Maybe that’s why mercenary neocon Bill Kristol just told ol’ Joe to pack it in?

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        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 17:25

      • Police Find No Evidence That Israel Supporter Attack UNC Muslim Student With Knife
        Police Find No Evidence That Israel Supporter Attack UNC Muslim Student With Knife

        Authored by Micaiah Bilger via TheCollegeFix.com,

        Police are investigating an online claim alleging an individual wearing an Israeli flag attacked a Muslim student Tuesday near the University North Carolina, Chapel Hill — but so far say there is no evidence the attack took place.

        The UNC Muslim Students Association claimed on its Instagram page Thursday that a Muslim student was attacked with a knife by “an individual wearing an Israeli flag” on the evening of Oct. 31 on Franklin Street.

         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         

        A post shared by UNC MSA (@uncmsa)

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        A UNC Chapel Hill police spokesperson told the News & Observer the only evidence they have of the alleged attack is a social media post, and no one reported the incident to their department.

        “Was a student attacked on Franklin Street? Neither Chapel Hill Police nor UNC-Chapel Hill can confirm this attack happened as described,” the newspaper reported Nov. 1

        “According to the UNC police blotter, no incidents of assault or harassment were reported around 6 p.m. Tuesday evening,” the Observer reported in a fact-check piece.

        “Additionally, Chapel Hill police said no one has reported this crime. The department currently does not have any evidence of the attack happening, outside of the social media post, according to police spokesperson Alex Carrasquillo,” the newspaper reported.

        The alleged attacked happened on Halloween night on Franklin Street, a very popular and heavily traversed road next to campus.

        The News & Observer reported that its request to the association for more information has not been answered.

        The reports of the alleged attack appear to have come from Instagram posts by the UNC Muslim Students Association.

        In an Oct. 31 Instagram story, the association wrote: “Attention: There are pro-Israeli people on Franklin attacking Muslim students. Please stay away from the area, especially if you’re hijabi, and be careful,” according to the News & Observer.

        In a Nov. 1 statement, the Chapel Hill Police Department said it was aware of “a social media post describing an assault of a community member who is Muslim” and was working to contact the victim and investigate.

        The Muslim Students Association stated the student is not available for media interviews.

        “We thank law enforcement for investigating this incident and we encourage any interested reporters to contact them for additional information,” it wrote on Instagram.

        However, the allegations have raised questions.

        The activism group Stop Antisemitism posted on X:

        “If this is true, it’s awful. Where can we find more details – a police report? media not reporting on it?”

        The College Fix could not find any alerts about an assault or similar incident on Alert Carolina, an emergency alert system for UNC students, their families and local residents.

        A message, which appears to have been sent by the Muslim student group to its members earlier this week, stated that “police were present on the scene and are aware of the situation,” according to an X post by Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

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        A spokesperson for the department confirmed to The Daily Tar Heel, the UNC Chapel Hill student newspaper, that police did speak “to someone who anonymously identified as a victim and, while respecting their anonymity, we are still working to determine what happened.”

        Police also told the student newspaper, as of Wednesday afternoon, no one had filed an official incident report, but they continue to investigate. Police asked anyone with information to call 911 or contact the Chapel Hill Police Department.

        “The circumstances that were described in the post must not be tolerated in our community,” Chapel Hill Police Chief Celisa Lehew said in a statement.

        “It is important that anyone who has information reach out to us as soon as possible. We recognize the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community and will continue to work carefully to ensure an environment where everyone feels safe and respected.”

        Since Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 civilians, there has been a wave of attacks targeting Jewish students and Israel supporters at U.S. higher education institutions.

        On Oct. 12 at UNC Chapel Hill, an Israeli professor was pushed during a pro-Palestinian protest, WRAL News reported.

        Last week, a pro-Palestine protest turned violent at Tulane University and three students were assaulted, The College Fix reported. And at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, a Jewish student’s door was set on fire.

        Meanwhile, students who were arrested at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst during a pro-Palestinian sit-in last week were arraigned on trespassing charges.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 16:50

      • US Rolls Out 50th Weapons Package For Ukraine
        US Rolls Out 50th Weapons Package For Ukraine

        Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute, 

        The US rolled out its 50th weapons package for Ukraine. The arms shipment will include air defenses, artillery rounds, and anti-armor weapons. The Pentagon will purchase $300 million in arms on behalf of Kiev, depleting all the funds in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI).

        On Friday, The Department of Defense announced a new $425 million in military aid package for Ukraine. $125 million in weapons will be sent directly from American stockpiles through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). The funds used to transfer the arms came from a Pentagon accounting error that gave the White House access to an additional $6 billion in PDA funds.

        Image source: US Air Force

        The weapons to be shipped to Ukraine include:

        • Additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS)
        • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
        • 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds
        • Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles
        • Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems
        • More than 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades
        • Demolitions munitions for obstacle clearing
        • M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions
        • 12 trucks to transport heavy equipment
        • Cold weather gear
        • Spare parts, maintenance, and other field equipment

        The Pentagon will additionally purchase $300 million in “laser-guided munitions to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems” for Ukraine. The weapons will be bought with USAI funds. The Department of Defense reports that its USAI funding has now been depleted. Arms purchased through this program will take months or years to reach Ukraine.

        For months, the White House has pressed Congress to pass a multi-billion aid package for Ukraine. In October, the Biden administration rolled out a $105 billion bill that includes $61 billion in assistance for Kiev. The White House hopes the aid will maintain the Ukrainian military and the Zelensky administration through 2024 election.

        However, the situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly bleak. The top Ukrainian defense official told the Economist outlets that the war has reached a stalemate. Additionally, an aide to Zelensky said corruption was rampant, and Ukrainian officials were stealing “like there is no tomorrow.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 15:40

      • Kamala Harris' Stepdaughter Helps Raise $8M For Gaza While Mom's Admin Pushing Billions For Israel
        Kamala Harris’ Stepdaughter Helps Raise $8M For Gaza While Mom’s Admin Pushing Billions For Israel

        Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, has begun publicly raising money for Gaza – promoting a fundraiser on her personal Instagram account “supporting urgent relief for Gaza’s children” which is now absent from her profile.

        The promotion asks her 315,000 Instagram followers to support the Palestinian cause, without mentioning that her stepmother’s administration wants to send billions to Israel as part of a $100 billion package.

        Ella Emhoff’s Instagram page (screenshot)

        The fundraiser, which has netted more than $7.8 million so far, is being operated by the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit based in Kent, Ohio, which raked in more than $21 million in 2021, according to ProPublica.

        It’s unclear how much, if anything, Ella Emhoff has personally donated to the cause. –NY Post

        “It’s of tremendous concern and I find it abhorrent,” Rep. Jeff VanDrew (R-NJ), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee told the outlet. “To be honest with you, I am kind of stunned by it. It’s disturbing to the maximum degree.”

        VanDrew said it was almost certain that Hamas would be able to siphon any humanitarian cash that went to Gaza.

        Despite her father being Jewish, Ella’s rep told The Forward in 2021 that “Ella is not Jewish.”

        “It’s not something she grew up with. Ella truly has no qualms with the faith, but she does not want to speak on behalf of Judaism, as she does not celebrate herself.”

        Emhoff — whose biological mom is film producer Kerstin Emhoff — has styled herself as a model and making boobs-out appearances at New York Fashion Week.

        She is close with her stepmother, who congratulated her in an X posting after Emhoff’s graduation from Parsons in 2021.

        “Keep dreaming with ambition and there is nothing you cannot achieve,” Harris wrote. -NY Post

        We wonder if Ella was perhaps protesting outside the White House on Saturday? Maybe she wore this:

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 15:05

      • What A Fire!
        What A Fire!

        By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

        Last week we wrote the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” remake. It was meant to be a quick (and hopefully mildly entertaining) way to highlight just how many things are affecting markets and the global economy (geopolitically, internationally, and domestically). The list of issues facing us is long, and certainly helped create the “wall of worry” that Wall Street managed to climb this week.

        The Geopolitical Front

        While there were many headlines this week, nothing much has changed from our previous view that the risk of escalation remains real, and that we’ll have difficulty forming a domestic policy that keeps everyone happy.

        We tackled the Middle East in this week’s webinar. The replay runs just under an hour but it’s a fantastic way to keep up to date on the many moving parts in the region along with some global issues. Beyond the military aspects, we explore supply chain issues, energy policy, and even the roles of various international organizations. Rachel Washburn, who was embedded with special forces in Afghanistan as an Army Intelligence officer, moderated the conversation and did a great job of including many questions that the audience was peppering her with from the get-go. Generals (Ret.) Deptula and Robeson brought a wealth of relevant information, perspective, and thoughts on where this could go. General Deptula, a retired Air Force general, was able to provide some deep insight into the air campaign, while General Robeson’s Marine Corps career was extremely relevant to the discussion around the fighting on the ground. I highly recommend watching the replay.

        As a backdrop, prior to the webinar and last weekend’s Billy Joel tribute, you can find:

        • Multiple SITREPS on the events in the region. Each SITREP is a reaction to events as they occur in real time. They are driven by the expertise of Academy’s Geopolitical Intelligence Group, and are a key tool in our efforts to keep clients informed of what the events mean and what the reactions and consequences are likely to be.
        • On the more “macro” front, there is not much of a change following our two prior pieces:

        We will continue to do our best to provide insights that hopefully help you navigate this on many levels, as it is a complex, treacherous, and highly emotional situation that is constantly evolving (or devolving, as the case may be).

        The Market Dumpster Fire

        Ok, we had the exact opposite of a dumpster fire in markets last week, unless you were short or owned puts. Stock indices were up around 6% for the week! If we want to nitpick, the Russell 2000 was up almost 8%!

        Credit spreads tightened, though the CDX indices heavily outperformed the actual bond market (the CDX indices tend to correlate much more to equities than actual bonds). The rally in high yield bonds was impressive, but very much in line with what would be expected given the rally in bond yields and equities.

        But the market that’s “truly on fire” (or at least the market that sparked the flames) was the Treasury market.

        On October 23rd, the 10-year breached 5%. It almost did it again on the 26th, and it briefly traded below 4.5% on Friday! A move between 40 bps and 50 bps in just over a week is extreme by any standard and drove markets. WIRP (and the probability of Fed actions) has almost completely ruled out a hike and we now have an almost 30% chance of a cut at the March meeting! What a difference a week makes!

        While the move is quite large, it is completely understandable:

        • The Fed’s refunding was not as bad as feared (or priced in) especially at the long end. In D.C. Has Done The Fed’s Job, we expressed several reasons why the fear about supply, while likely correct longer-term, was overdone.
        • We suspected that Powell would try to sound hawkish, but include many caveats (especially surrounding the moves in the yield curve and real yields). He couldn’t be as hawkish as many were positioned for (The Game is Slipping Away).
        • Our assessment of the Fed meeting (The Fed & Treasury Behind Us) was bullish with the caveats that the Middle East could disrupt the “everything rally” (it hasn’t yet) and that the economic data could be bad enough to bring recession chatter back to the headlines (not yet).
        • The Jobs Report Was Universally Weak. One thing that I learned quickly was that when you send out a report titled “weak report” and you only glance at the replies, your first reaction is to think that the comments were calling my report weak . In any case, this report was weak enough to keep the “everything rally” going.

        But all that is history, where are we going?

        Bottom Line

        The “easy” part of the Treasury rally is over. We could bounce around, but I am looking for more weakness on the data side to push us below 4.3% on the 10-year. After the recent rally, we might drift higher in yields first and see some shorts get put on, but I think that we’ll see 4.3% before 4.75%.

        The Treasury market moves will be mainly expressed 5 years and out as the Fed will be in no rush to cut rates. This implies that a bet on more negative curves is the direction to lean towards.

        On credit spreads, I like credit spreads a lot here, especially for high quality IG.

        • Cash credit spreads have some room to move tighter, given the move in CDX spreads and other risk assets.
        • The calendar should start to slow as we head towards Thanksgiving.
        • With all the noise still coming out of D.C., I keep thinking that investors should be overweight high-quality corporates as opposed to government securities. These corporates have good governance, global businesses, and every intention to pay back every dollar that they owe, when they owe it. I am still toying with the idea of what the “new safe asset” is, and it isn’t super important today, but it is a “hypothetical” question worth exploring and high-quality corporates keep coming to mind.

        Stocks will likely follow earnings, yields, and may try to rally some more as we’re about to be bombarded with “seasonal” effects (or at least the reporting will focus on seasonal effects). I like stocks until we get to 4.3% on the 10-year, and then would be extremely nervous as we won’t get there without greater recession concerns!

        We should expect some consolidation, but I continue to favor more of the “everything” rally.

        Hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep, though the cost of it getting dark so early doesn’t seem to be worth the price.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 14:30

      • Gateway Project Rail Tunnel Between NY And NJ Breaks Ground After Decades Of Red Tape
        Gateway Project Rail Tunnel Between NY And NJ Breaks Ground After Decades Of Red Tape

        A $16.1 billion rail tunnel in between New York and New Jersey is finally set to break ground after more than 10 years of delays. And we’re sure we’ll be happy to report that its up and operating in probably another 100 years.  

        But we digress. “A new rail tunnel linking New York and New Jersey is officially starting construction,” Bloomberg reported last week. The project is called the “Gateway Project”. 

        US Secretary of Transportation Mayor Pete was joined at a ceremony in Hudson Yards by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. He remarked: “This is a day that I know that this city, this region, this country has been looking for and waiting for for a very long time.” 

        Uh, no, Pete. That will be the day when the tunnel is actually up and running and people don’t need to wait 2 hours and pay $75 to get through the Lincoln Tunnel. 

        But we digress again. The Bloomberg report notes that The Gateway Project should be a crucial solution for alleviating traffic bottlenecks beneath the Hudson River—a pivotal juncture on the Northeast Corridor that spans from Boston to Washington.

        It is the nation’s most frequented passenger rail line, catering to over 750,000 passengers daily. The current tunnel, under Amtrak’s ownership and also serving New Jersey Transit, has stood for over a hundred years and faces mounting reliability concerns.

        The first construction phase will lay underground casings linking the new tunnel to New York’s Pennsylvania Station. However, commuters won’t see benefits until the tunnel, with its two tracks, is operational by 2035. And we’ll take the “over” on that date. 

        This year, the Gateway tunnel secured a $6.9 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration, with an additional $3.8 billion announced on Friday. This brings Washington’s total contribution to over $11 billion, covering around 70% of the project’s cost, according to Schumer. New York and New Jersey will shoulder the remaining expenses.

        The push for a tunnel alleviating rail congestion between New York and New Jersey began in the 1990s but faced political hindrances and delays. A prior tunnel initiative, already funded, was halted by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2010. The Gateway proposal surfaced in 2011 but faced challenges during the Trump era, according to Bloomberg. 

        Biden’s infrastructure legislation allocated $8 billion over five years to the Capital Investment Grant program, which prioritized Gateway. Additionally, Biden’s team earmarked $292 million from this law earlier this year for a pivotal early stage of the project.

        Think of how many tunnels we could have built – and how quickly we could have them finished – with the $100 billion we just shipped to Ukraine?

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 13:55

      • FDA Responds After Being Urged To Recall Pfizer's Vaccine Over DNA Fragments
        FDA Responds After Being Urged To Recall Pfizer’s Vaccine Over DNA Fragments

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

        The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is refusing to recall the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, promoting the view that the inclusion of a previously-undisclosed DNA sequence that leaves behind fragments is not of concern.

        A vial of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in Seattle on June 21, 2022. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

        The FDA is not required to take the COVID-19 vaccine, or other COVID-19 shots, off the market, an agency spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email.

        “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to the sequence of, or amount of, residual DNA have been identified. With regard to the FDA-approved mRNA vaccines, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that they are safe and effective,” the spokeswoman added.

        The FDA did not provide any evidence to back up its position.

        The email came in response to 10 questions about the inclusion of the Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequence in the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

        The Epoch Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act query to try to unlock when the FDA learned about the sequence, and from whom. The FDA denied expedited processing for the request, claiming there is not a “compelling need” to quickly provide the information.

        Several foreign agencies, including Health Canada, have confirmed outside scientists’ assessment that the vaccine contains the DNA sequence. They’ve also said BioNTech did not highlight the inclusion in regulatory filings.

        The FDA would not answer a number of questions about the sequence, including when the agency learned about its inclusion and whether it learned about it from Pfizer or BioNTech .

        BioNTech and Pfizer have not responded to inquiries.

        The inclusion was first identified by Kevin McKernan, a former researcher and team leader for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Human Genome Project.

        “Nothing will be identified if they continue to choose not to look,” Mr. McKernan told The Epoch Times via email.

        Dr. Robert Malone, author of “Lies My Gov’t Told Me,” in Washington on Dec. 19, 2022. (Jack Wang/The Epoch Times)

        A number of scientists have said the inclusion raises major concerns, such as having potential for oncogenesis—or a process that leads to cancer—including Dr. Robert Malone, a vaccine expert whose work has been cited by Pfizer.

        The inclusion means the Pfizer-BioNTech shot is “adulterated” and should be recalled, Dr. Malone told The Epoch Times.

        Federal law states that the FDA can test drugs suspected of being adulterated. If the drugs fail to meet certain standards, and a health hazard is found, the FDA is directed to advise the manufacturer to issue a recall.

        If the manufacturer then fails to issue a recall, “seizure should be considered,” the law states.

        “The general policy is that if there’s adulteration and reasonable risk of toxicity, there must be immediate action,” Dr. Malone told The Epoch Times. “This is a core mandate to the FDA from Congress to prevent adulteration of drugs, medical devices, and food. And then the next question is, is that adulteration? Is it associated with a reasonable risk of toxicity in humans? And my opinion is, absolutely.”

        Dr. Malone, after reviewing the FDA’s response, said that regulators have not done their job.

        “The normal process worldwide has been that that risk must be rigorously assessed proactively. But they haven’t done it, and their rationale for not doing it is the reason why they were so adamant that this is not a gene therapy technology,” Dr. Malone said.

        Moderna has said that its vaccine meets the FDA’s gene therapy definition, but regulators have defined the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products as vaccines, avoiding questions about oncogenesis.

        Why Was SV40 Included?

        SV40 sequences have been used by biotechnology companies in drug products.

        “Specific sequences for the non-infectious parts of SV40 are commonly present in plasmids used for manufacturing of biological active substances,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) told The Epoch Times via email.

        The purpose is primarily to “drive very aggressive expression of a gene,” Mr. McKernan told The Epoch Times.

        EMA alleged that Pfizer considered the sequence “a non-functional part of the plasmid.”

        “If commonly used, then why are they included if they serve no function?” Dr. Malone wondered in a Substack post.

        But the result is residual DNA left behind, according to testing. That could have negative effects, some scientists say.

        David Wiseman, a former Johnson & Johnson scientist who conducted some of the testing, said that he’s concerned the residual DNA pieces “could actually get into your genome.”

        If it does that, “it can disrupt gene regulation and potentially lead to the oncogenesis,” Mr. McKernan said.

        Phillip Buckhaults, professor of cancer genomics and director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at the University of South Carolina, said earlier this year that he tested vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and detected DNA.

        “I’m kind of alarmed about the possible consequences of this both in terms of human health and biology, but you should be alarmed about the regulatory process that allowed it to get there,” he told the South Carolina Senate.

        Mr. Buckhaults said the DNA “could be causing some of the rare but serious side effects like death from cardiac arrest.”

        He has encouraged regulators to test the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

        “This is probably not a problem, but it is surprising and therefore causing concern,” Mr. Buckhaults wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, tagging the FDA. “You should address with rigorous safety review ASAP.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 13:20

      • New Forecast Reveals Strong El Niño May Boost Wintery Activity Across Mid-Atlantic
        New Forecast Reveals Strong El Niño May Boost Wintery Activity Across Mid-Atlantic

        A newly published forecast map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals that the El Niño weather pattern might bring increased snowfall to regions such as the Sierra, the southwestern mountains, the Plains, and the Mid-Atlantic states. This forecast aligns with the typical southward shift of the jet stream during an El Niño event, which usually carries more moisture and precipitation along the southern tier of the US. 

        The map below shows snowfall totals for past moderate-to-strong El Niños. Notice how wetter-than-average conditions are shown across the southern Plains, Southeast, Gulf Coast and Mid-Alantic. While drier-than-average conditions are expected across parts of the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and interior Northeast. 

        “An enhanced southern jet stream and associated moisture often present during strong El Nino events supports high odds for above-average precipitation for the Gulf Coast, lower Mississippi Valley, and Southeast states this winter,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center, wrote in a report. 

        Although actual snowfall depends on many factors, the latest forecast indicates that El Niño, the first in four years, might be a change for residences in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. These areas have experienced several years of La Niña conditions, which have resulted in winters with minimal snowfall. 

        Here’s what the weather community on X is saying about this upcoming winter:

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        Recall some of our earlier forecasts for this winter (read: here & here & here). 

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 12:10

      • Congress Sneaks In Stealth $34,000 Pay Raise; Gaetz, AOC Among More Than 200 Lawmakers To Benefit
        Congress Sneaks In Stealth $34,000 Pay Raise; Gaetz, AOC Among More Than 200 Lawmakers To Benefit

        As House Democrats were set to hand power over to the Republicans following their midterm loss, they slipped in a provision into the House’s internal rules under the guise of aiding their less affluent members; a $34,000 allowance to ostensibly help with living expenses in Washington D.C.

        A deep dive into the records by the Washington Free Beacon reveals that over 200 lawmakers, including the vociferous Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have dipped into this taxpayer-funded pot, a sumptuous feast on the nation’s dime.

        Ocasio-Cortez, who has previously lamented the costliness of D.C. living on a Congressperson’s salary, now enjoys taxpayer support for accommodations in a luxury building replete with amenities that seem more Silicon Valley than Capitol Hill.

        Bipartisan handout

        So far, 113 Democrats and 104 Republicans, including millionaire members like Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), have partaken in the program, drawing $1.4 million from taxpayers during the first half of 2023 alone.

        Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a critic of past budgetary excesses (whose wife says she’s got a ‘chef husband’), claimed the largest share of the fund.

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

        When pressed about the apparent contradiction, Gaetz justified his actions to the Washington Free Beacon, emphasizing his adherence to the law and his thrifty shopping habits: “I’ve complied with the law, and my cooking is often with discount BOGO products. I try to do the best in the kitchen from the BOGO life,” Gaetz said. He also highlighted his record of fiscal responsibility: “During my time in Congress, I’ve returned over $860,000 to taxpayers from the Members’ Representational Allowance (MRA).”

        In January the NY Times shed light on the secretive subsidy, reporting that the Democrats’ move to authorize it through an internal rule change effectively provided representatives with a pay raise sans political fallout. Former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AK) criticized the lack of transparency, stating, “You can have a good public policy debate on whether congressmen should be paid more… but it really ought to be done in public,” lamenting the secretive process.

        Amidst these revelations, Zoe Bluffstone, spokeswoman for the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, directed attention to the plight of congressional staffers, telling the Times that the focus should be on “increasing pay for staffers,” many of whom struggle financially.

        The subsidy itself is derived from members’ office budgets and allows for lodging expenses up to $258 per day and meal expenses up to $79 per day. The rules stipulate that members can be reimbursed for hotels or rentals linked to their official duties, though not for mortgage payments, and they do not need to submit receipts—only a certification of incurring the eligible expenses.

        Tyler Durden
        Sun, 11/05/2023 – 11:35

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      Today’s News 5th November 2023

      • The Great Reset, Part 1: The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
        The Great Reset, Part 1: The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse

        Authored by Simon Elmer via Off-Guardian.org,

        ‘The technologies at the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are connected in many ways — in the way they extend digital capabilities; in the way they scale, emerge and embed themselves in our lives; in their combinatorial power; and in their potential to concentrate privilege and challenge existing governance systems.’

        – Klaus Schwab, Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2018

        The Wikipedia entry for the Great Reset, the first part of which is quoted in a blue panel as a corrective to any mention or discussion of this term on YouTube, reads as follows:

        The Great Reset Initiative is an economic recovery plan drawn up by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was launched in June 2020, with a video featuring the then Prince of Wales Charles released to mark its launch. The initiative’s stated aim is to facilitate rebuilding from the global COVID-19 crisis in a way that prioritizes sustainable development.

        The initiative triggered a range of diverse conspiracy theories spread by American far-right and conservative commentators on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Such theories include that the COVID-19 pandemic was created by a secret group in order to seize control of the global economy, that lockdown restrictions were deliberately designed to induce economic meltdown, or that a global elite was attempting to abolish private property while using COVID-19 to enslave humanity with vaccines.

        I am not an American, have never belonged to any far-right organisation, my views are not conservative with either a big or a little ‘c’, and I have published a number of articles arguing against the conspiracy theory of history; but I have also argued that a virus with the infection fatality rate of seasonal influenza never constituted anything approaching a ‘pandemic’; that lockdown restrictions were imposed not to induce the ‘meltdown’ of the economy but, to the contrary, to insulate the real economy from the $12 trillion of quantitative easing created to bail out the collapsing financial sector between September 2019 and April 2022; and that, far from attempting to ‘abolish’ private property, the stakeholder model of capitalism promoted by the World Economic Forum and implemented by its corporate partners under the umbrella of ‘sustainable development goals’ is designed to privatise national assets, natural resources and, ultimately — as Klaus Schwab openly advocates — the existing system of governance in the West.

        In this respect, the Wikipedia entry is exemplary of how the accusation of ‘conspiracy theory’, illustrated with extreme or inaccurate or just plain ridiculous examples (‘enslave humanity with vaccines’) to which very few people subscribe, works to discredit and dismiss by association any and more rational criticisms of the global technocracies, international companies and national governments that, in the wake of multiple manufactured ‘crises’, have taken into their control the institutions, procedures and platforms by which a political, scientific and media consensus is reached.

        Strange as it may seem, however, this grudging concession of the existence of a global economic plan, its origins in a corporate think-tank and its support by the now Head of State of the UK is an age away from the vociferous denials and mocking denunciations of being a ‘conspiracy theorist’ that were hurled at anyone who dared even to refer to the ‘Great Reset’ in the first year of lockdown. These only gradually diminished when someone pointed out that the term was openly used on the website of the World Economic Forum and had provided the title of the book published by its founder and Executive Chairman, Klaus Schwab, in July 2020, barely 4 months since the ‘pandemic’ was declared by the World Health Organization.

        And while the accusation of conspiracy theory is still used to silence anyone who attributes anything other than purely beneficent motives to the 1,200 banks, asset managers, information technology conglomerates, media corporations, energy utilities, industrial manufacturers and other companies that, on the same day the ‘pandemic’ was declared, formed themselves into a ‘COVID-19 Action Platform’, the term itself is now more or less openly used by politicians, civil servants, corporate CEOs, marketing executives, digital engineers, journalists, activists and other promoters of what the World Economic Forum calls ‘stakeholder capitalism’.

        It’s hard to say which term is more likely to attract censure and censorship when used by those not authorised to do so, but the most accurate description of the Great Reset — and the one most suppressed by those overseeing its implementation — is that it is the historical shift from the economic, political and social paradigm by which the West has been governed for the past forty years into stakeholder capitalism. As the emerging political economy of the West, this seeks to merge the separation of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary on which Western democracy has been founded into a technocratic form of governance that will signal the end of politics, properly speaking, insofar as politics designates — at least in principle — a space of debate, contestation, representation and accountability.

        For Schwab, whose latest book is titled Stakeholder Capitalism, this merger represents a revolution from shareholder capitalism, in which individual economies overseen by national governments were run for the benefit of company shareholders, into a global economy governed by the same companies, but ostensibly for the benefit of all, inclusively, sustainably, profitably. The investment in which these multinational companies hold a stake, therefore, is the world itself. ‘A global economy that works for progress, people and the planet’ is the subtitle of Schwab’s book, which like those preceding it doesn’t lack in ambition, hubris and a complete disregard for anything one could call democratic process, accountability or a mandate from those it claims to benefit.

        If we were to pick a starting date for this revolution in Western capitalism, whose economic forces lie in the neoliberal revolution of the late 1970s and the rise of finance capitalism as the dominant economic model of the West, it began in September 2019 with the spike in interest rates in the US repurchase agreement market that triggered the latest Global Financial Crisis, and to which the lockdown of the real economies of global capitalism in March 2020 was the concerted response. My two collections of essays, Virtue and Terror and The New Normal, written between March 2020 and October 2021 when the UK was still ruled by emergency powers under lockdown restrictions, sought to describe this first phase of the Great Reset, its legislative frameworks and economic motivations.

        My argument in this book is that we have now moved out of the first phase of this revolution, whose trajectory and precedents I described in The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State, and into the second phase. In its sequel, The Great Reset: Biopolitics for Stakeholder Capitalism, I try to articulate what this new phase is and what it means for us. Hopefully — and what hope we have is one of the questions this book tries to address — by understanding this new phase of the Great Reset better, we will be able to offer more resistance to its enforcement than we managed in its first phase, which was met with almost universal credulity, compliance and collaboration.

        FROM LEGISLATION TO BIOPOWER

        A lot of things have changed in the UK and across the Western World since, in March 2022, the coronavirus-justified restrictions on our human rights and civil liberties began to be lifted; but that doesn’t mean, as too many opposed to lockdown initially thought, that the Great Reset of Western capitalism for which those restrictions laid the ground is over. Far from it. To emphasise how far from over the Great Reset is, I have referred to this new phase as the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’. This is not only for dramatic effect but also because it gravitates around four apparatuses of biopower, not all of which are new, but which are being implemented simultaneously and are, indeed, dependent on each other for their implementation. Much of this book is about this interdependence, which Schwab refers to as their ‘combinatorial power’.

        But what is ‘biopower’?

        It’s a term I’ve been using since we were first locked in our homes on the justification of stopping the spread of the coronavirus, and I’ve made many attempts to describe it — which I shall continue to do, no doubt, because it is under its paradigm that the world is now governed and will be for the foreseeable future. The term was first introduced into political discourse by the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault, who died in 1984. As Professor of the History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France, Foucault explored its genesis in his lecture series of 1975-1979. But he first used the term in his published work in The Will to Knowledge, where, in the pages titled ‘Right of Death and Power over Life’, Foucault described the movement from a juridical to a biopolitical paradigm of governance:

        Another consequence of this development of bio-power was the growing importance assumed by the action of the norm, at the expense of the juridical system of the law. Law cannot help but be armed, and its arm, par excellence, is death; to those who transgress it, it replies, at least as a last resort, with that absolute menace. The law always refers to the sword. But a power whose task is to take charge of life needs continuous regulatory and corrective mechanisms. Such a power has to qualify, measure, appraise and hierarchise, rather than display itself in its murderous splendour; it does not have to draw the line that separates the enemies of the sovereign from his obedient subjects; it effects distributions around the norm. I do not mean to say that the law fades into the background or that the institutions of justice tend to disappear, but rather that the judicial institution is increasingly incorporated into a continuum of apparatuses (medical, administrative, and so on) whose functions are for the most part regulatory. A normalising society is the historical outcome of a technology of power centred on life.

        Foucault viewed the rise of biopower and the technologies of its implementation within a historical context that began around the time of the French Revolution of 1788, and which he associated with the First Republic’s formulation of human rights. It was through these rights that the state first assumed its duty and its right to defend, but also to control, not only the life but also the quality of life of its citizens: our health, our bodies, our needs, our happiness — which have most recently been condensed into the new category of our ‘well-being’. For Foucault, this represented a historical shift from the legislative power by which the sovereign and his government had authority over the life and death of his subjects, and within which laws have a purely punitive function that sets restrictions and obligations which, if broken, have penalties up to and including death, into a biopolitical paradigm, within which the technologies of power qualify, measure, appraise and hierarchise the life of the citizen.

        This shift has parallels with what is happening now largely in the West under the banner of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, by which the new apparatuses of biopower and the technologies of which they dispose will qualify our access to what were previously the universal, indivisible and inalienable rights of citizenship; measure our levels of compliance with regulatory and corrective mechanisms that have not been written into any laws; appraise us through a system of surveillance and monitoring justified by ‘crises’ whose very existence it prohibits us from questioning; and, by doing so, will produce a new hierarchy of Social Credit rated according to our levels of obedience not only to the by-now familiar regulations of the Global Biosecurity State but also to new actions of the norm extending into every aspect of our lives.

        It’s important to bear in mind that the shift Foucault described is an historical one that happened over several hundred years; but history does not move at an even pace, and at times of social and political revolution — such as the one the West entered in March 2020 — what might otherwise have taken a century to unfold can be implemented in a decade or less. We’ve seen this demonstrated most materially in the succession of industrial revolutions that the People’s Republic of China has undergone in the space of 70 years, but which took the UK, by contrast, 250 years or more. Moreover, the shift from a juridical to a biopolitical paradigm does not happen all at once and definitively. Just as there are emergent social, political, legal and technological forces in any given society, so too there are residual elements formed under earlier economic models that continue to play a role.

        Under lockdown, for example, Western capitalism was governed — if we can use this word to describe the vast levels of theft of the future wealth of its populations — under a State of Emergency whose legal precedents can be traced back to the French Revolution. But now, as we have emerged out of lockdown to be plunged into a biopolitical paradigm of governance, that juridical framework of human rights, legislative oversight, judicial appeal, media scrutiny of government and democratic accountability to the electorate — all of which utterly failed to defend what democracy we had — is being replaced — again, not completely but to a further and greatly expanded degree — by the technologies of biopower.

        To recall, briefly, the juridical framework by which we were ruled for two years in the UK, and which continues to implement the biopolitical framework within which the apparatuses of biopower are being implemented, since March 2020 the following Acts and Statutes have been made into UK law:

        • The Coronavirus Act 2020, whose 384 pages, 102 provisions and 29 schedules went through just one week of reading and three days of debate in Parliament before, according to a convention agreed to by Her Majesty’s Opposition, being ‘nodded through’ by MPs rather than approved by a democratic vote.

        • 580 coronavirus-justified Statutory Instruments made into law at a rate of 6 per week, 537 of which were only laid before Parliament after they came into force.

        • The Health and Care Act 2022, which furthered the privatisation and outsourcing of the National Health Service while granting the Secretary of State authority over its procurement.

        • The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which empowers the police to impose conditions on demonstrations, effectively banning protest in the UK. It also permits the police to have access to our private education and health records, and criminalises trespass on privately-owned land.

        • The Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which empowered the law courts to suspend and limit challenges by UK citizens to the legality of, and redress for, the decisions and actions of the UK Government and other public bodies.

        • The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which empowers the Home Secretary to revoke, without prior notification, the British citizenship of anyone who is not born in the UK, who is of dual nationality, who is judged to be a threat to national security, or whose behaviour is deemed to be ‘unacceptable’.

        • The Elections Act 2022, which made voter ID a requirement for voting, setting another precedent for the implementation of a system of Digital Identity in the UK.

        • The Public Order Act 2023, which further increases the powers of police to criminalise protest through extending stop and search powers to allow police to search for and seize objects that may be used in the commission of a protest-related offence; as well as issuing Serious Disruption Prevention Orders.

        • The Online Safety Act 2023, whose title, like that of most UK legislation, means the opposite of the powers it makes into law, and which in this case requires the providers of online platforms to censor and impose restrictions on what we can and cannot say, write, watch, read and hear online in compliance with the dictates of Ofcom, the UK Government and, ultimately, the transnational technocracies in which it has membership. Fines for non-compliance are set at up to £18 million or 10 per cent of global turnover.

        • The Energy Bill 2023, when made into law, will amend existing legislation to empower the Government to regulate and fine those responsible for the supply, transport, storage, safety, performance, consumption and disposal of energy for failing to comply with the restrictions consequent upon the drive to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. This include the installation of smart meters in all homes and businesses by the end of 2025, with non-compliance incurring a fine up to £15,000 or imprisonment for 1 year.

        Significantly, the bulk of these Parliamentary Acts, as distinct from the Statutory Instruments under which we lived during lockdown, were made as the regulations for the latter were revoked, with the remainder made into law this year. We haven’t, therefore, moved out of a juridical framework — ‘incorporated’ is the word Foucault uses to describe this transition — and which is not, moreover, limited to the legislation I’ve listed here.

        But what I want to focus on in this book is the incorporation of the judicial institution, which this legislation is clearing the legal barriers to, into what Foucault called the regulatory apparatuses of biopower.

        These — my Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — are:

        Most citizens of the UK — if we can still call ourselves that — will have heard of some or all of these. It’s safe to say that, after two years of lockdown and the threat of what were called ‘vaccine passports’, everyone in the UK will know something about Digital Identity. But few, perhaps, will be aware of the programme of eco-austerity imposed by the UN’s Agenda 2030 and 2050, even though all will be familiar with the claims of the environmental activists that receive promotion in our media that only the world’s richest individuals and institutions can buy. Fewer still will have heard of the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Treaty, or of the Bank of England’s plans for a Central Bank Digital Currency. But the problem, as it was under lockdown, is that as soon as the plans and intentions of the so-called global elite become sufficiently public for opposition to them to gain critical mass, the media — both mainstream and social — first dismisses that knowledge as a conspiracy theory and then — as we saw with the leaked text messages of Matt Hancock about the Government’s use of terror to enforce compliance from the British people — the actual import of those plans are displaced onto mundane concerns.

        As examples of which — and which I discuss in greater detail in my book — what concerns there have been around the Pandemic Treaty and Central Bank Digital Currency have been about the UK’s loss of national sovereignty, or elderly people who don’t have a bank account or smartphone being excluded, or not being able to give spare change to beggars. Time and again we are told that CBDC is merely another form of digital payment and not appreciably different from existing bank cards; or that the WHO Treaty will simply make us more prepared for the next pandemic and therefore must be a good thing — except to those who denied the existence of the last one. Similarly, what concerns have been expressed about Agenda 2030 is that the corporate influence on the UN might be inhibiting its implementation of Net Zero rather than, as is the case, driving it to their own ends.

        To use a word that is as abused as any other these days, this is ‘disinformation’, created and disseminated to inform the public just enough to allow us to inform ourselves no further, and to comfortably dismiss anyone who does as a conspiracy theorist. The truth, which this book sets out to demonstrate, is that these four regulatory apparatuses of biopower are going to fundamentally, and in certain aspects irreversibly, change the social contract between the British people and the state.

        Crucially, in this book I show how all four of these regulatory apparatuses — the discourses justifying them, the institutions formulating them, the programmes implementing them, the legislation imposing them, the agendas requiring them, the treaties agreeing to them and the technologies enforcing them — are all interdependent on each other. Indeed, as instruments of the new totalitarianism I discussed in The Road to Fascism, they couldn’t be other than part of a totalising system of surveillance, control and domination.

        The Book of Revelation was written around 90 A.D., almost two thousand years ago, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse it announced appeared, respectively, wearing a crown, wielding a sword, carrying a scales and bearing the name of death. The emblems and technologies of power have changed since then, but the means by which the powerful seek to control us remain the same today: by conquest of a people, by waging war, by economic destitution, and by causing plagues and famine. The difference is, now it’s being done, under the beneficent hand of stakeholder capitalism, ‘for our own good’.

        In Part 2 of this article, I will look at the consequences of incorporating the legal framework within which the rights of citizenship have been written into law into regulatory apparatuses through which the obligations of biosecurity are enforced by the state.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 23:55

      • Seattle Limits Cops From 'Knowingly Lying' After Suspect Commits Suicide
        Seattle Limits Cops From ‘Knowingly Lying’ After Suspect Commits Suicide

        The city of Seattle has implemented a new policy that prevents police officers from knowingly lying to influence suspects, after incidents in 2018 and 2020 may have contributed to a suicide, and incited chaos during the George Floyd protests, MYNorthwest reports.

        Seattle Police Department vehicle (KIRO 7)

        Following the two incidents, the Office of Inspector General for Public Safety and City Councilmember Lisa Herbold pushed for the policy change, which Mayor Bruce Harrell (D) announced on Oct. 30.

        In the 2018 case, a suspect in a Seattle automobile accident committed suicide after an SPD officer lied in a ruse, falsely telling the man’s friend that a woman was in critical condition from the crash.

        The man — who has since been identified as Porter Feller — had fled from the scene of a multi-vehicle accident in May of 2018. Two officers followed up at the home his car was registered to, telling his friend, Maggie Parks, that a victim in the hit-and-run was near death, despite the fact that there no actual injuries reported from the crash. One of the officers remarked to his partner, “it’s a lie, but it’s fun.” -MYNorthwest

        “Effective public safety requires community buy-in, and this new policy is an important step to build understanding with the public, demonstrating that for SPD operations to be successful, they must be paired with a commitment to unbiased, constitutional policing,” said Harrell in a statement. “This innovative new policy will lead to better police work thanks to the voices of many, including the media who brought attention to this tactic, community members who called for guidelines to match our values, and Seattle accountability and police leaders who developed a plan to make that vision real.”

        According to Seattle PD Chief Adrian Diaz, the policy is the first of its kind in the US, and continues SPD’s “long tradition of public safety innovation rooted in accountability and a commitment to building public confidence.”

        Remember kids, cops are allowed to lie…

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 23:20

      • The World's Largest Biometric Digital ID System, India's Aadhaar, Just Suffered Its Biggest Ever Data Breach
        The World’s Largest Biometric Digital ID System, India’s Aadhaar, Just Suffered Its Biggest Ever Data Breach

        Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

        In one fell swoop, roughly 10% of the global population appears to have had some of their most valuable personal identifiable information (PII) compromised. Yet Aadhaar continues to receive plaudits from Silicon Valley. 

        An anonymous hacker claims to have breached the digital ID numbers, as well as other sensitive personal data, of around 815 million Indian citizens.

        To put that number in perspective, it is more than 60% of the 1.3 billion Indian people enrolled in the government’s Aadhaar biometric digital identity program, and roughly 10% of the entire global population. Thanks to the breach — the largest single one in the country’s history, according to the Hindustan Times — the personal data of hundreds of millions of Indians are now up for grabs on the dark web, for as little as $80,000.

        To register for an Aadhaar card, Indian residents have to provide basic demographic information, including name, date of birth, age, address and gender, as well as biometric information, including ten fingerprints, two eyeball scans and a facial photograph. Much of that data has apparently been compromised.

        Media reports suggest that the source of the leak was the Covid-19 test data of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which is linked to each individual’s Aadhaar number.

        The alarm was first raised by Resecurity, a Los Angeles-based cyber security company, which on Oct 15 included the following in a blogpost on its corporate website:

        On October 9th, a threat actor going by the alias ‘pwn0001’ posted a thread on Breach Forums brokering access to 815 million “Indian Citizen Aadhaar & Passport” records. To put this victim group in perspective, India’s entire population is just over 1.486 billion people.

        HUNTER investigators established contact with the threat actor and learned they were willing to sell the entire Aadhaar and Indian passport dataset for $80,000.

        The data set offered by pwn0001 contains multiple fields related to the PII of Indian citizens, including but not limited to:

        – name
        – father’s Name
        – phone Number
        – other Number
        – passport Number
        – aadhar Number
        – age
        – gender
        – address
        – district
        – pincode
        – state…

        One of the leaked samples contains 100,000 records of personal identifiable information (PII) related to Indian residents. In this sample leak, HUNTER analysts identified valid Aadhaar Card IDs, which were corroborated via a government portal that provides a “Verify Aadhaar” feature. This feature allows people to validate the authenticity of Aadhaar credentials,” Resecurity said…

        Resecurity acquired… 400,000 records and contacted multiple victims to validate the information, as well as used the “Verify Aadhaar” feature available via official government WEB-resource in India.

        The contacted victims from the acquired data set confirmed the validity of their data, and stated they have never been notified about [the breach] before.

        Digital Identity Theft

        A leak of such highly sensitive personal identifiable information (PII) creates a significant risk of digital identity theft, warns Security Affairs:

        Threat actors leverage stolen identity information to commit online banking theft, tax refund fraud, and other cyber-enabled financial crimes. Nation-state actors are also hunting for Aadhaar data with the goal of espionage and influence campaigns that leverage detailed insights on the Indian population. Resecurity observed a spike in incidents involving Aadhaar IDs and their leakage on underground cybercriminal forums by threat actors who look to harm Indian nationals and residents.

        Aadhaar (Hindi for “foundation”) is a 12-digit unique identity (UID) number issued by the government after confirming a person’s biometric and demographic information. Launched in 2012 as part of an initiative to give each Indian resident with a unique identification number, it is the largest digital identity system on the planet, with 1.3 billion UIDs issued by 2021, covering a staggering 92% of India’s population.

        It was ostensibly created to provide people without identification a formal government ID as well as crack down on duplicate, fake or stolen IDs used to benefit from government programs and welfare schemes.

        And it quickly drew interest and praise from elite quarters around the world, including Silicon Valley.

        In a 2019 entry of his “Gates Notes” blog, Bill Gates lauded Aadhaar for making “India’s invisible people visible.” Three years earlier, in a lecture on Technology for Transformation, Gates had said that Aadhaar is something that had never been done before by any government, not even in a rich country. He also claimed it does not pose any privacy risks; try telling that to the 815 million people whose personal data is now up for grabs on the Dark Web!

        Together with Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders of Indian tech giant Infosys who is widely recognised as Aadhaar’s chief architect, Gates went on to play a key role in exporting Aadhaar to other parts of the so-called Global South, much of it financed by the World Bank. The two tech billionaires also reportedly helped persuade the Modi government to embark on the disastrous path of demonetisation in order to expand cashless payment alternatives. Demonetisation is believed to have caused a 2% drop in India’s GDP growth in 2016/17 alone — the equivalent of $52 billion, according to the Sunday Guardian.

        Even today, Aadhaar continues to receive plaudits from Silicon Valley, despite all of its security flaws, privacy concerns and other issues. Worldcoin, the controversial cryptocurrency project set up by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that uses an eye-scanning “orb” to give users a unique digital identity to verify whether they are human, recently said it seeks to emulate India’s Aadhaar system in its own creation of a global identity and financial network.

        Ironically, both Aadhaar and World Coin were featured in a recent report by Moody’s Investor Services as examples of how not to develop a digital identity system. As I noted at the time, it is not clear whether Moody’s criticisms were merely poorly timed, given the geopolitical backdrop, or form part of a broader campaign in the Anglosphere against India’s interests. The Modi government and Indian tech businesses are desperately keen to export the so-called “Indian Stack” — the Jan Dhan Yojana, a financial inclusion program; UPI, an instant payments system launched in 2016, just six months before the government yanked 84% of India’s cash notes out of circulation in its infamous demonetisation campaign; and Aadhaar.

        Mission Creep on Steroids

        Aadhaar was first introduced as a voluntary way of improving welfare service delivery. But the Modi government rapidly expanded its scope by making it mandatory for welfare programs and state benefits.

        The mission creep didn’t end there. Aadhaar has become all but necessary to access a growing list of private sector services, including medical records, bank accounts and pension payments. According to Security Affairs, it is the security weaknesses of many of these third parties, including utility companies, independent service providers, mobile and telecommunication operators, and lending and fintech services, that are behind many of the data breeches.

        Plans are also afoot to link voter registration to Aadhaar, despite the system’s glaring security flaws. Besides the vulnerability of its data storage, India’s Aadhaar system has many other downsides, as I noted in my book Scanned:

        For a start, it tracks users’ movements between cities, their employment status and purchasing records. It is a de facto social credit system that serves as the key entry point for accessing services in India. While the system has helped to speed and clean up India’s bureaucracy, it has also massively increased the Indian government’s surveillance powers and excluded over 100 million people from welfare programs as well as basic services.

        The public body in charge of Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is yet to comment on the latest breach. But if past form is any guide, when it does it will deny all charges. It has so far refuted all accusations of data breaches, since the Aadhaar system went fully live seven years ago, including claims from Wikileaks that the CIA might have access to the database and allegations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2019 that Aadhaar had “suffered multiple breaches that potentially compromised the records of all 1.1 billion registered citizens.”

        Given the sheer number of breaches Aadhaar has suffered, this level of denialism is becoming untenable. Even Biometric Update, the most important trade publication for the biometrics industry, has warned that India is “bleeding biometric data.” And biometric data is our most valuable personal identifiable information. If it is hacked there is no way of undoing the damage. You cannot change or cancel your iris or fingerprint like you can change a password or cancel a credit card.

        The chances of that data being hacked are significant given how pourous most databases are, notes Professor Sandra Watcher, a data ethics professor at the Oxford Internet Institute:

        “The idea of a data breach is not a question of if, it’s a question of when. Welcome to the internet: everything is hackable.

        Given the sheer number and scale of recent breaches,  the “Indian govt’s insistence that Aadhaar is secure rings hollow,” concludes Biometric Update:

        A piece in Security Affairs reports that earlier this month, the cybersecurity firm Resecurity found hundreds of millions of records containing personally identifiable information (PII) for sale on the dark web. Aadhaar cards were among the data on offer.

        Also in October, the PII of applicants to a program for young filmmakers at the International Film Festival of India was exposed on a government website for the event. The Deccan Herald reports that the Times of India was able to access a parent directory that contained the Aadhaar IDs, PAN cards and other PII of more than 100 people who applied through the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).

        Furthermore, as reported in The Hindu, a police raid on a brothel in Bengaluru found that sex workers had been given fake Aadhaar cards, and prompted an investigation into wider production of fake government IDs, voter cards and other documents.

        And finally, there is the now-resolved case of fingerprint biometrics, digital ID numbers, identity documents, photographs and images submitted to Aadhaar being exposed by the West Bengal state government website.

        The latter case is particularly pertinent since it reveals how fragile biometric identifiers can be, especially when it comes to finance. In recent years, a consortium of public and private sector players, including the Reserve Bank of India, UIDAI, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, has developed a cardless banking system called the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System, or AePS. To avail of the service, all customers need is a bank name, an Aadhaar number and the biometric identifiers captured during their Aadhaar enrolment. It’s quick, easy but not remotely safe.

        A recent criminal case in Bengal has revealed that a purely biometric-enabled payment system, involving no cards and no PIN numbers, is not secure, particularly when the biometric identifiers in question and Aadhaar numbers are easily accessible on the World Wide Web. As always in these cases, enterprising fraudsters are leagues ahead of the authorities. From Business Standard:

        The latest scam alert came to light after Kolkata Police uncovered cases where fraudsters are stealing data, including thumbprints, from land registries off the West Bengal Government’s land records website. Two individuals were reportedly arrested for their involvement in fraudulent transactions using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS).

        “These accused developed fake fingerprints that were used to withdraw money from the complainant’s bank account. Primarily. It has been found that the electronic data are gathered from different public domains/websites,” a senior officer of Kolkata Police told the Indian Express.

        Subsequently, Kolkata Police requested the state Finance Department to conceal biometric data, including fingerprints, and Aadhaar card numbers extracted from property deeds or any other documents uploaded to the state government’s property registration website.

        The response from certain banks and law enforcement agencies is revealing: they are telling bank customers to lock their biometrics at m-Aadhaar app/UIDAI portal and start using a four-digit pin to authenticate payments and prevent unauthorized access to their bank accounts. It is an open admission that biometric identifiers, on their own, are not safe enough for transaction purposes. Nor are they being stored securely by public or private entities. This should (but probably won’t) serve as a cautionary tale for all the other governments and companies around the world seeking to harness the power of biometric identifiers and digital identity.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 22:45

      • "Allahu Akbar, Fu*k Joe Biden!": Enraged Pro-Palestinian Protesters Gather Outside White House
        “Allahu Akbar, Fu*k Joe Biden!”: Enraged Pro-Palestinian Protesters Gather Outside White House

        Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched across Washington DC on Saturday to protest US involvement in the Israel-Hamas war, stopping outside the White House to shout “Allahu Akbar” , “Fuck Joe Biden,” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!” –  while smearing red paint and pushing on the gate.

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        They also defaced and vandalized historic monuments across DC.

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        Earlier Saturday, rapper Macklemore spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally in DC, in which he told the crowd that “They told me to be quiet, they told me to do my research, to go back, that it’s too complex to say something, to be silent in this moment,” referring to the pro-Israel camp.

        “In the last three weeks, I’ve gone back and I have done some research, I’m teachable,” he told the crowd. “I don’t know everything, but I know enough to know that this is a genocide.”

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        Macklemore first offered Palestinians his support two weeks ago on Instagram, where he said he couldn’t “stay silent any longer.”

        The rapper said he was “deeply hurt for the Israelis that lost loved ones,” but didn’t believe in “killing innocent humans in retaliation.”

        “This is why I am supporting the people around the world who are calling for a ceasefire. We are witnessing an unfolding genocide in Palestine at this very moment.”

        At the DC event, many speakers took hits at the President, especially his pledge to send $14 billion in aid to Israel. -NY Post

        Some pro-Palestinian voters in the US say they will no longer vote for US President Joe Biden due to his support for Israel [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]

        Thousands of protesters have rallied in support of Palestinians in Washington, DC [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]

        Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also spoke out, posting a video in which he condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” for “hitting hospitals, refugee camps, and killing thousands of innocent people.”

        https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe anti-Biden backlash to US support of Israel is a serious issue for Democrats, whose support they rely on.

        The leftists at The Hill panicked, framing the situation as “Sure – American Muslims might be pissed, but Trump’s worse!“

        …which comes on the heels of the White House’s ham-fisted ‘strategy to combat Islamophobia,” which the DC protesters immediately saw right through.

        Oh, and Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter (whose father is Jewish) just raised $8 million for Gaza. Let’s see if that’s enough to convince protesters that $14.3 billion to Israel right now isn’t ‘funding genocide,’ as they say.

        Bonus footage:

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        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 22:13

      • Zelensky Complains War In Gaza Is "Taking Away The Focus" From Ukraine
        Zelensky Complains War In Gaza Is “Taking Away The Focus” From Ukraine

        He really spoke the words out loud… Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas is “taking away the focus” from the Ukraine conflict. 

        He made the remarks in a press conference in Kiev while standing alongside EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, at a moment headlines have turned negative on the prospect of ever being able to beat back the Russians. “Of course, it’s clear that the war in the Middle East, this conflict, is taking away the focus,” Zelensky said in the surprisingly blunt admission.

        He began his remarks by commenting on the front line situation, which hasn’t changed significantly in many months. “Time has passed, people are tired… But this is not a stalemate,” he said.

        “No one among our partners is pressuring us to sit down with Russia, talk to it, and give it something,” he added, after reports have in the last days emerged that Washington is exploring possible concessions to the Russians behind the scenes. 

        Zelensky claimed that it’s “Russia’s goal” to take global focus away from the Ukraine war. “We have already been in very difficult situations when there was almost no focus on Ukraine,” he said, before adding, “I am absolutely sure we will overcome this challenge.”

        Now nearly one month after the horrific Hamas Oct.7 terror attack on southern Israel, the crisis in Gaza is completely dominating headlines. In recent weeks, news of Ukraine-Russia has actually slipped from the front page of major American newspapers.

        In Saturday’s press conference he also tried to push back against the slew of recent pessimistic headlines, per Bloomberg:

        President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pushed back on an NBC report that US and European officials have begun pressuring Kyiv toward possible peace negotiations with Moscow. “I do not know who is publishing this and for what,” Zelenskiy said

        As we explained earlier, in the wake of Ukraine’s costly and futile counteroffensive, Washington’s proxy war with Russia is facing strong headwinds at home: 

        • The war between Hamas and Israel has diverted public attention and sapped the war state’s ability to propagandize voters. Indeed, Biden’s Oval Office address appealing for aid for Ukraine and Israel was originally planned to focus solely on Ukraine, NBC reports. 
        • The US public’s pro-Ukraine fervor has cooled: A new Gallup poll found 41% say the US is doing too much for Ukraine — a big leap from the 29% who said that in June. Many Americans think that money should be used to improve conditions at home. 
        • A growing number of congressional Republicans have put away their rubber stamp for Ukraine aid, and have thus far thwarted Biden’s request for $61 billion in additional funding for the war. Biden’s ploy of a joint funding request that combines controversial Ukraine aid with Israel aid is in grave jeopardy, as House Republicans demand separate votes. 

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        Washington’s blank-check support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza is further straining an already Ukraine-sapped American arsenal. Tens of thousands of artillery shells that had been earmarked for Ukraine are being redirected to the IDF.

        Even before Hamas attacked Israel, an increasingly severe shortage of conventional shells for the artillery-heavy war in Ukraine led Biden to give Zelensky toxic, depleted uranium shells, stirring an international outcry.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 22:10

      • From Gold To Bitcoin: The Evolution Of Retirement Assets & The Rise Of Bitcoin IRA
        From Gold To Bitcoin: The Evolution Of Retirement Assets & The Rise Of Bitcoin IRA

        Authored by Ivan Serrano via Bitcoin Magazine,

        Gold has traditionally played the role of a conservative and uncorrelated investment vehicle, but that is starting to be seriously challenged by Bitcoin…

        Gold has played a vital role in economics and politics, influencing much of human financial activity through shifts in economic systems. It has proven versatile and stable across upheavals and social changes. It even became a vital tool in global trade and currency exchange as we know it today.

        In the 19th century, gold was the backbone of the global monetary system. Nations relied on the gold standard until the Great Depression and World War I. These events were significant inflationary catalysts, and economies, in a decades-long transition, abandoned the gold standard.

        This process culminated in 1971 when the Federal Exchange could no longer exchange US dollars for gold. In 1976, the gold standard was abandoned entirely, and gold became a free asset.

        Today, it is still considered a reliable store of value with a well-established market. After all, it has had the luxury of centuries—through various cycles of prosperity and economic upheavals—to prove its reputation. Gold boasts high liquidity and can be easily traded or sold in multiple forms: bars, coins, jewelry, or other representative instruments.

        GOLD VS BITCOIN: THE BATTLE OF UNCORRELATED ASSETS

        In retirement investments, gold is an uncorrelated asset, showing an average annual return that has reliably kept pace with inflation. In times of economic uncertainty, investors move to gold because of its reputation as a store of value and its non-correlation with stocks, which makes it ideal during market downturns.

        However, today’s evolving monetary technology has provided investors with a new option: Bitcoin. Although it is a relatively new asset whose economic impact is still unfolding, Bitcoin has already been called “digital gold.” It shares many characteristics with gold, including its capped supply and its potential as a store of value.

        In addition, Bitcoin offers a new type of value in the age of connectivity. It can be transferred digitally, something that physical gold cannot do. It is the world’s first digital bearer asset, a remarkable feat achieved through the convergence of economic design, cryptography, and decentralized networks.

        For investors, the perfect portfolio—a balance of assets that echoes an individual’s risk preference and fits the economic climate of the times—is an ever-evolving target. All investors and professional fund managers seek new ways to add growth and diversification.

        Retirees seek investments that provide diversification, preservation of wealth, and stability. On top of these, many retirees seek continued income that can only arise from growth—investments that capitalize on the opportunities of the times.

        Finding the right mix of less risky, stable, and higher-risk growth assets has always been challenging for even the most experienced financial planners. Some believe Bitcoin fits into the new retirement portfolio as an added diversifier. Like gold, it can work as an uncorrelated asset and hedge against systemic risks.

        BITCOIN IRAS: EXPOSURE TO THE BEST PERFORMING ASSET OF 2023

        Another way to replicate current investment products is the creation of Bitcoin IRAs. The IRS considers Bitcoin and other crypto investments in retirement accounts as property. Government rules prevent Roth IRAs from holding “coins” and “collectibles,” but these do not appear to cover Bitcoin.

        According to NYDIG’s most recent reports, Bitcoin tops its 2023 returns list based on asset class. As of October 6, 2023, it boasts a 63.3% increase YTD, besting US large caps (28.2%), commodities (6%), cash (3.8%), and gold (1.1%). On a countdown to its next halving—around April 2024—many investors are eyeing Bitcoin as a possible addition to their retirement accounts.

        Some IRA providers are already offering crypto investments in the form of cryptocurrency IRAs—specifically Bitcoin IRAs. A Bitcoin IRA works like any traditional self-directed IRA (SDIRA) and carries the same benefits. Instead of investing in Bitcoin directly and taking charge of one’s custody, Bitcoin IRAs provide the investor convenience, security, and ease.

        A Bitcoin IRA lets you buy and sell Bitcoin in a tax-advantaged retirement account. A Bitcoin IRA allows retirees to maintain traditional retirement accounts while having a separate account that invests in novel currencies like Bitcoin.

        WHY ADD IT TO YOUR PORTFOLIO?

        Many Bitcoin advocates promote Bitcoin as “digital gold.” This simplified view has been held and promoted by those who believe Bitcoin can serve as a reliable store of value in digital form.

        Based on this view, Bitcoin investments analogous to gold products are already being created. Just as gold ETFs hold physical gold as their underlying asset, Bitcoin products are structured similarly to these ETFs and provide exposure through funds traded on stock exchanges.

        The first applications of Bitcoin ETFs have been lodged in recent years, with multi-trillion asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity providing optimism about their future. The recent verdict of a DC court on Grayscale’s bitcoin ETF application invalidating the SEC’s argument for denying its Bitcoin investment product has been interpreted as a turning point for the industry.

        Proponents of Bitcoin ETFs remain vigilant as efforts to gain approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF persist from prominent asset managers. Depending on how the SEC reacts, Bitcoin ETF approvals may follow, opening the floodgates for increased demand.

        Image by Kanchanara on Unsplash

        MAKE RETIREMENT PLANNING LESS COMPLEX WITH A BITCOIN IRA

        Despite its status as a new asset, Bitcoin’s performance in 2023 stood out for its ability to keep a narrow trading range despite intense external pressures. It’s been trading sideways around the $25,000 to $31,000 range, resisting volatility and breakouts in either direction.

        Retirees or those planning for retirement interested in adding riskier assets to their portfolios, moving with the times, and seeking avenues for future growth can add Bitcoin to their retirement investments without learning the technical nuances of keeping their Bitcoin safe.

        They can set up Bitcoin IRAs either as traditional or Roth accounts. A Roth Bitcoin IRA permits tax-free withdrawals in retirement. A traditional Bitcoin IRA offers tax-deferred growth. Retirees in higher tax brackets can take advantage of this feature.

        Why consider Bitcoin IRAs over purchasing and storing Bitcoin directly? Bitcoin IRAs extend to estate planning easily, providing a new advantage compared to traditional retirement accounts. Swan Bitcoin IRA, for example, offers enterprise-grade custody with insurance coverage. It provides a layer of protection essential for retirees who may not be well-versed in crypto security.

        Moreover, Bitcoin IRAs provide a legal framework for individual investors, protecting them from tax issues, legal uncertainties, and non-compliance risks. Investors are assured that their investments are fully compliant with existing financial regulations.

        Despite being a novel instrument, Bitcoin IRAs may provide a path for continued wealth-building during retirement. They offer the potential for growth, diversification, and tax advantages in one package within the framework of a familiar and regulated environment. They are one way to benefit from Bitcoin’s uncorrelated nature and future potential.

        As with any investment, retirees should consult a financial advisor to confirm whether a Bitcoin IRA investment conforms with their resources, risk tolerance, time horizon, and financial goals. In a brave new world of retirement planning, Bitcoin IRAs offer an alternative, innovative, and compelling proposition to explore the rewards of Bitcoin investments, even for those not delving into the technological complexities of crypto.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 21:35

      • Berkshire Cash Pile Hits All-Time High $157 Billion, As Buffett Sells A Record $38BN In Stock In Past Year
        Berkshire Cash Pile Hits All-Time High $157 Billion, As Buffett Sells A Record $38BN In Stock In Past Year

        Over the years, Warren Buffett has been opportunistic and “fluid” with his ideals and political opinions – he describes himself as a “democrat” yet without batting an eyelid will demand government bailouts for his portfolio of companies –  but he has been steadfast about one thing: he refuses to spend money on stock purchases or corporate acquisitions unless there is significant value to be exploited. In which case, one can probably conclude that the market is still woefully overvalued because earlier today Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway reported solid Q3 earnings but more importantly, revealed a cash pile that had grown by $10 billion in the third quarter to a record $157.2 billion (consisting of $30.8 billion in cash and $126.4 billion in investments in T-Bills, up from $93 billion at the end of last year), and set to overtake Apple’s own cash hoard (which as we noted earlier this week has been declining) of $162 billion as soon as this quarter.

        “Cash deployment is definitely slowing,” said Jim Shanahan, an analyst with Edward Jones. “Ultimately Berkshire’s going to start feeling some pressure to put cash to work.”

        Perhaps… but not yet; in fact in the third quarter, Berkshire was a net seller of stock for the fourth quarter, liquidating another $5.3 billion in shares and bringing the total sales over the past 12 months to a record $38.3 billion.

        Despite ramping up Berkshire’s acquisition machine in recent years, the company has still struggled to find many of the big-ticket deals that galvanized Buffett’s renown, leaving him with more cash than he and his investing deputies could quickly deploy. After hanging back during the pandemic, he’s since snapped up shares in Occidental Petroleum (despite owning 26% of the company, Buffett has said he has no plans to acquire the company outright) and struck a $11.6 billion deal to buy Alleghany. Buffett has also leaned heavily on share repurchases amid the dearth of appealing alternatives, saying the measures benefit shareholders.

        Separately, the conglomerate also reported operating earnings of $10.76 billion, a jump on the prior year, as it benefited from the impact of elevated interest rates on the cash pile and gains at its insurance businesses. However, including investment and derivatives losses, Berkshire posted a loss for the quarter of almost $12.8 billion, well above last year’s $2.8 billion loss, which largely came from a decline in its big Apple stake. Shares of the iPhone maker fell 11.7% during the quarter but have rebounded over 3% since.

        Strength in Berkshire’s insurance unit, plus the inclusion of Pilot Flying J earnings which Berkshire did not include in results last year, helped drive profitability. Berkshire said its insurance businesses posted a profit of $2.42 billion versus a loss in the prior-year period, when the insurance industry was being pummeled by catastrophes.

        Geico, the crown jewel of Berkshire’s insurance empire and Buffett’s “favorite child,” reported another profitable quarter as it curtailed advertising expenses by 54% year-to-date; total underwriting earnings at the unit were $1.1 billion. The auto insurer is in the middle of a turnaround after losing market share to competitor Progressive. The improvement follows efforts by the division to overhaul underwriting after struggling with higher costs for replacing or repairing damaged vehicles. The effort cost it market share — raising the question if it will seek to reclaim that ground.

        Berkshire’s railroad, BNSF, however, saw a 15% decline in earnings as the railroad division grappled with lower volumes and higher costs.

        Berkshire posted stronger operating earnings despite Buffett cautioning at its annual meeting in Omaha in May that earnings at the majority of its operating units could fall this year as an “incredible period” for the US economy draws to the end. Still, the Fed’s rapid rate hikes helped the firm reap huge returns on the cash it stockpiles mostly in short-dated US Treasuries.

        That said, those higher rates also created headaches for some of Berkshire’s industrial businesses: the conglomerate’s building products businesses saw revenue slip 11% due to the run-up in mortgage rates.

        “The effects of significant increases in home mortgage interest rates in the US over the past year has slowed demand for our home building businesses and our other building products businesses,” Berkshire said in a report detailing results. “We continue to anticipate certain of our businesses will experience weakening demand and declines in revenues and earnings into 2024.”

        The jump in profits has been rewarded by the market, which pushed Berkshire’s Class B shares to a record high in September as investors sought out its diversified range of businesses as a hedge against deteriorating economic conditions. And while the shares pared some of those gains, the stock is still up almost 14% for the full year, in line with the S&P500.

        A part of that boost to BRK’s stock came from the company itself: the firm spent $1.1 billion on buybacks in Q3, bringing the total for the first nine months of the year to about $7 billion. The conglomerate trimmed its overall equities portfolio in the quarter, making almost $15.7 billion on sales net of purchases.

        As usual, Berkshire Hathaway asked investors to look past the quarterly fluctuations in Berkshire’s equity portfolio.

        “The amount of investment gains/losses in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings (losses) per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules,” the company said in a statement.

        Berkshire also acknowledged the negative economic impact from the pandemic, as well as geopolitical risks and inflation pressures.

        “To varying degrees, our operating businesses have been impacted by government and private sector actions to mitigate the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 virus and its variants as well as by the development of geopolitical conflicts, supply chain disruptions and government actions to slow inflation,” Berkshire said. “The economic effects from these events over longer terms cannot be reasonably estimated at this time.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 21:00

      • Don't Fall For Biden's Latest Talking Point
        Don’t Fall For Biden’s Latest Talking Point

        Authored by Connor O’Keefe via The Mises Institute,

        As the long-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia stalls and a new war in Gaza draws the world’s attention, American support for funding Kyiv’s war has waned. In an effort to reverse this, the Biden administration is changing its messaging. A Politico report from last week details how White House aides are now telling members of Congress to sell Americans the lie that continuing to send money and weapons to Ukraine is good for the economy.

        President Joe Biden made this point himself when he introduced a $105 billion proposal to send military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan:

        We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles, with new equipment. Equipment that defends America and is made in America. Patriot missiles for air defense batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas. And so much more.

        With this new talking point, the Biden administration is echoing Senator Mitch McConnell, who has for months been saying that the war in Ukraine is an excellent deal because American companies get paid, the Russian regime is weakened, and only Ukrainians have to die.

        Setting aside the morality or practicality of Biden and McConnell’s foreign policy ambitions, the argument that all this military spending is good for the American economy relies on one of the oldest, most pervasive economic fallacies in our political discourse—the broken window fallacy.

        First outlined by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his essay “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen” and later expounded upon by economic journalist Henry Hazlitt in his book Economics in One Lesson, the broken window fallacy is the false belief that spending money on restoring things that have been destroyed can make an economy richer.

        To make this point, Bastiat used the example of a broken shop window. After his careless son breaks a pane of glass, a shopkeeper is forced to hire a glazier to repair the damage. A group of bystanders reflect on the situation and question their impulse to condemn the boy. After all, they ask, “what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?”

        In Hazlitt’s telling, the bystanders point to all the economic activity that will come from the shopkeeper’s purchase of a new $50 windowpane. “The glazier will have $50 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $50 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum.” That leads the crowd to the fallacious conclusion that because of all the resulting economic activity that his breaking of the window incited, the shopkeeper’s son should be considered a public benefactor.

        The problem with this thinking, Bastiat and Hazlitt explain, is that it cites only the economic activity that can be seen to result from the broken window. What goes unseen is the cost—all the economic activity the shopkeeper would have instead spurred had he not been forced to buy a new window.

        And because the shopkeeper would have preferred to spend the $50 elsewhere, the breaking of the window can only be considered a net loss. The glazier benefits from the shopkeeper’s loss, but the shopkeeper and therefore the overall economy are made poorer.

        How does this relate to the Biden-McConnell talking point? After all, isn’t the destruction happening far away in Ukraine and Gaza?

        It’s important not to get distracted by the act of destruction in Bastiat’s parable. The central element of his argument is not the broken window alone but the fact that the shopkeeper is forced to pay for a new one.

        When the American people are forced to pay for weapons and equipment to replace those sent to Ukraine, they lose out on all the economic activity that they would have preferred to partake in, just like the shopkeeper.

        And although, like the glazier, the five prime defense contractors benefit from the influx of tax dollars, the American people as a whole can only be made worse off. There is no growth, only a forced transfer of wealth to the weapons companies.

        We have so far been forced to pay for over $44 billion worth of weaponry for Ukraine and $3.3 billion per year in military aid to Israel. Now another $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel have been proposed. This spending would increase the burden that has already been forced on the American people. If Biden, McConnell, and their supporters think Americans have an obligation to shoulder that cost, they should at least have the decency not to pretend it’s making us more prosperous.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 20:25

      • Couple Steals Two Sculptures Worth $13,000 From A Carnival Cruise
        Couple Steals Two Sculptures Worth $13,000 From A Carnival Cruise

        In keeping with the stereotype that only the absolute classiest people in the world take cruises, a couple on a Carnival Cruise Line from Baltimore to Bermuda has been accused of stealing nearly $13,000 in sculptures.  

        Carnival’s ships feature “an ever-changing collection of fine art”, their website says. The company even conducts art auctions, with ABC News pointing out that the company’s marketing materials invite customers to “[s]ip some champagne, browse the gallery and bid on a piece to take home as a trip memento.”

        But now the FBI says two pieces worth $13,000 were taken by one couple…without them bidding on it. 

        According to ABC, in legal papers submitted this past Tuesday to a federal court in Baltimore, the FBI reveals that an art auctioneer aboard a ship stumbled upon the disappearance of two art pieces on Oct. 1, a day following the vessel’s return to Baltimore after a week’s voyage. 

        The absent artwork includes a Lucite sculpture valued at $6,200, crafted by the American artist Robert Wyland and titled “Kiss the Sea,” which showcases two sea turtles and is comparable in size to a small rucksack.

        Source: ABC News

        The second piece, a marginally smaller work by American artist Marcus Glenn called “Tappin’ the Keys for the Love,” presents a man at a piano with a heart backdrop and has an estimated worth of $6,600, as stated by the FBI.

        Subsequent analysis of the ship’s security camera recordings by Carnival’s security team revealed footage of two individuals. Captured slightly after 2 a.m. a couple of days prior, these two are seen entering the art gallery with nothing in hand and departing shortly thereafter, clutching items resembling the absent artworks, the article says. 

        Following a deeper probe, court records indicate that the suspects are a trucking firm worker and his female partner. A Facebook scan by an FBI agent revealed a photo of the male suspect wearing attire matching that in the security footage. Upon receiving judicial consent, the FBI conducted searches at the suspects’ residences, leading to the recovery of the stolen artworks, as confirmed by a U.S. Attorney’s Office representative in Baltimore.

        While their names haven’t yet been released, the FBI is considering pressing federal charges pertaining to theft and transporting stolen items. The cruise line even jokes about the quality of its auctions on its website, writing they are far from the “room of too-serious old men, many wearing monocles, paying top-dollar for priceless antique works of art.”

        We can already see the couple’s defense now: “So, what’d ya expect us to do?”

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 19:50

      • Election Group Slapped With RICO Says It Can Prove Trump Won Georgia In 2020
        Election Group Slapped With RICO Says It Can Prove Trump Won Georgia In 2020

        Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

        Former Black Voices for Trump leader Harrison Floyd’s legal team intends to prove his innocence of claims he unlawfully participated in an election subversion plot in Fulton County, Georgia, by showing that former President Donald Trump won the state’s 2020 presidential election.

        Harrison Floyd, as seen in an undated mugshot, is the only one of the 19 Fulton County defendants to be held in jail without bond. (Fulton County Sheriff’s Department)

        Mr. Floyd was charged on Aug. 14 alongside the 45th president and 17 other co-defendants with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses.

        He was the only defendant to spend time in jail due to the indictment before he was released on bond on Aug. 30.

        “Your Honor, this case isn’t about whether you or I think that Donald Trump lost the election. It’s about what Mr. Floyd believed at the time,” noted Chris Kachouroff, one of Mr. Floyd’s defense attorneys, at a Nov. 3 hearing before Judge Scott McAfee.

        “It’s also [about] what the false statements are alleged to have been, and indeed, are they really false,” he said.

        Opening the Door

        The judge ordered the hearing in response to motions to quash three sweeping subpoenas Mr. Floyd’s legal team served to the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Fulton County Clerk of Courts, and the Fulton County Board of Elections.

        Materials the attorneys requested included the ballot images and envelopes for all absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election, all absentee ballot application forms, reports from the Dominion voting machines used, and all laptops and poll pads used by election workers, along with other documents, files, and drives.

        Attorneys also requested all documents and recordings concerning the secretary of state’s post-election investigation into allegations of election fraud.

        “The state chose to open this door,” Mr. Kachouroff said. “It is a broad and sweeping complaint. They opened the door wide open for us to walk in and ask for these things.”

        The attorney noted that the 98-page indictment repeatedly asserts as fact that President Trump lost the 2020 election in Georgia, and the charges against Mr. Floyd are predicated on that claim. But if Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is wrong and President Trump actually won the election, then Mr. Floyd cannot be guilty of soliciting “false statements and writings” that conveyed as much.

        The indictment also maintains that Mr. Floyd and the other co-defendants were aware that President Trump lost the election and that their actions constituted an unlawful conspiracy to change the results in his favor.

        That assertion, Mr. Kachouroff said, would also be undermined by proof that the former president won or even just proof that the election’s outcome is uncertain. And the subpoenaed materials, he argued, are likely to contain that proof.

        “We could make that argument that he’s innocent no matter what happened,” he noted. “And, of course, we would. We’re defense attorneys; that’s what we do.

        “But at the end of the day, those are the possible options down the road that could arise. Right now, we believe we’re at Option 1, that President Trump indeed won the election, and we can prove it—with respect to Fulton County.”

        Pushback

        Mr. Raffensperger’s office, represented by Attorney Jackson Sharmon III, has argued that the broad scope of materials requested by the defense would place an “undue burden” on an entity that is not even a party in the case.

        Contesting the subpoena before the judge, Mr. Sharmon said the requested documents contain “little, if anything,” relevant to Mr. Floyd’s defense.

        “If the purpose is state of mind, his intent, the documents we would produce—which he didn’t know about, he didn’t have—are not going to have any effect on the determination of his intent at the time he allegedly undertook the acts that are in the indictment.”

        Mr. Sharmon also challenged the defense’s argument that proving President Trump won the election would necessarily erase the possibility that Mr. Floyd had criminal intent.

        “With all due respect, I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “That’s not the way intent, in a criminal case, is adjudicated.”

        Meanwhile, attorneys for Fulton County said it could take months to produce the requested materials. And in terms of relevance, they pointed to Mr. Kachouroff’s admission that he could argue his client’s innocence even without the requested materials as evidence they weren’t needed.

        But for Mr. Kachouroff, the state’s arguments didn’t negate his client’s right to those materials.

        “Harrison Floyd is looking at between eight and 33 years. That’s his liberty interest. Courts take liberty interest very seriously so that liberty interest overcomes any burden the state has to be set back by a month or two or three.”

        By the end of the hearing, the three subpoenas were reduced to two as it was revealed that the Board of Elections did not possess any of the requested materials, which are held by the Clerk of Courts.

        The judge, expressing concern over the potential disclosure of voters’ personally identifiable information, said more information was needed to determine what exactly was being requested, the extent of the state’s burden in producing it, and whether a protective order was needed.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 19:15

      • Musk Reveals New AI Chatbot, Kicks Off 'Counter LLM' Movement Against 'Woke' OpenAI
        Musk Reveals New AI Chatbot, Kicks Off ‘Counter LLM’ Movement Against ‘Woke’ OpenAI

        Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, xAI, is positioning itself as a competitor to OpenAI, which Musk helped establish in 2015 before eventually parting ways with it. xAI is rolling out its own large language model, just like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, featuring a new capability to scrape the ‘free speech’ platform X in real-time. 

        Early Friday morning, Musk posted, “Tomorrow, @xAI will release its first AI to a select group. In some important respects, it is the best that currently exists.” 

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

        Then, on Friday night, Musk wrote, “As soon as it’s out of early beta, xAI’s Grok system will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers.” 

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

        Musk’s post reveals Grok is a model that answers questions conversationally and could be based on models similar to train ChatGPT and other text-generating models (such as Meta’s Llama 2).

        Here’s some of Musk’s humor:

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

        Details about Grok remain scarce, yet indications are that the wealthiest man in the world is initiating a ‘counter LLM’ movement that will challenge the already mass-available LLMs on the market, such as ChatGPT, which is super ‘woke’ and has Soviet-style censorship. 

        In April, Musk sat down with Tucker Carlson in an interview and discussed the need to develop his own LLM called TruthGPT, a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.”

        “I’m going to start something which you call TruthGPT or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe. And I think this might be the best path to safety in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe.”

        By July, Musk launched xAI. The company is led by the billionaire and former employees of OpenAI, DeepMind, Google Research, and Microsoft Research, as well as employees from Tesla and folks from the University of Toronto. 

        Musk has taken issue with OpenAI’s GPT in the past, expressing that the underlying model is super biased and “woke.” 

        “The overarching goal of xAI is to build a good [artificial general intelligence] with the overarching purpose of understanding the universe,” the billionaire has previously said, adding, “The safest way to build an AI is to make one that is maximally curious and truth-seeking.”

        In September, Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, revealed that xAI had signed a contract to train its AI model on Oracle’s cloud. 

        On Thursday, Musk, speaking at the United Kingdom’s AI Safety Summit, warned AI is “one of the most disruptive forces in history.” 

        He told British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, “AI will be a force for good most likely, but the probability of it going bad is not zero percent.” 

        Musk then compared AI to a “magic genie” and explained that fairy tales with magic genies that grant wishes “don’t end well” and cause people to “be careful what you wish for.”

        To sum up, Musk has just kicked off the counter LLM movement against the censorship industrial complex’s current chatbots on the market. This is more evidence the parallel economy is gaining momentum. 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 18:40

      • Game Over: US, European Officials Quietly Nudge Ukraine To Seek Peace
        Game Over: US, European Officials Quietly Nudge Ukraine To Seek Peace

        With the world’s attention squarely fixed on the Israel-Gaza war — while baseless hope for a Ukrainian expulsion of the Russian army has evaporated — US and European officials have started quietly conferring with Ukraine on potential concessions that could bring the war to an end, NBC News was first to report Friday evening.  

        These discussions aren’t about a new counteroffensive — they’re about what concessions Ukraine could live with pursuant to a peace agreement. Some of the conversations, which officials describe as delicate, happened during an October meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an affiliation of more than 50 governments siding with Ukraine.   

        In eyebrow-raising comments to the The Economist this week, Ukraine’s top commander admitted there will be no breakthrough and the battlefield situation is in a stalemate. The New York Times characterized his remarks as “the first time a top Ukrainian commander said the fighting had reached an impasse.”

        In September, the Times itself splashed cold water on anyone who still believed Ukraine had any hope of pushing the Russian army out of eastern and southeastern Ukraine, much less Crimea. Its detailed analysis found that, in the wake of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, “Russia now controls nearly 200 square miles more territory in Ukraine compared with the start of the year.”  

        ISW‘s assessed control of terrain in Ukraine as of November 3 2023

        Russia’s territorial gains are close to matching the goals President Vladimir Putin outlined at the start of what he calls a “special military operation.” He said Russia sought to secure Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces), which he recognized as republics shortly before the invasion. Russian forces now control nearly all of those areas, which are together called the Donbas.

        Russia also controls most of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, giving Russia a land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014 after a Western-aided overthrow of a democratically elected president and the installation of an anti-Russia government in Kiev. Crimea and the eastern provinces of Ukraine have heavily ethnic-Russian populations. 

        The front lines have moved little in recent months. In anticipation of Ukraine’s highly-hyped 2023 counteroffensive, Russia was content to install formidable defensive fortifications and allow the Ukrainian army to degrade itself and achieve nothing. 

        In its match-up with a far larger country, Ukraine’s ability to refresh its military ranks is vanishing fast. “Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” an official told NBC. The West can keep sending them weapons, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good.” Even the most optimistic western warmongers must acknowledge the coming winter guarantees Ukraine won’t accomplish anything for months. 

        In the wake of Ukraine’s costly and futile counteroffensive, Washington’s proxy war with Russia is facing strong headwinds at home: 

        • The war between Hamas and Israel has diverted public attention and sapped the war state’s ability to propagandize voters. Indeed, Biden’s Oval Office address appealing for aid for Ukraine and Israel was originally planned to focus solely on Ukraine, NBC reports. 

        • The US public’s pro-Ukraine fervor has cooled: A new Gallup poll found 41% say the US is doing too much for Ukraine — a big leap from the 29% who said that in June. Many Americans think that money should be used to improve conditions at home. 

        • A growing number of congressional Republicans have put away their rubber stamp for Ukraine aid, and have thus far thwarted Biden’s request for $61 billion in additional funding for the war. Biden’s ploy of a joint funding request that combines controversial Ukraine aid with Israel aid is in grave jeopardy, as House Republicans demand separate votes. 

        Washington’s blank-check support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza is further straining an already Ukraine-sapped American arsenal. Tens of thousands of artillery shells that had been earmarked for Ukraine are being redirected to the IDF. Even before Hamas attacked Israel, an increasingly severe shortage of conventional shells for the artillery-heavy war in Ukraine led Biden to give Zelensky toxic, depleted uranium shells, stirring an international outcry.    

        As for what it would take for Zelensky to surrender the international spotlight and agree to peace, we’re guessing a big deposit to a Swiss bank account would do just fine. However, officials are pondering some type of Western security guarantee that stops short of NATO membership. The specter of Ukraine become a NATO member played heavily in Moscow’s motivation for invading. The war has been a crisp illustration of Richard Sakwa’s brilliant assertion that “NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.”

        Just weeks after Russia’s 2022 invasion, Russia and Ukraine had reportedly tentatively agreed to a peace deal in which Russia would withdraw to an extent that it would still control portions of the Donbas, in exchange for Ukraine forswearing its NATO ambitions while having security deals with several states. Via a visit from then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Western war machine, eager for a proxy war, seems to have pressured Zelensky to break off the talks. Months of misery ensued, with only the military-industrial complex and Ukraine’s aid-scraping bureaucrats better off for it. 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 18:15

      • FBI = Following Biden's Instructions?
        FBI = Following Biden’s Instructions?

        Authored by James Bovard via JimBovard.com,

        Does “FBI” now stand for “Following Biden’s Instructions”? The FBI is doing backflips to boost Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Unfortunately, federal courts don’t recognize law enforcement shenanigans as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

        The FBI is categorizing Donald Trump’s supporters as terrorist suspects, according to a new report in Newsweek. The FBI created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek revealed. The FBI is relying on the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda to go after the incumbent president’s political opponents.

        Naturally, the latest Washington crusade against extremism has more malarkey than a White House summit. Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—“anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism”—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute.

        Recently, the FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by broadening suspicion from “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” Anyone who has an agenda different from Team Biden’s could be AGAAVE’d for his own good. The great majority of the FBI’s “current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters,” William Arkin, a highly respected investigative journalist, reported in Newsweek.

        The FBI crackdown is following some of the most overheated political rhetoric of our era. Biden has denounced Trump supporters for “semi-fascism.” Biden tweeted last November, “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.”

        Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall declared, “The use of violence to pursue political ends is a profound threat to our public safety and national security…it is a threat to our national identity, our values, our norms, our rule of law—our democracy.” And since Team Biden says that Trump supporters could be violent, suppressing them is the only way to protect “the will of the people” or whatever honorific is used for rigged election results.

        In June, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning: “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.”  In other words, alleging that there was election fraud in past elections can qualify a person as a terrorist suspect—and justify suppressing their political activity in subsequent elections.

        Biden’s FBI views Trump supporters as a deadly threat to democracy, thereby justifying subverting or crippling Trump supporters’ ability to oppose Biden and other Democrats.

        The FBI is required to have (or claim to have) solid information before launching a criminal investigation. But the bureau needs almost zero information to open an “assessment.” The FBI conducted more than 5,500 domestic-terrorism “assessments” in 2021, a 10-fold increase since 2017 and a 50-fold increase since 2013. “Assessments are the closest thing to domestic spying that exists in America and generally not talked about by the Bureau,” Arkin noted. The House Weaponization Subcommittee warned that  “the FBI appears to be complicit in artificially supporting the Administration’s political narrative” that domestic violent extremism is “the ‘greatest threat’ facing the United States.”

        Those assessments could prove perilous because the official demand for terrorists far exceeds the domestic supply. A top federal official told Newsweek last year, “We’ve become too prone to labeling anything we don’t like as extremism, and then any extremist as a terrorist.” “Trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism” is the Biden standard for prosecuting January 6 defendants.

        FBI whistleblower Steve Friend complained of current FBI leadership, “There is this belief that half the country are domestic terrorists and we can’t have a conversation with them. There is a fundamental belief that unless you are voicing what we agree…you are the enemy.”

        Did the Biden administration secretly want Newsweek to vindicate the fears of legions of Trump supporters? Perhaps those “assessments” are repeating a tactic used against Vietnam War protesters: FBI agents were encouraged to conduct frequent interviews with antiwar activists to “enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles” and “get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox,” according to an FBI memo from that era.

        The more abusive the FBI becomes, the more outraged that Trump supporters sound, thereby justifying further FBI repression. That also makes it easier for Team Biden to portray Trump supporters as public menaces.

        Biden’s war on extremism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that destroys American political legitimacy. An official in the Office of Director of National Intelligence lamented, “So we have the president increasing his own inflammatory rhetoric which leads Donald Trump and the Republicans to do the same”—and the media follow suit. Biden is exempt from official suspicion even when he denounced Republicans as fascists who want to destroy democracy. Yet if Republicans sound equally overheated, Biden’s FBI has pretexts to unleash the hounds.

        Is there any limit to the federal entrapment operations designed to spur headlines that make politicians applaud? The latest FBI crackdown echoes a DHS campaign that was leaked to the press in 2021. Federal policymakers launched a “legal work-around” to spy on and potentially entrap Americans who are “perpetuating the ‘narratives’ of concern,” CNN reported. The DHS plan would “allow the department to circumvent [constitutional and legal] limits” on surveillance of private citizens and groups. Federal agencies are prohibited from targeting individuals solely for First Amendment-protected speech and activities. But federal hirelings would be under no such restraint.

        Will the FBI’s interventions in the 2024 presidential election be even more brazen than its 2016 and 2020 stunts? Will the agency exploit its “assessments” to recruit knuckleheads to engage in another pre-election Keystone Kops plot to kidnap a governor, as it did in Michigan in 2020?

        The FBI has a sordid history of intervening in presidential elections since 1948—if not before. A 1976 Senate report on FBI abuses warned, “The American people need to be assured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order.” Unfortunately, Americans may not learn the damning details of another FBI “secret war” until long after the next election.

        Ironically, the Biden administration is vilifying anti-government opinions at the same time judges are exposing federal crimes. Federal court decisions in July and September condemned the Biden censorship regime—and those rulings were preceded by Supreme Court decisions striking down President Joe Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness scheme and vaccine mandates.

        But Team Biden still presumes anyone who suspects the feds are violating the Constitution is up to no good. In the same way that Biden based his 2020 election campaign on vilifying Charlottesville 2017 protests, so the Biden re-election campaign will vilify anyone who distrusts the feds. Regardless of the outcome, the 2024 election will be another boomtime for cynics.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 18:05

      • No Country Has A "Right to Exist"
        No Country Has A “Right to Exist”

        By Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com

        In the weeks since 2,500 Hamas militants went on a murder and kidnapping rampage in southern Israel, a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations has erupted across the United States and around the world. These displays have only grown in size and number as Israel’s military responds by punishing the entire, densely-packed population of Gaza with a blockade on food, water and medicine, a devastating bombing campaign and now a ground invasion.

        While no mass protest is free of people with bigotry and amoral stances, proponents of Israel have been far too quick to accuse pro-Palestinian protesters of antisemitism. One of the most common of such false accusations rests on a false premise — namely, that it’s inherently antisemitic or genocidal to question Israel’s “right to exist.”

        That premise is false for a number of reasons, the most salient of which is this: No country has a “right to exist.”

        After all, what is a country — or, in more precise terminology, a state — other than a political arrangement? And why would any political arrangement be deemed as having “rights,” much less a supposed right to never be altered or cancelled?

        While definitions vary, Murray Rothbard best distilled the state in his classic long essay, “Anatomy of the State.” Rothbard wrote: “The state is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area.”

        Whether the associated flag of the state in question has a Star of David, stars and stripes, or a hammer and sickle, the suggestion that it’s immoral to propose that such a monopoly be rearranged or replaced is preposterous on its face. Over the broad sweep of history, the norm is not states existing in perpetuity. Rather, history is the story of never-ending rearrangements of these many monopolies on the use of force and violence.

        Europe, circa 1789

        Did the Soviet Union have a “right to exist”? What about Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or the Ottoman Empire? Are we all culpably-silent bystanders to some kind of ongoing injustice as long as those bygone states are not reconstituted?

        Rather than having a right to exist, each state — from Israel to Ukraine to the United States — must have permission to exist. As expressed in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

        To embrace that fundamental principle is to acknowledge that the State of Israel — a political entity — can only justly continue imposing its monopoly on the use of force and violence if it has the consent of those it governs.

        And who does Israel govern? For all the talk of a two-state solution, and maps depicting the West Bank and Gaza as something somehow separate, the fact is that the State of Israel rules everything “between the river and the sea,” to invoke a contentious phrase we’ll revisit shortly.

        “Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, one state controls the entry and exit of people and goods, oversees security, and has the capacity to impose its decisions, laws, and policies on millions of people without their consent,” wrote Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami in Foreign Affairs. Their April essay presciently warned that “a storm is gathering in Israel and Palestine that demands an urgent response.”

        The population across that Israel-ruled territory includes 7.5 million Jews and 7.5 Arab Israelis and Palestinians, with each group subject to different treatment.

        Palestinians at an Israeli military checkpoint

        West Bank Palestinians endure restrictions on their movements, from checkpoints to segregated highways. The State of Israel frequently demolishes Palestinian homes and businesses for lack of permits that are extraordinarily difficult to secure. Palestinians endure ongoing harassment and under-reported acts of vandalism, agricultural destruction and violence perpetrated by settlers who operate under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

        In neighborhoods such as East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians are frequently evicted from their homes under a complex law that perversely declares them to be “absentees” even if they’ve lived in their house for decades. In one infamous video of such an eviction, an obese Jewish settler tells a distraught Palestinian homeowner, “If I don’t steal it, someone else is gonna steal it.”

        Meanwhile, Gaza is rightly labelled “the world’s largest open-air prison.” Though Israel withdrew forces and settlers from the 25-mile long strip in 2005, it’s continued to control the territory from the outside, in a way that creates a miserable existence for 2 million inhabitants in one of the world’s most dense population centers.

        Controlling Gaza’s air, sea and land borders, the State of Israel imposes an ongoing, economic blockade that fluctuates in intensity. Individuals are only granted travel permits under narrow circumstances. Israel does not allow Gaza to operate an airport or seaport, and imports and exports via road are tightly restricted. Egypt has compounded the situation with its own restrictions and periodic border closures.

        The result is economic devastation: The pre-Oct 7 unemployment rate was over 46%, per capita income only about 25% of the West Bank’s level, and 65% of Gaza residents were below the poverty line.

        Given the reality of life for Palestinians in this de facto single state that includes Gaza and the West Bank, it’s understandable that many would call for an entirely new system of government between the river and the sea. As the Declaration of Independence asserts, when “any form of government becomes destructive” of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, “it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.”

        Intentionally using inflammatory language, Israel’s defenders often say that those who call for a new government are advocating the “destruction” of Israel.

        “Dissolution” would be more precise when discussing a government, but “destruction” serves their public relations goal of demonizing the opposition by connoting they’re bent on physical destruction.

        Israel supporters employ similarly flawed characterizations of an often-used Palestinian slogan that’s ubiquitous in the ongoing protests: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It’s reasonable to interpret that as a call for the dissolution of the State of Israel, but those pushing back against pro-Palestinian voices regularly declare the slogan is nothing less than a call for genocide.

        While any slogan will mean different things to different people, this one has been used for decades by Palestinians seeking the same liberties as Israeli Jews throughout the entire territory ruled by the State of Israel.

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        Chief among their wishes is for the freedom of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza to return to what is now considered Israel proper. Some 700,000 Palestinians were either expelled or forced to flee that land when the State of Israel was instituted in 1948.

        Any intellectually honest appraisal of the situation in Israel must center on an acknowledgement that the two-state solution’s ship sailed long ago, thanks to relentless Jewish settlement of the West Bank having eliminated any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state.

        Given the facts on the ground, a growing number of advocates inside and outside greater Israel are calling for a different one-state arrangement — one with a secular government securing equal rights for all it serves.

        Belying assertions that calling for the State of Israel to be replaced is antisemitic, those advocates include many Jews.

        To take one prominent example, abandoning his long-running defense of Israel, prominent American Jewish intellectual Peter Beinart embraced the idea in a milestone 2020 New York Times essay, “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State.”

        Thanks to a cultivated mythology that falsely depicts Arab-Jew conflict as something intrinsic and eternal rather than something that largely bloomed in the 20th century, many Westerners can’t conceive of Jews and Muslims living peacefully in the same country.

        However, that was the condition in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel — and it’s even the condition today in the Zionist state’s archenemy, Iran. There, the Middle East’s largest Jewish minority operates synagogues, enjoys kosher restaurants, runs hospitals and schools, and even has a reserved seat in the Iranian parliament.

        Western Governments Weaponize False Premises to Limit Speech

        It would be bad enough if references to a nonexistent “right to exist” and false accusations of genocidal intent were only used as intellectually bankrupt talking points. However, in a variety of countries, these falsehoods are alarmingly being hard-wired into government policies and used to curtail speech and the exchange of ideas.

        In Switzerland, police this month banned a planned protest simply because promotional messaging included “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which authorities declared an incitement to violence.

        Berlin police went further, declaring it illegal to speak the slogan and already arresting at least one man for doing so.

        Europe has long held the lead in the West’s race to authoritarian dystopia, but politicians like 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley are doing their best to help the United States catch up.

        Haley recently promised to “change the official federal definition of antisemitism to include denying Israel’s right to exist,” and to use that warped definition to cancel the federal tax exemption of any college that allows students or professors to freely argue for a different political order in what is now greater Israel.

        Those who support the State of Israel are free to present a case that it’s a just arrangement for the 7.5 million Jews and 7.5 million Palestinians “between the river and the sea.” However, painting those who demand a new arrangement as inherently immoral, genocidal or antisemitic is ignorant at best and maliciously misleading at worst.

        *  *  *

        Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com 

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 16:55

      • Showtime: World's Largest Rocket Ready For 'Mid-November' Launch
        Showtime: World’s Largest Rocket Ready For ‘Mid-November’ Launch

        Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced on Friday that the most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, currently under review by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, could be ready for the second launch as soon as mid-November. 

        “The second flight test of a fully integrated Starship could launch as soon as mid-November, pending regulatory approval,” SpaceX wrote in a statement on its website. 

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        This comes several days after the Federal Aviation Administration concluded a safety review focused on potential impacts on public health and property. The FAA’s report is part of a more comprehensive assessment required before the next launch. Currently, the Fish & Wildlife Service is still conducting an Endangered Species Act of 1973 review of the launch and has upwards of 135 days to issue an opinion. 

        “The consultation is still underway, so we don’t have any timeline updates,” Aubry Buzek, public affairs for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Texas, told Bloomberg via email. 

        There have been mounting concerns the US government under the Biden administration has weaponized federal agencies against the billionaire for his ‘free speech’ social media platform X. 

        Musk recently described the apparent ‘beef’ that the Biden administration has with him. In September, he told All-In Podcast host entrepreneur David Sacks:

        “…there does seem to be some significant increase in the weaponization of government and really sort of misuse of prosecutorial discretion in many areas… I think this is really a dangerous thing for there to be partisan politics with government agencies.”

        Musk continued:

         “I don’t think the whole administration has it out for me,” he added.

         “But I think there’s probably aspects of the administration… or aspects of interests aligned with President Biden who probably do not wish good things for me.”

        On Sept. 5, Musk said Starship was ready for launch. 

        “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval,” Musk wrote on X, sharing a video of world’s largest rocket at the SpaceX Starbase launch facility in south Texas. 

        Musk was somewhat optimistic in a recent interview where he said, “We think it will work, but we aren’t sure if it will work.” 

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 16:20

      • America's Immigration Daydream Is Coming To An End
        America’s Immigration Daydream Is Coming To An End

        Authored by Matthew Boose via American Greatness,

        The Atlantic, one of the most prestigious and reliably liberal publications in America, has a new article semi-frankly acknowledging the downsides of the last half century of unrestricted immigration.

        Author David Leonhardt, a regular columnist for the New York Times, confronts – or rather, politely circumambulates – the “unintended” consequences of the landmark 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which fundamentally remade America’s immigration process by opening the floodgates to the Third World.

        Leonhardt focuses chiefly on the economic impact of mass immigration on working class wages and rising inequality between the poor and the middle class. There is nothing groundbreaking here, as any disciple of Patrick Buchanan (or anyone with a working understanding of supply and demand) could tell you. But it is always a little surprising to see common sense in the pages of a magazine like The Atlantic, even if it comes in the usual milquetoast packaging. Leonhardt even takes apart the quietly elitist “jobs Americans won’t do” talking point that liberals love: “Immigrants typically work in jobs that native-born Americans do not want at the wages that employers are offering. One reason that employers can offer such wages….is the availability of so many immigrant workers.”

        But one can only expect a respectable liberal writer to take things so far. Leonhardt tempers “the hard truth about immigration” with the usual sentimental mush about its intangible benefits. To quote Mary Poppins, a “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”

        According to Leonhardt, the 1965 Act was flawed but nevertheless a “monumental achievement.” For who? For millions of newcomers, it undoubtedly changed life for the better.

        What about the American people? For them, it was a swindle of historic proportions.

        The 1965 immigration revolution was sold to the American people as a modest shift, as Leonhardt points out. But he omits a striking quote from famous liberal Ted Kennedy, who pledged the bill “will not upset the ethnic mix of our society.”

        In the end, the reform was a strike at the heart of democracy. The people were misled on the most political of questions – who gets to be part of our community? America entered the late 20th century as a prospering, majority-white country. In the span of a few generations, whites would become an untouchable minority. They now face the prospect of spending the remainder of their natural lives under hostile, one-party rule. The majority party, the Democrats, grows stronger, and more hostile to the nation’s historic majority, with each wave of foreigners. Under President Biden, this process of demographic replacement and marginalization has accelerated like never before.

        It was Kennedy’s brother John Kennedy who stamped the nation’s conscience with pablum about America being a “nation of immigrants.” President Johnson made that sappy vision into a reality. If the America of 1965 could see the effects that mass immigration would have in the ensuing decades, it is doubtful Johnson’s reform would have passed at all. At the time, a bare majority favored scrapping country quotas, and only 7 percent wanted immigration to increase, a preference that remains to this day (not that it appears to have influenced policymakers).

        Many Americans who grew up during the Kennedy years look back on the post-war boom as an idyllic dream. Their yearnings can’t be written off as mere nostalgia bias. Compared to the present, the early ‘60s must have been like paradise: the single breadwinner was the standard, the country had a real sense of identity, and people trusted their neighbors enough to leave doors unlocked. That’s all gone now. As a result of the monumental demographic change unleashed over the past half century, America is more divided than it has ever been since its greatest crisis in 1865. The country is Balkanizing, and politics have become radical and violent.

        Leonhardt is more concerned with how diversity can be exploited by the right than its actual disintegrating effects on society. To liberals, immigration can only be conceived as a problem (if ever) when framed in terms of class. But immigration is not only an economic question, as current events have shown. With the war in Israel, reality has come crashing into the daydream of multiracial utopia. America’s rapidly browning youth is sympathetic to Hamas. It is likely that some Atlantic readers are having doubts about immigration for the first time in their lives. The issue can be avoided for a while longer, but not forever.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 15:45

      • Mark Meadows Sued By Book Publisher After Testimony "Squarely Contradicts" 2020 Election Fraud Claims
        Mark Meadows Sued By Book Publisher After Testimony “Squarely Contradicts” 2020 Election Fraud Claims

        Former Trump Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows is being sued by his book publisher, after his testimony before Congress contradicted claims made in his 2021 book, “The Chief’s Chief” – which he attested were true at the time he wrote them.

        “Meadows, the former White House Chief of Staff under President Donald J. Trump, promised and represented that ‘all statements contained in the Work are true and based on reasonable research for accuracy’ and that he ‘has not made any misrepresentations to the Publisher about the Work,’” alleged All Seasons Press in their suit against Meadows.

        In his book, Meadows insisted that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election – which he said was “stolen” and “rigged” with assistance from “allies in the liberal media” who ignored “actual evidence of fraud,” according to the lawsuit.

        Meadows also says in the opening sentence to one chapter: “I KNEW HE DIDN’T LOSE.”

        Yet, Meadows testified to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury that Trump was being “dishonest” with voters when he claimed victory on election night. According to ABC News, Meadows admitted that Trump lost the election when questioned by prosecutors.

        “Meadows’ reported statements to the Special Prosecutor and/or his staff and his reported grand jury testimony squarely contradict the statements in his Book, one central theme of which is that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and that election was ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ with the help from ‘allies in the liberal media,’ who ignored ‘actual evidence of fraud,’” alleges All Seasons Press.

        The publisher is seeking a $350,000 clawback of Meadows’ advance, $600,000 in out-of-pocket damages, and at least $1 million for reputational damage suffered by the company (plus another $1 million for loss of expected profits) on sales of the book, which they claim have plummeted given Meadows’ involvement in several Jan. 6 investigations.

        The suit reveals a long and tense relationship between Meadows and his publisher, which has published a suite of books from conservative figures.

        In December 2021, All Seasons Press sent a letter to Meadows saying it would withhold the final of three $116,666 advance payments over concerns his book may contain false information. The suit also notes it planned to continue with publication “pending an investigation.”

        A few days later the company got a letter from attorney Blake Meadows, whom the suit says is Meadows’s son, demanding the final installment. –The Hill

        “Mr. Meadows is aware of the specious allegations that were published regarding a portion of the book which was taken out of context, and which have already been addressed by both Mr. Meadows and former President Trump in multiple press releases,” wrote Meadows’ son, Blake, to the company (according to the complaint).

        According to the publisher, they decided to move forward with the book “after conducting the appropriate due diligence and based upon repeated assurances from Meadows that facts in the Book were true,” and that “rumors circulated in the media” that Meadows might have flipped on Trump harmed their bottom line.

        “As a result, public interest in the Book, the truth of which was increasingly in doubt, precipitously declined, and ASP sold only approximately 60,000 of the 200,000 first printing of the Book,” the suit states.

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 15:10

      • Newsom Rewrites Pandemic History
        Newsom Rewrites Pandemic History

        Authored by Leighton Woodhouse and Alex Gutentag via Public Substack,

        This week California Governor Gavin Newsom blatantly lied about his record on Covid-19.

        “I’m not consumed by what we did wrong,” Newsom said to Fox Los Angeles’ Elex Michaelson.

        “I’m consumed a little bit more by what we did right… There’s no large state that outperformed California, one of the top performing states, in terms of health, wealth, and education.”

        Newsom went on to say that California’s per capita Covid mortality was “substantially lower than places like Texas and Florida,” that the state’s economy fared better than that of other states, and that we saw less learning loss than Florida. All these statements are misleading at best. Newsom’s claims about California’s economy have already been debunked, and in age-adjusted Covid mortality, as many have pointed out, California and Florida fared about the same. What’s more, cumulative age-adjusted all-cause excess deaths have been higher in California than Florida since early 2020. 

        As for why schools were closed for so long, Newsom said it was because he gave school districts “local control.” Evidently, Newsom wants to claim both that he is not responsible for his own school policies, and that these policies were effective. Yet both of these claims are completely untrue, and Newsom’s failure on schools is a scandal of colossal proportions. 

        In 2020, Newsom’s Department of Health created color coded tiers that effectively prevented California schools from reopening. In 2021, statewide guidelines continued to shape restrictions. These guidelines were based on pseudoscience like a six foot rule that created a major barrier to reopening and was not proven to prevent Covid transmission. 

        While allowing private and charter schools to open and sending his own kids to in-person private school, Newsom never challenged the California teacher’s union to push for full public reopening. Only in March 2021, when the state was facing a lawsuit, and after basically every other state had reopened, did Newsom call for public schools to resume limited in-person classes. 

        To this day, Newsom insists that school closures and the state’s catastrophic learning loss were no big deal. Florida, he told Michaelson, “had more learning loss in every single category… These are facts.” But are they really?

        Newsom appears to be relying on a single 2022 test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), to make this assertion, despite a mountain of evidence that contradicts it. Only a small sample of students in the country take the NAEP. In contrast, all students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 take California’s official state test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). 

        While the 2022 NAEP, which only about 4,000 kids in the state took, made it appear that California’s learning loss was not so bad, the dismally low SBAC scores from 2022 showed that school closures had likely wiped out years of educational progress. This disparity strongly suggests there may have been a significant sampling bias in the NAEP, which is probable given that California’s chronic absence rate tripled statewide in the 2021-2022 school year. 

        Although the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) touted its supposed success on the NAEP, the district’s test results were essentially manipulated. In 2019, high-performing charter schools did not participate in LAUSD’s test, but in 2022 they did. Additionally, demographic changes between 2019 and 2022 may have been a factor, since the district’s enrollment fell by an alarming 10%. 

        Newsom and other California officials are cherry-picking the data and intentionally neglecting to analyze and address the complete picture of student learning loss. To avoid political repercussions, they are deliberately ignoring the majority of testing results as well as the many studies which show that remote instruction had a severe impact on learning. 

        Andrew Dean Ho, psychometrician and professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, reviewed California’s test results as an expert witness in an ongoing lawsuit against the state.

        Wrote Ho in his testimony, “In my review of transcripts from depositions of state officials, I find numerous responses that indicate to me a lack of awareness of or interest in data that could enable accurate estimates of academic learning loss.”

        The state has abandoned its duty to assess all relevant data and may be concealing it.

        “Data currently exist in state repositories to answer questions about the magnitude of academic learning loss for jurisdictions and subgroups in the state of California, untapped,” wrote Ho. 

        Ho’s revealing testimony is corroborated by the fact that the Department of Education threatened to muzzle and retaliate against California researchers who planned to testify against the state. 

        As Newsom increasingly seems to be pursuing presidential ambitions, his Covid mistakes should come under greater scrutiny, especially as he remains intent on never admitting to them.

        In Newsom’s view, the only reason he’s had any criticism at all is because hindsight is 20/20.

        “We should acknowledge at the time we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” he told Michaelson.

        “And we’re experts, we’re geniuses in hindsight.”

        But California’s education failure is not just about 2020 and 2021 – it’s about the state’s refusal to examine the learning loss data to this day, and Newsom’s clear choice to prioritize his own political ambitions over his accountability to the children and families of his state. 

        Subscribers can read the full substack here…

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 14:35

      • Watch: Massive Airstrikes Level Large University In Gaza
        Watch: Massive Airstrikes Level Large University In Gaza

        Shocking footage is widely circulating showing what appears to be massive airstrikes on Al Azhar University in Gaza, which was first opened in 1991, and is among a handful of Palestinian campuses of high learning.

        Videos circulating show multiple large airstrikes utterly demolishing multiple university buildings, and it’s unclear if the buildings were occupied at the time or if there are casualties. Some pro-Israel pundits have claimed that the presence of large secondary explosions suggests Hamas was hiding large ammunition stores there, hence the follow-up detonations. Watch:

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        But it’s also very evident that Israel’s warplanes are targeting Gaza’s large buildings and infrastructure as part of scorched earth tactics. 

        On Friday, Israel admitted to targeting ambulances near the Strip’s largest hospital, claiming that the ambulances were actually used by Hamas. The UN and other international bodies have condemned the attack as the death toll mounts and grisly images were widely shared online of bodies piled up in the aftermant.

        Politico describes of the attack:

        The Israeli army bombed a convoy of ambulances near the largest hospital in Gaza on Friday, an attack that “horrified” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

        The facility — Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City — is overcrowded with patients and serves as a refuge for some 20,000 displaced people, according to local health authorities.

        The attack resulted in 15 deaths and at least 60 wounded civilians, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). In a statement, the PRCS said the convoy of five ambulances tried to transport casualties toward the Rafah border crossing, but was returning to the hospital because the road was blocked with rubble when it was targeted by two missiles.

        Meanwhile, a new report in Axios utilizing satellite imagery and data says in total 25% of all buildings in northern Gaza have been severely damaged or destroyed after nearly a month of airstrikes and fighting. 

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

        At this point more than 9,200 Palestinians have been killed, with an estimated half of these being women and children. 

        Israel has come under condemnation from several countries, especially of Arab states, for appearing to target fleeing civilian convoys even after urging people to flee to southern Gaza. Axios writes, “This analysis also confirms that Israel continues to strike southern Gaza, including areas along the main evacuation routes, even after urging civilians from the north to relocate there.”

        Tyler Durden
        Sat, 11/04/2023 – 14:00

      Digest powered by RSS Digest

      Nov 02

      Today’s News 2nd November 2023

      • Why Target Date Funds Fail Investors: A $3 Trillion Delusion
        Why Target Date Funds Fail Investors: A $3 Trillion Delusion

        Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

        Morningstar estimates that as of 2022, there is nearly $3 trillion invested in target date mutual funds. Per Morningstar: Target date strategies remain the investment vehicle of choice for retirement savers.

        Whether retirement savers in target date funds know it or not, and we presume most don’t, they are mindlessly investing their wealth. The allocations between stocks and bonds in these funds are not based on risk or reward but solely on the calendar. Managing target date funds requires zero investment expertise, yet mutual fund and ETF managers rake in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in management fees.

        The volatile market environment helps us appreciate why target date funds are foolish.

        What Are Target Date Funds?

        • Barrons estimates that approximately 42% of all retirement plan dollars are in target date funds.

        • Per Investopedia, more than 75% of investors have some money in target date funds.

        • The Department of Labor claims that 70% of employers use target date funds as their default investment.

        Target Funds are passive mutual funds run by simple algorithms. To be frank, the word algorithm makes their investment process seem more complicated than it is.   

        The funds with the target dates furthest in the future are almost fully allocated to stocks with a minimal allocation to bonds. As each year passes, the funds slowly allocate away from stocks and toward bonds. The stock-bond targets for the funds are based solely on the target date.

        The graphic below, courtesy of Vanguard, the world’s largest manager of target date funds, shows the “glide path” of investment allocations based on age.

        Time dictates the funds’ allocation between stocks and bonds, not the traditional metrics investors use, like potential risks, rewards, and valuations.

        Do You Care About Expected Returns? 

        Target date fund investors, by default, must believe that stocks will outperform bonds over the long haul. While such is often true, it is far from accurate over shorter or medium-term periods. Further, such a longer-term approach misses incredible short- to medium-term opportunities in stocks and bonds. Accordingly, target fund investors are sometimes making poor investments, which may not align with their investment goals.

        To help appreciate these inherently flawed investment strategies, we ask two questions. In both questions, we ask you to allocate your retirement nest egg into A and B securities.

        Question 1: 

        Security A has an expected ten-year annualized total return of 6.00% with a likely range of returns of 0% to 12%. Security B has a guaranteed annualized return of 0.75%.

        Question 2:

        Security A has an expected ten-year annualized return of 2.50% with a likely range of returns from 7.00% to -4.50%. Security B has a guaranteed annualized return of 5.00%.

        If you favored A in the first question and B in the second, expected returns and risk probabilities matter to you.

        Question 1 is based on data from March 2020, when stock valuations cheapened considerably, and bond yields were among the lowest in U.S. history.

        Question 2 corresponds to the current investment environment for stocks and bonds.

        Questions 1 and 2 represent recent extremes of stock and bond return expectations. More importantly, they correspond to periods when target date stock and bond allocation percentages were likely inappropriate for a decent proportion of target date fund investors.

        What About Today?

        Let’s go into more detail on question 2 to better appreciate the current risk-reward framework for stocks and bonds. To repeat question 2:

        Security A (stocks) has an expected ten-year annualized return of 2.50% with a likely range of returns from 7.00% to -4.50%. Security B (bonds) has a guaranteed annualized return of 5.00%.

        Should a 2025 target date fund be heavily invested in bonds while a 2055 fund be almost solely invested in stocks in the current environment?  

        The easy way to answer is by studying the graph below. It shows every monthly instance of CAPE 10 stock valuations and the following ten-year return, including dividends. The green line shows the current ten-year UST yield (4.90%), and the blue line indicates the investment-grade corporate bond yield (6.45%).

        The current CAPE, as starred, is slightly over 30. The yellow box highlights each instance when CAPE was 30 or greater.

        The expected annualized total return on stocks for the next ten years is 2.35%, much lower than the returns on bonds. Of all the instances in which CAPE was greater than 30, only a few of them were followed by a ten-year period in which stock returns beat Treasury bond returns. The number dwindles to one when stocks are compared to investment-grade corporate bonds.

        Let’s take the analysis further and focus on maximum drawdowns when CAPE was greater than 30. The following graph shows the peak percentage drawdown from the month each CAPE valuation eclipsed 30. As it shows, skewing allocations toward bonds in environments like today allows you to preserve cash and take advantage of lower stock prices.

        Ten Year Forecasts Don’t Mean Ten Year Investments

        Bonds are much more likely to offer a better return over the next decade than stocks. However, and this is a big issue, markets change rapidly. In a year, we could be amid a recession with bond yields at 2% and equity valuations near normal. If so, profits on bonds should be taken, and a reallocation back toward stocks would likely be appropriate.

        Target date funds will not adjust for the lopsided return probabilities. Target-date funds are blind to risk and reward. Therefore, they are indifferent to what is in the best interest of their investors.

        Summary

        In the current environment, 25-year-olds and 75-year-olds should have increased allocations to bonds versus stocks. In target date fund terminology, the 2025 and 2050 funds should look much more alike than they do. The Vanguard 2050 fund holds under 10% of bonds and 90% of stocks. The Vanguard 2025 fund has approximately 45% of bonds and 55% of stocks.

        A blind formula dictates these percentages, not basic financial investment management rules.

        Investing for the long run is thoughtful. Investing without considering risks and rewards is idiotic.

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 15:20

      • Joe Biden Snagged Another $40K In 'Laundered' Chinese Money From Brother's CEFC Payment: Comer
        Joe Biden Snagged Another $40K In ‘Laundered’ Chinese Money From Brother’s CEFC Payment: Comer

        Remember when Democrats insisted that Trump was compromised by Russia because of some alleged loan he had in the early 90’s according to ‘several sources with knowledge’ (who never materialized)?

        The same Democrats – and the same media, are of course dead silent over what’s now grown to $240,000 in laundered Chinese that ended up in Joe Biden’s pocket via his brother. We know, we know – huge shock.

        On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee revealed that President Biden received $40,000 in Chinese funds which were “laundered” through his brother, James Biden, in a “complicated financial transaction” marked as a ‘loan,’ which took place just weeks after Hunter Biden threatened the Chinese with his father’s wrath in a July 30, 2017 text message to a CEFC China Energy employee.

        The alleged 2017 transfer from first brother James Biden to the future president involves the same business deal in which Joe Biden was called the “big guy” and penciled in for a 10% cut — and would be the first proven instance of the commander-in-chief getting a piece of his family’s foreign income.

        …

        The money ended up in Joe Biden’s bank account on Sept. 3, 2017, via a check labeled “loan repayment” from his younger brother, who partnered with Hunter in the venture. -NY Post

        “Remember when Joe Biden told the American people that his son didn’t make money in China?” asked Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a video posted to X. ““Well, not only did he lie about his son Hunter making money in China, but it also turns out that $40,000 in laundered China money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check.”

        “Even if this $40,000 check was a loan repayment from James Biden, it still shows how Joe benefited from his  family cashing in on his name — with money from China no less,” Comer continued.

        Bank records released this year by Comer show that CEFC — a since-defunct reputed cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign — paid Hunter and James Biden at least $6.1 million in 2017 and 2018 — about $1 million in March 2017 shortly after Biden left office as vice president and the remainder within 10 days of Hunter’s threat invoking his dad.

        A $5 million wire was sent on Aug. 8, 2017, to “Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong,” a committee synopsis of the memo says. -NY Post

        “That same day, Hudson West III sent $400,000 to Owasco, P.C., an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. On August 14, 2017, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by President Biden’s brother James and sister-in-law Sara Biden,” the synopsis continues.

        “On August 28, 2017, Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group. Later the same day, she deposited it into her and James Biden’s personal checking account. On September 3, 2017, Sara Biden cut a check to Joe Biden for $40,000 for a ‘loan repayment.'”

        But hey, no more mean tweets!

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 15:00

      • The Party's Over: Atlanta Fed Slashes Q4 GDP Estimate From 2.3% To 1.2%
        The Party’s Over: Atlanta Fed Slashes Q4 GDP Estimate From 2.3% To 1.2%

        Remember when we mocked the BEA’s recent report that Q3 GDP had hit a scorching 4.9% (well above estimates) on the back of such laughably “growth” factors as surging inventories and government consumption…

        … and said prepare for Bidenomics to collapse in Q4?

        Well it just did, and not once but twice.

        First, it was the ISM Chair Tim Fiore who earlier today said that “the past relationship between the Manufacturing PMI and the overall economy indicates that the October reading (46.7 percent) corresponds to a change of minus-0.7 percent in real gross domestic product (GDP) on an annualized basis.”  Translation: the economy is already in contraction, which would hardly be a shock since Europe is also in contraction, China’s economy is imploding and the US will never decouple from the rest of the world.

        And now, it’s the same Atlanta Fed which last quarter stunned Wall Street with its 5%+ Q3 GDP estimates, and which just came out with its second Q4 GDP forecast which was a doozy: at 1.2% it was almost 50% below the Atlanta Fed’s first Q4 GDP estimate of 2.3%.

        Here are the details:

        The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2023 is 1.2 percent on November 1, down from 2.3 percent on October 27.

        After this morning’s construction spending release from the US Census Bureau and the Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcasts of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and fourth-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 3.0 percent and -2.2 percent, respectively, to 1.5 percent and -2.8 percent, while the nowcast of the contribution of the change in real net exports to fourth-quarter real GDP growth increased from 0.11 percentage points to 0.22 percentage points.

        Bottom line: the Bidenomics trendline that was so laughably interrupted by the one-time, artificial, and debt-driven burst in Q3 GDP is back to normal…

        … and the ridiculous economic “boost” that Biden tried to represent as being the normal, is now gone. Next step: recession, rate cuts, more stimmies, and so on.

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 14:41

      • Watch Live: Fed Chair Powell Tries Not To Break Anything
        Watch Live: Fed Chair Powell Tries Not To Break Anything

        No change in policy rates… as expected; and a barely-changed statement, mean all eyes will be on Fed Chair Powell for the nuance leaning hawkish or dovish.

        With money markets and many Fed officials believing that the Fed is done with rate-hikes, Powell will not want to rock the boat of the central bank “proceeding carefully” to let cumulative tightening continue to work through as inflation trends lower and the labor market rebalances.

        His recent comments at The Economic Club of New York suggested ‘satisfaction‘ with current policy settings… with the ubiquitous caveat that they are ‘data dependent’.

        Powell will be treading very carefully as, given the addition of the term “financial conditions” means anything less than the right amount of hawkishness will prompt the kind of reflexive gains in bonds and stocks that will reverse the tightening of financial conditions that he has been quietly comfortably allowing.

        Will Powell be asked about the messaging of that one word?

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

        One final point before he speaks: while most expect no surprises from the Fed, the market is uneasy about something with the implied-implied move in the S&P today is 0.89%, which would make it the highest implied move since May according to Goldman.

        What are they worried about?

        Watch Powell’s press conference live here (due to start at 1430ET):

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 14:25

      • Fed Remains 'Paused', Acknowledges Tightening Financial Conditions Are 'Doing Its Job'
        Fed Remains ‘Paused’, Acknowledges Tightening Financial Conditions Are ‘Doing Its Job’

        Tl;dr: The Fed kept rates unchanged, as expected but the addition of one word is key:

        “Tighter financial and credit conditions for households and businesses are likely to weigh on economic activity, hiring, and inflation.”

        Is that The Fed sending a message to Janet Yellen: “stop spending like drunken sailors.”

        *  *  *

        Since The Fed’s last statement and press conference on September 20th, the market’s movements (impacted by the ongoing chaos in Israel also) have been somewhat remarkable.

        Bitcoin has soared higher, stocks and bonds (the latter worse than the former) have both been hammered as gold and the dollar have rallied in unison…

        Source: Bloomberg

        We note that Gold has been on quite a path in the last two months but is back  – again – at around the same levels as it has been for the last two FOMC meetings…

        Source: Bloomberg

        Additionally, The Fed’s jawboning of “higher for longer” is increasingly being accepted by the rates market as the SOFR spreads for Dec 2023-2024 and 2023-2025 have surged since the last FOMC…

        Source: Bloomberg

        Of particular note, we have seen financial conditions tighten significantly since the last FOMC (while at the same time, macro surprise data has improved marginally – not fallen apart)…

        Source: Bloomberg

        Specifically, the period since the last FOMC brought some surprisingly strong readings on inflation and the economy more broadly. Here are some headline numbers:

        • Third-quarter GDP growth was a whopping 4.9%, higher than forecast and an a historic figure for the US, where growth tends to hover around 2%-3%

        • September payrolls were also strong, with employers adding 336,000 jobs, nearly double what economists had been expecting

        • A variety of inflation indicators cooled less than anticipated, or posted slight gains. The employment cost index, a broad and reliable indicator, ticked up 1.1% in the third quarter, a pace far above its pre-pandemic average of 0.7%.

        However, the last chart above is of increasing relevance as the narrative that “the market is doing The Fed’s job for it” continues to keep hopes alive that Powell and his pals are done (due to this dramatic tightening).

        For today, expectations are for no change (0.5% odds of a rate-hike priced-in), but the market remains more dovishly priced still than The Fed’s projections (at least until 2026)…

        Source: Bloomberg

        The Fed statement is expected to be more or less identical to September’s.

        And so, what did we get?

        The Fed – as expected – left rates unchanged:

        • *FED HOLDS BENCHMARK RATE IN 5.25-5.5% TARGET RANGE

        The Fed leaves more hikes on the table:

        • *FED REPEATS IT WILL ASSESS EXTENT OF ADDITIONAL POLICY FIRMING

        And sure enough, as we noted above, The Fed likes the market doing its job for it, specifically adding reference to tighter “financial” conditions

        • “Tighter financial and credit conditions for households and businesses are likely to weigh on economic activity, hiring, and inflation.”

        The message is clear:

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

        The question we are left with is – what is the trigger for The Fed to not ‘leave the rate hike option’ on the table.

        Read the full redline below:

        Powell’s press conference is coming right up but we note that despite everything very much ‘as expected’, the market is uneasy and the implied-implied move in the S&P tomorrow is 0.89%, which would make it the highest implied move since May according to Goldman.

        Here’s what to expect (assume a ‘hold’)

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 14:00

      • Elon Musk Exposes How Soros 'Hijacked' US Cities Without Changing Any Laws
        Elon Musk Exposes How Soros ‘Hijacked’ US Cities Without Changing Any Laws

        Elon Musk appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast Tuesday and explained how leftists “completely controlled” Twitter and weaponized the social media platform against political opponents and anyone who disagreed with the official government narrative. The billionaire said Twitter was almost like Russian state media “Pravda.”

        “The degree to which Twitter was simply an arm of the government was not well understood by the public,” Musk said.

        He continued, “Republicans were suppressed at ten times the rate of Democrats. That’s because old Twitter was fundamentally controlled by the far-left.” 

        Far-left elites in Washington and Silicon Valley, along with ‘fact checkers’ (think tanks) and the FBI, were able to conduct mass censorship campaigns from within Twitter, that’s until Musk bought the social media company about one year ago. 

        In the conversation with Rogan, Musk then explains George Soros’ massive bet (now overseen by his son, Alexander Soros) on funding city and state district attorney elections nationwide. He said, “The value for money in local races is much higher than in national races – the lowest value for money is a presidential race.”

        “Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws – you just need to change how they’re enforced – if nobody chooses to enforce the law – or the laws differentially enforced – it’s like changing the laws,” Musk said. 

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

        This leaves with a new interview from one Maryland sheriff, just outside of crime-ridden Baltimore City, in Wicomico County, who drops a truth bomb about radical progressive lawmakers in the state, some of whom have likely been funded by Soros, who purposely fail to enforce law and order and only embolden criminal. 

        “I’m in my 40th year of law enforcement, and I have never ever seen it this bad,” Sheriff Mike Lewis said.

        Lewis continued: “I’ve never seen a government so ingrained – and quite frankly complicit – in the criminal activity taking place in our nation.” 

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

        The sheriff is referring to all those Soros-backed candidates who won elections in Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Fransico, Portland, Baltimore, DC, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, and Chicago, that have transformed these areas into crime-ridden hellholes. 

        The term “apocalypse” in Greek translates to “revelation,” and this is precisely what Musk and the team behind the “Twitter Files” have offered the public. Their actions have disrupted the ‘matrix’ controlled by radical leftists with an agenda to install communism. 

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 13:45

      • Schwab Announces Over 2,000 Layoffs To 'Maintain Competitive Edge'
        Schwab Announces Over 2,000 Layoffs To ‘Maintain Competitive Edge’

        Update (Wednesday): 

        A Charles Schwab spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that up to 6% of its 35,900-member workforce (or about 2,154 employees) were recently laid off. 

        “These were hard but necessary steps to ensure Schwab remains highly competitive, with industry-leading levels of efficiency, well into the future,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding, “We worked diligently to ensure affected employees were treated with care and respect throughout this difficult process.”

        The cuts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday night (read the previous update below). 

        The last time Schwab went on a hiring – then firing spree was the Dot Com bubble. It appears the pattern is repeating. 

        According to the layoff tracker website Layoffs.FYI, hundreds of thousands of tech employees have been fired in the last two years. 

        The latest ADP print shows the labor market has slowed. 

        *   *   * 

        Charles Schwab, the largest publicly traded US brokerage firm, began laying off employees on Monday in an effort to streamline its business model by reducing expenses ahead of next year, which could be full of turbulence in financial markets. This comes as the market’s excitement in meme stocks, SPACs, IPOs, and crypto, which soared in 2020-21, has since plunged due to a rising interest rate environment. 

        The Wall Street Journal first revealed the Schwab layoffs on Monday night:

        Charles Schwab on Monday began laying off employees across the company.

        Schwab, the largest publicly traded US brokerage, didn’t disclose how many employees were affected in an internal message seen by The Wall Street Journal. Some remaining employees will have new jobs or managers, according to the message.

        In the message, CEO Walt Bettinger and President Rick Wurster said:

        “We know this has been a challenging year, and that today was hard. We also know the work needed to come through this change even stronger than before is just beginning.” 

        Perhaps trouble at Schwab comes as retail traders, badly bruised from holding worthless meme stocks, lost interest in financial markets this year. 

        Besides retail’s waning interest in markets, the company has been under scrutiny from shareholders about deposit flight driven by higher interest rates. 

        Schwab shares are down 40% since peaking at the $84 handle in March 2021. 

        In August, Schwab detailed in a regulatory filing about plans to slash its headcount and downsize corporate offices to reduce operating costs. These proposed cuts are expected to save the company $500 million annually. 

        The last time Schwab hired too many people was during the Dot Com bubble. We all know what happened next… 

        Rumors on the anonymous jobs forum Blind said the layoffs at Schwab include “lots of people in the company’s tech division.” 

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 13:35

      • Tulsi Gabbard: LGBTQ+ Activists At Pro-Palestine Marches "Don't Understand" Islamists Want To Kill Them
        Tulsi Gabbard: LGBTQ+ Activists At Pro-Palestine Marches “Don’t Understand” Islamists Want To Kill Them

        Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

        Former Democratic Representative Tusi Gabbard has called out the hypocrisy of LGBTQ+ activists attending pro-Palestine marches alongside radical Islamists who literally want gay and trans people to be murdered.

        Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s show Tuesday, Gabbard noted that “Democrats, they have called people like me an Islamophobe for many years just for speaking the truth about radical Islam. About the threat that this Islamism poses to the freedom and peace of security of the American people and people around the world.”

        Gabbard continued, “we are so concerned about Biden’s open borders and the fact that we have got millions of people coming in who are not vetted in any way, shape, or form who have not been checked.”

        Ingraham interjected, “they say you can’t call it a clash of civilisations, why not? It is a clash of civilizations. No women’s rights. No belief in pluralism. The dignity of the individual. Free expression. None of that. That’s not on the table.”

        The former Congresswoman replied, “And that is the hypocrisy of seeing these LGBTQIA activists out there holding and waving the trans flags combined with the Palestinian flag.”

        “That’s a new level of stupid,” Ingraham asserted.

        Gabbard replied, “They don’t know and understand what this Islamist ideology is, this radical Islam ideology where they actually want to kill people. They want to kill those people specifically.”

        Watch:

        https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6340261906112&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

        Related:

        *  *  *

        Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

        In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

        Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

        Tyler Durden
        Wed, 11/01/2023 – 13:25

      • Israeli Army Suffers More Casualties As Hamas Publishes Video Showing Tanks Blown Up
        Israeli Army Suffers More Casualties As Hamas Publishes Video Showing Tanks Blown Up

        Update(1318ET): The Israeli death toll is rising, and Hamas has claimed to have ambushed and destroyed several tanks as they plunge deeper into Gaza City, also amid building to building searches for the hostages.

        15 Israeli soldiers have now been killed in the Gaza operation, the IDF has announced Wednesday, which in total marks 320 total troops killed since the Oct. 7th massacre (and with over 1,100 more Israeli and foreign civilians). 

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

        Widely circulating footage shows Knesset members crying after a closed-door session (below), leading to speculation that Israeli troops could be sustaining higher than known casualty rates.

        But the emotional scene is reportedly due to a special viewing in parliament of newly compiled footage of the Oct.7 terror attacks, as The Times of Israel details: 

        A compilation of raw footage documenting Hamas’s grisly October 7 rampage through the western Negev was screened Wednesday for Knesset members. The 43-minute-long video was produced by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office and shows uncensored, difficult-to-watch videos, many taken from terrorists’ bodycams.

        After a request from Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to the military, lawmakers were granted permission to hold a closed-door screening of the footage where recording and cellphones were not allowed.

        Ohana, speaking before the screening, said that he had arranged the event so that Israeli lawmakers would “know who and what we are facing,” and so that “we will all know how much our path in this war against this evil is justified,” according to sources familiar with the event.

        …More than 50 MKs were in attendance, and some broke down in tears, including Ra’am head Mansour Abbas, the Maariv news outlet reported.

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

        * * *

        The Israel Defense Forces has said it is in close quarters combat with Hamas as troops push further into Gaza, resulting in an announced Tuesday death toll of eleven. By early Wednesday that figure rose to 13 Israeli soldiers killed, after Israel’s defense minister warned of the “heavy toll” which would be paid by troops in the operation to eradicate Hamas.

        As the death toll among Gazans approaches 9,000, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell has lashed out at Israel’s airstrikes and massive civilian casualties. Borrel says he is “appalled by the high number of casualties following the bombing by Israel of the Jabalia refugee camp.” Jabalia camp has reportedly been struck again, a day after the initial massive attack which had killed at least 52 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

        IDF tanks inside Gaza, IDF handout/Reuters

        But Israel’s military said that its Jabalia strike had taken out a top Hamas commander and other Hamas officers, and said Israeli decision-makers took into account the harm to civilians in the densely populated urban area.

        On Wednesday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed condolences for the IDF’s fallen soldiers along side other leaders. He said “We are in a tough war. This will be a long war. We have important achievements, but also painful losses.”

        According to more from his message: “We know that every one of our soldiers is an entire world. All of Israel embraces you, the families, from the bottom of our hearts. All of us are with you during this time of mourning. Our soldiers fell in a war where there was no justice, a war for our home,” he said. “I promise you, the citizens of Israel: we will complete the task – we will continue until victory.”

        IDF troops have begun the slow process of going door to door as they search for the missing Israeli and foreign hostages, which is up to 240, according to new military statements. Hamas has issued new statements claiming Israeli airstrikes killed a group of hostages. “Seven detainees were killed in the Jabalia massacre yesterday, including three holders of foreign passports,” said a Hamas statement issued from its military wing.

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

        But the “painful losses” are mounting in much greater numbers for the Palestinian side, and civilians are bearing the brunt of suffering. International outrage and pressure has mounted on Tel Aviv, which has voiced that has warned Gaza civilians they must move to the southern half of the Strip if they want to escape the bombs. According to a fresh Gaza health ministry update as republished in Al Jazeera:

        • The number of people killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza has gone up to 8,796, including 3,648 children and 2,290 women.
        • At least 22,219 people have been wounded.
        • There are 2,030 reports of people missing including 1,020 children buried under the rubble.
        • 130 paramedics and medical crew have been killed, 28 ambulances have been destroyed, and there have been more than 270 attacks on the healthcare system in Gaza.
        • 16 hospitals out of 35 are out of operation, and 51 out of 72 primary healthcare clinics have shut down.
        • In the occupied West Bank, 128 Palestinians have been killed and at least 1,980 have been wounded.

        There has meanwhile been a rare positive development on the humanitarian front. For the first time since the start of the war, foreigners and wounded Palestinians have been allowed to exit Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. 

        Some 500 foreign passport holders had reportedly been stuck at Rafah crossing for weeks since the start of the conflict after Oct.7. The area near the crossing had also been bombed by Israeli jets on several occasions. Ambulances have been observed Wednesday ferrying the wounded into Egypt. 

        Hundreds are foreign passport holders are also belatedly being let through, among them Americans. “At least five NGO workers who have been confirmed as Americans are listed as approved to cross on Wednesday but it remains to be seen how many of at least 400 American citizens the U.S. State Department says are stuck in Gaza will be able to cross in coming days,” CBS News reports. Some have lashed out at Washington over the lack of serious evacuation efforts in place for those dual nationals stuck in Gaza: 

        “They started letting foreigners out today but it’s not Americans because I guess we’re not as important as we thought,” Utah resident Susan Beseiso told CBS News on Wednesday.  

        “The American Embassy and the State Department haven’t called us since the last time we went to the border and got bombed four times. They haven’t been communicating with us or doing anything to get us out,” Beseiso said.

        “It’s like they’re holding us hostages — not Hamas holding us hostages — it’s the IDF soldiers, Egypt and America. They’re using us as a human shield in a way.”

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

        The fresh evacuees are undergoing security checks on the Egyptian side. Among those exiting include Palestinians holding Austrian, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Japanese Jordanian, Italian, Greek, Australian and Czech citizenships, and many others. Various nationals working for several NGOs are also on the departure list.

        According to The Times of Israel, “A source briefed on the development told Reuters that the evacuations were agreed on in a deal mediated by Qatar between Egypt, Israel and Hamas in coordination with the US.”

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 13:18

        • Israel Rushes Warships To Red Sea After Yemeni Houthis Launch Ballistic Missile & Drones
          Israel Rushes Warships To Red Sea After Yemeni Houthis Launch Ballistic Missile & Drones

          Israel has rushed warships to the Red Sea, where US naval assets are also patrolling, after Yemen’s Houthis declared “war” earlier this week. The Houthis had also reportedly launched a ballistic missile at Israel, and released a video showing the launch. In total the Houthis are believed to have attempted three drone and missile attacks on Israel. One of the initial projectiles days ago had been intercepted by a US warship off Yemen, and another was stopped as follows: 

          The Israeli military on Tuesday used its Arrow missile defence system for the first time to intercept an “aerial threat” over the Red Sea, believed to have been a ballistic missile.

          An Israeli navy missile boat seen off the coast of Eilat in the Red Sea, IDF handout.

          According to newly released Israeli military images, Sa’ar-class corvettes are now patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea.

          They will be monitoring skies over the Red Sea and around Israel after the Yemeni rebel group widely seen as backed by Iran has vowed to “help the Palestinians to victory.”

          While apart from Gaza, Israel has been most focused on the Hezbollah threat on the northern border – having engaged in daily exchanges of fire with the militant group in southern Lebanon – the Yemeni action raises the specter of the situation spiraling into a broader regional war.

          Sporadic fire along the occupied Golan Heights, and Israel’s attacks south of Damascus, also raises the possibility of the Gaza war spilling into Syria. 

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

          According to fresh reporting in The New York Times, the Houthis are already escalating their attacks on faraway Israel:

          Yemen’s Houthi militia claimed an attempted attack on southern Israel on Tuesday, saying it had launched a “large batch” of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones toward Israeli targets.

          The Iran-backed militia carried out the attempted assault in response to what it called “brutal Israeli-American aggression” in Gaza, the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said on the social media platform X. Mr. Sarea said the attack was the third operation conducted by the Houthis “in support of our persecuted brothers in Palestine,” and threatened further missile and drone assaults.

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

          The Houthis have been locked in a war with Saudi Arabia (and allies UAE & the US) since 2015. In 2014 the Shia rebel group overran the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, sparking the Saudi-UAE intervention to uphold the pro-Saudi government. Many tens of thousands have been killed over the last half-decade of fighting, with the country also on the brink of starvation. 

          Disagreement persists among analysts over whether the Houthis possess missiles that could effectively reach Israel.

          The US and Israel have long accused Tehran of shipping weapons to the Houthis. It’s believed that their surprisingly sophisticated missile arsenal comes from the Iranians, and these have been used to attack Saudi Arabia several times, including strikes on Saudi Aramco oil facilities.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 13:05

        • Estee Slaughter: Beauty Giant Implodes To 6 Year Low As Consumers Hit Brick Wall
          Estee Slaughter: Beauty Giant Implodes To 6 Year Low As Consumers Hit Brick Wall

          When we looked at the performance of consumer stocks last quarter, we found a not unexpected divergence between companies catering to lower income consumers, which have been hammered for much of 2023, and those targeting rich buyers, which – especially in the case of a handful of European luxury giants such as LVMH, Kering and Hermes  – had done tremendously well for much of the past year, making Bernard Arnault the richest man in the world, if not for long.

          Fast forwarding to today, while we have yet to hit rock bottom when it comes to lower income cohorts, it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer to our question from May, namely “did the luxury bubble just burst” is now a resounding yes as the following boom-to-bust chart of European luxury giants LVMH, Hermes and Kering shows.

          Today, the bursting of the luxury bubble took its latest casualty, Estée Lauder, whose already-battered shares plummeted even more, tumbling as much as 21%, their biggest one-day drop in history, after the beauty giant slashed its full-year outlook on troubles in China and the Middle East. The stock has lost almost half of its value in 2023 alone.

          As BBG notes, the owner of the MAC and Tom Ford brands has been “floundering in its crucial travel retail business in Asia due to weaker-than-expected demand.” The continued weakness in that channel, as well as an added drag from the Israel-Hamas war, show the beauty company has failed once again to get its footing, meaning it is likely to keep ceding market share to archrival L’Oréal.

          For the current fiscal year, Estée Lauder expects net sales in a range of negative 2% to positive 1% versus the prior year, while earnings are seen at $2.08 to $2.35 a share. In August, it had forecast net sales to increase between 5% to 7% and saw earnings of $3.43 to $3.70 a share.

          Estée Lauder said net sales in the most recent quarter fell 10%, in line with the downbeat outlook the company forecast in August (the only positive was that the company did a +6% in the Americas vs a Consensus -2%, although that too is about to reverse now that Americans are finally paying down their student loans, credit cards are maxed out and any “excess savings” are long gone).

          For the current quarter, the company now expects net sales to decrease between 9% to 11% versus a year ago and sees diluted net earnings between 47 cents and 57 cents a share. The potential risks from disruption in Israel and the Middle East are expected to have a dilutive impact of 8 cents. The company doesn’t break out what portion of revenue it generates in the region.

          “The big question, like last quarter, and the one before it, will be: ‘Is this the final cut?’” Bernstein analysts led by Callum Elliott wrote in a research note.

          Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Freda said in a statement that the New York-based company lowered its fiscal 2024 outlook due to slower growth in prestige beauty in Asia travel retail and mainland China, as well as the risk of disruption to its business in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.

          Remarkably, even though Estée Lauder had already lowered expectations in the previous quarter – after already cutting its outlook several times in the past year leading to another near record price drop back in April – the market was still caught off-guard, sending the stock down the most on record. That’s raised concerns among investors that executives don’t have a good grip on what’s happening in their business.

          “We thought that this quarter could be the trough and did not expect another guidance cut,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Nik Modi wrote in a research note. “All the read thrus suggested China was weak, but we thought EL’s guidance last quarter accounted for the weakness. Clearly we were wrong.”

          On a call with analysts, CEO Freda said: “We expect calendar year 2023 to be the final and, frankly, painful post-Covid reset period for the company.”

          Good luck with that.

          Curiously, the cosmetic industry may be the one place where lower-income consumers are holding out better then their higher-income peers. Estée Lauder’s quarterly results are in contrast to competitor L’Oréal, which said late last month that sales were up 4.5% in the three months that ended on Sept. 30. While the French beauty giant – which sells more mass-market items under brands such as Maybelline New York and L’Oréal Paris – has also been hit by the slowdown in duty-free sales in China and South Korea, the business represents a much smaller portion of its revenue versus Estée Lauder.

          L’Oreal’s cheaper products have sold more briskly than items from its more expensive brands as inflation-weary consumers have become pickier. Estée Lauder, meanwhile, sells more higher-end products and on Wednesday cited the “slower-than-expected recovery of overall prestige beauty.”

          Which brings us to a key question: has the consumer finally hit a brick wall? While we are confident that recent results indeed confirm that consumers are virtually tapped out, a slightly more cheerful take comes from Goldman consumer trader Scott Feiler who tries to present today’s dismal results in a slightly better light.

          Here is his take on today’s earnings onslaught:

          • Bottom-Line Intact for 3Q: The magnitude of top-line upside has begun to slow, but companies have pretty continued to beat across the board on the EPS/EBITDA line for 3Q. Even the names with the biggest downward reactions this morning so far in the pre (Wayfair, EL, CCEP, GOOS) largely all beat EPS for this quarter.
          • Top-Line Upside is slowing though: While bottom-line remains intact (for 3Q at least), the top-line upside does appear to be harder to come by. See YUM, EAT, EL, GOOS etc for prints that largely saw in-line sales, even as EPS handily beat.
          • Restaurants remain a relatively bright spot in the US: YUM (+1.5% comp beat), FWRG (40 bps comp beat) and EAT (20 bps comp beat at Chili’s) are all “fine” still with still constructive commentary, even as traffic has slowed some.
          • China Unsurprisingly called out as weak: 2 of the biggest stock disappointments this morning are EL (called out incremental headwinds from a slower-than-expected recovery of overall prestige beauty in mainland China) and YUMC (said they observed softening consumer demand emerged in late September through October).
          • The 2 biggest single names in focus in our IB chats – EL and Wayfair.  
            • For EL, the guidance cut only 1 quarter in is well below any of the worst estimates we had heard. The only “positive” is the bulk of it was blamed on China (somewhat known) and the Middle East.  They did a +6% in the Americas vs a Consensus -2%, and so we think a focus on the 930AM call will be whether there were shipment benefits that helped that figure. Despite the better Americas and Jason’s note titled ““bottom perhaps finally found,” the overwhelming feedback continued to be negative this morning on lack of conviction in an EPS bottom.
            • For Wayfair, the stock dropped hard as soon as the release hit. A ton of inbounds from most asking why. Yes, revenues missed for 3Q but it was only a 1% miss vs consensus and the bogey, while margins beat by about 150 bps. The big concern here seems to be less about margins (most understand a beat was likely) and more about top-line, especially fears around 4Q. On the call, they spoke to QTD gross revenues running around flat. We think expectations were well below the consensus +5% for the full 4Q, so agree that the -10% move lower in the pre is a bit surprising. This is a shoot first, ask questions later type tape though.

          Needless to say, that is hardly the kind of tape one sees at the start of bull markets.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 12:45

        • House GOP Plan To Offset Israel Aid With IRS Funding Would Expand National Debt Via Reduced Enforcement: CBO
          House GOP Plan To Offset Israel Aid With IRS Funding Would Expand National Debt Via Reduced Enforcement: CBO

          A GOP plan to offset $14.3 billion in aid to Israel by reducing the IRS’s roughly $60 billion boost from the Inflation Reduction Act ($80 billion less negotiated cuts) would backfire and add around $30 billion to the national debt, because – according to both the CBO and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), it would reduce the amount that the agency will be able to collect via audits.

          Speaker Mike Johnson

          Israel, with GDP of almost half a trillion dollars and a debt-to-GDP ratio that is half of that of the United States, and a super-advanced military, still somehow needs $14.3 billion from US taxpayers in order to continue its extensive bombing campaign throughout Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

          While the Senate uniparty has insisted on US aid for both Israel and Ukraine (with a smattering of border security funds to mollify the America First types), House Republicans want to separate the two amid pushback from the Freedom Caucus – and pay for Israel aid by reducing the aforementioned IRS funding.

          The CBO says it would decrease tax revenues by $26.7 billion, while the CFRB says it would add over $30 billion to the national debt.

          Of note, the amount Congress wants to send Israel is almost precisely the amount the Trump administration wanted to secure the southern US border, which Trump said Mexico would pay for indirectly via trade deals. Instead, we’re engaged in proxy wars on at least two fronts while more than five million illegal immigrants have crossed into the United States since Biden took office.

          “Paying for new spending by defunding tax enforcement is worse than not paying for it at all,” said CFRB President, Maya MacGuineas, adding “Instead of avoiding new borrowing, this plan doubles down on it.”

          According to Howard Gleckman, senior Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center fellow, said it was “pretty clear” that “cutting this kind of IRS funding would actually increase the deficit.”

          “Instead of being an offset, it would actually make matters worse,” he argued. “The general rule of thumb that the budget scorekeepers use is it’s about 2-to-1. So if you cut IRS funding [by $14 billion to $15 billion], you’re actually going to increase the deficit by about $30 billion.”

          Whose rule of thumb? Is there anything back that statement?

          A ‘non starter’ anyway

          The House is expected to vote on the proposed funding on Thursday, however Democrats say it’s a “non-starter” ion the Senate.

          “If Republicans had an ounce of shame they wouldn’t condition support for Israel and Ukraine on giveaways to wealthy tax cheats. Making aid to Israel and Ukraine dependent on gutting IRS enforcement funding is an absolute nonstarter,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Senate Finance Committee Chair in a Tuesday statement.

          Mittens echoes neocon refrain

          “I don’t think you reduce the number of IRS agents then expect that you’re going to get more tax revenue,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told The Hill.

          “I think reducing agents means less tax revenue,” he continued.

          The Treasury Department said earlier this month that the U.S. borrowed $1.7 trillion in the one-year period ending in late September, a spike over the previous year that Biden officials partly attributed to low revenue.

          The U.S. is currently running a $33 trillion debt, which spiked above its trend line during the pandemic as the government expanded major tax credit programs for lower earners and sent out checks to families while the economy was shut down.

          As part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed last year by Democrats, the IRS was given an additional $80 billion in funding over the subsequent 10 years. That allotment would have increased revenues by around $200 billion for a net deficit reduction of around $114 billion, according to a CBO analysis. –The Hill

          Some Senate Republicans have endorsed the House measure, but acknowledge that the budgetary impact could pose a challenge.

          “If you’re looking for a pay-for, which they clearly are, I think it’s as good as one as there could be,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND).

          “The challenge you’re gonna have is a CBO score.”

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 12:25

        • Khamenei Calls On Muslim World To 'Stop Oil Exports' To Israel
          Khamenei Calls On Muslim World To ‘Stop Oil Exports’ To Israel

          Via The Cradle,

          Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke about the Gaza-Israel during a meeting with a group of students at the Imam Khomeini Hussainiyah in Tehran on Wednesday, chastising Gulf Arab states for their complicity in Israeli aggression.  

          “What Muslim states must insist on is the immediate cessation of [Israeli] crimes in Gaza. They must promptly stop the bombardment of Gaza and stop the export of oil and other commodities to the Zionist regime,” Khamenei stressed.  

          Image: https://khamenei.ir/

          “Muslim states must not cooperate economically with the Zionist regime but denounce these catastrophes and crimes vociferously and without hesitation in all international forums,” he added.  

          Khamenei also highlighted that the ongoing war is “between truth and falsehood, between the power of faith and the power of arrogance.” He added: “Of course, the power of arrogance comes with military pressure, bombardment, as well as calamities and crimes, but the power of faith will overcome all of these by God’s grace.”

          Khamenei also mentioned that Gaza is a “human movement” whose influence spread outside of the Levant.  

          “[The people of Gaza managed to] move the human conscience […] look what is happening in the world; in western countries, in Britain, France, Italy, and various US states, people come in large crowds to the streets and chant slogans against Israel and the US itself,” Khamenei added.  

          “It was an absolute disgrace for them, which they can neither recover from nor justify,” Khamenei said. “The Muslim world should not forget that all through the critical issue of Gaza, the [parties] which stood against Islam and the oppressed Palestinian nation was [the US], France and Britain.” 

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

          Speaking about the movements in the west, Khamenei touched on those who are blaming Iran for the protests, mockingly saying that “we see a fool coming and saying that the gathering of people in England to support the Palestinian people is the work of Iran.” 

          During his talks with the students of Iran, he looked back at the role played during the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Iran, saying, “The US was disgraced. This was the blow of the Iranian nation to the US.”

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 12:05

        • Pfizer To Shut Down Two Facilities Amid Major Cost Cuts
          Pfizer To Shut Down Two Facilities Amid Major Cost Cuts

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

          Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer confirmed it will be closing down two of its facilities in North Carolina amid a cost-cutting initiative after it revealed that sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and other products would see a drop.

          Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on May 25, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

          The company told multiple local media outlets that it would be closing its sites in Durham and Morrisville, saying the closures are part of an effort “to operate more efficiently and effectively.”

          “As part of this effort, Pfizer has decided to close the Kit Creek facility in Morrisville … and the Durham Clinical Manufacturing Facility,” the company said, according to the Triangle Business Journal. “Pfizer continues to operate its largest North Carolina facilities, including two in Sanford and one in Rocky Mount.”

          It’s not clear how many workers would be impacted or laid off. The Epoch Times has contacted the company for comment Monday.

          “All job-related decisions will be made with transparency, compassion, and respect, and in compliance with applicable laws,” Pfizer told the News & Observer publication. And any employee who is impacted by the closures will be offered a “generous separation package,” Pfizer told ABC11 TV, or will be given the chance to apply for another position.

          Morrisville Mayor T.J. Cawley suggested that some workers might be laid off, according to the paper. Multiple Pfizer employees who had worked at the two North Carolina facilities listed the hashtag OpenToWork on their LinkedIn profiles in recent days.

          “Overall, I think our area is pretty well buffered from the economic downtown,” the mayor said. “Talent will always move around from company to company. We have such a strong talent pool that companies will keep coming here.”

          Before the closures were confirmed by the company, a number of unnamed Pfizer workers complained on social media that they would be getting laid off soon amid the company’s cost-cutting scheme. Posts alleged that Pfizer officials held a live stream with thousands of workers to announce the cuts earlier in October.

          Pfizer told Newsweek about a week ago that “we updated our plans last Friday in this release” and that “we are prepared to launch an enterprise-wide cost improvement program aligned with the longer-term revenue projections for our business. Details of this program will be shared over the coming months and as part of the full-year guidance for 2024.” Other details were not provided.

          Under federal regulations, employers have to file what’s known as a WARN Notice 60 days before closing down a site that impacts at least 50 workers. As of Monday, Pfizer hasn’t filed a WARN Notice regarding layoffs, according to the News & Observer, citing the state’s Department of Commerce website.

          Pfizer Lowers Guidance

          About 12 million people, or around 3.6 percent of the population, have gotten one of the latest booster shots, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), last week.

          Dr. Mandy Cohen, COO and chief of staff of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, testifies during House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 3, 2015. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

          “I think we’re on track. Would I love to see more? Of course, that’s my job as CDC director is to want more,” she told Politico.

          Earlier this month, the drug giant released a report saying it would slash its profit and revenue estimates for a full year due to lower demand for COVID-19 products, including its mRNA vaccine and anti-viral drug Paxlovid.

          It now expects 2023 sales of $58–61 billion, down from previous forecasts of $67–70 billion, said a report released Oct. 13. It’s down “solely due to its COVID products,” according to the report.

          Sales of its COVID-19 vaccine will be about $2 billion lower than was previously forecast, the company said. It comes after the company’s updated COVID-19 booster was made available by U.S. federal regulators in September, although uptake of the latest shot appears to be slow, according to federal health data.

          At the same time, Pfizer reduced its guidance for Paxlovid, an antiviral drug that targets COVID-19, by approximately $7 billion.

          “We remain proud that our scientific breakthroughs played a significant role in getting the global health crisis under control,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement Friday. “As we gain additional clarity around vaccination and treatment rates for COVID, we will be better able to estimate the appropriate level of supply to meet demand.”

          “We are in the middle of the COVID fatigue. Nobody wants to speak about COVID,” Mr. Bourla also said during a call earlier this month, according to CNBC. “We have the big anti-vaccination rhetoric.”

          Over the past month or so, Pfizer’s stock has dropped about 10 percent, to just above $30 per share as of Monday morning. Rival pharma Moderna, which also produces an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, has seen its stock drop by more than 29 percent over the past month, to $72 per share as of Monday.

          Hospitalizations for COVID-19 consistently to drop over the past several weeks after rising somewhat during the summer, according to data posted weekly by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergency room visits and case numbers have also dropped, the data show.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 11:25

        • Tesla Wins Court Battles In U.S., China, Over Alleged Autopilot Fatalities
          Tesla Wins Court Battles In U.S., China, Over Alleged Autopilot Fatalities

          Tesla has won its battle in court over a fatal Autopilot crash that killed a California driver four years ago. 

          A jury in Riverside, California sided with Tesla in a lawsuit which blamed Tesla’s Autopilot for the fatality. Passengers who had survived the accident were suing for $400 million for the death of the driver, as well as physical injury and mental anguish, Bloomberg reported this week. 

          It took the jury four days of deliberation to come to its decision. 

          The month-long Riverside trial centered on Micah Lee, whose 2019 Model 3 crashed into a tree in Southern California. While plaintiffs claimed an Autopilot defect caused the crash, Tesla argued Lee had been drinking and offered no proof that Autopilot was engaged, Bloomberg reported.

          At the trial’s outset, Tesla’s attorneys blamed “classic human error” for the accident. They presented a video of passenger Molander stating that both she and Lee had consumed alcohol at Downtown Disney in Anaheim before the crash. 

          Brian Jazaeri, Tesla’s senior litigation director, commented: “The jury’s conclusion was the right one. There was no evidence of a defect in our Autopilot technology. Tesla’s cars are well-designed and making the roads safer every day.”

          Plaintiff counsel Jonathan Michaels commented: “It’s undeniable that a national lens is now focused on this pressing matter. Tesla, despite its stature, was pushed to its limits during the trial. The jury’s prolonged deliberation suggests that the verdict still casts a shadow of uncertainty.”

          Talking about how the vehicle malfunctioned during the crash and sent a “excessive steering wheel angle command”, Michaels told the jury: “We know it’s not possible for a driver to have done this. We know Autopilot went crazy. We know this is a manufacturing defect.”

          Tesla’s lawyer, Michael Carey, dismissed allegations of an Autopilot flaw as “hot air,” asserting that evidence shows the car’s steering was manually altered. Carey emphasized to the jury that while Tesla sympathizes with Molander and her son, the company bears no responsibility for the incident.

          Separately this week, according to Shanghai Securities News and cited by Bloomberg, a Chinese court also found that Tesla was not at fault in a November 5, 2022 accident that occurred in Chaozhou in Guangdong province, which injured three people. 

          Bloomberg noted the following remaining cases still pending regarding Tesla’s Autopilot:

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 11:05

        • US Sends 300 More Troops To Middle East, Raising Total To 1,200
          US Sends 300 More Troops To Middle East, Raising Total To 1,200

          Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times,

          The United States will deploy 300 additional troops to the Middle East following several new attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon has announced.

          The forces will deploy to undisclosed locations in the Middle East outside of Israel, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Oct. 31.

          The move follows the deployment of 900 troops to the region last week.

          While many of the troops sent last week were operating in air defense elements, the 300 now deploying will primarily focus on support tasks including communications and explosive ordnance disposal, Gen. Ryder said.

          The troops are intended to help the United States prevent the Israel-Hamas War from expanding into a regional conflict, as well as to prevent further attacks on U.S. service members.

          “They are intended to support regional deterrence efforts and further bolster U.S. force protection capabilities,” Gen. Ryder said.

          New Attacks by Iran-Backed Groups

          Gen. Ryder said that there were 27 attacks on U.S. troops by Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria throughout October.

          “Right now, we’re tracking a total of 27 attacks,” Gen. Ryder said. “16 in Iraq, 11 in Syria.”

          The Pentagon has frequently claimed that the attacks are a separate issue from the ongoing Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, but Iran and the other groups involved have stated that they will increase their attacks on U.S. troops should Israel pursue a full-fledged invasion of Gaza.

          “I think it’s important to differentiate what Iranian proxies and Iran might be saying and the perspective that we bring to this,” Gen. Ryder said. “Our forces are in Iraq and Syria for one purpose, which is the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

          “This is separate and distinct from the situation in Israel, between Israel and Hamas.”

          The attacks in Iraq and Syria have resulted in wounds to at least 21 American service members, including 19 who were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. All have since returned to duty.

          In addition to the growing number of rocket and drone attacks on U.S. and Coalition bases, several medium-range cruise missiles were launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

          The USS Carney shot down four such missiles in the Red Sea on Oct. 19.

          Pentagon leadership said that the missiles were headed north, possibly towards Israel, but that they were shot down because they were deemed a threat to the vessel.

          “We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially toward targets in Israel,” Gen. Ryder said at the time.

          The United States launched two retaliatory strikes over the weekend on facilities in Syria associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the United States designates as a terror organization.

          The escalating conflict follows an unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, when Islamist terrorists murdered more than 1,400 Israelis, abducted women and children, and engaged in acts of torture.

          Experts have warned that the Hamas terrorist organization, which receives funding and training from Iran, seeks to unleash an international conflict that will encourage more violence against Israel and the United States.

          The Biden administration has said that it retains the right to retaliate against Iran at a time and in a manner of its own choosing.

          “We know that these groups are funded, trained, and sponsored by the Iranian government,” Gen. Ryder said. “And we hold the Iranian government responsible.”

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 10:45

        • WTI Holds Gains After Small Crude Build, Cushing Just Off 'Tank Bottoms'
          WTI Holds Gains After Small Crude Build, Cushing Just Off ‘Tank Bottoms’

          Oil prices surged overnight, recovering all of yesterday’s losses after EIA made substantial upward demand revisions in its monthly reports (again) to the highest in four years. This combined with renewed war premia amid continuing escalations in the middle east with further incursions by Israel into Gaza and threats from Iran calling for exports of oil and goods from Muslim nations to Israel to stop.

          On the bright side, some foreigners and Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza for the first time since Israel began its ground invasion on Wednesday.

          Also on the bearish oil side, manufacturing in China, the world’s biggest oil importer, fell back into contraction last month.

          So what will this morning’s official inventory and production data show?

          API

          • Crude +1.35mm (+500k exp)

          • Cushing +375k

          • Gasoline -357k (-500k exp)

          • Distillates -2.48mm (-1.9mm exp)

          DOE

          • Crude +773k (+500k exp)

          • Cushing +272k

          • Gasoline +65k (-500k exp)

          • Distillates -792k (-1.9mm exp)

          Crude inventories rose – very marginally – for the second straight week and stocks at Cushing also rose (against de minimously). Distillates saw the only notable draw – 5th week in a row…

          Source: Bloomberg

          The SPR was left untouched for the 4th week in a row…

          Source: Bloomberg

          Cushing remains barely off tank bottoms…

          Source: Bloomberg

          US Crude production was steady at record highs (13.2mm b/d) as the rig count trends lower…

          Source: Bloomberg

          WTI was hovering around $83 and leaked lower after the print…

          We note that today’s bounce in WTI occurred right the 100DMA…

          Additionally, oil options are tentatively pricing in a smaller risk of escalation in the Middle East as a result of the Gaza war.

          As Bloomberg reports, a rare so-called call skew emerged – and then became extreme – in oil options trading in the days after the war began. It meant traders were willing to pay more for protection against prices spiking than for insurance against a slump.

          But, as the chart shows, while the skew remains, it has reduced significantly – indicating less confidence that the war will spread/escalate.

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 10:40

        • US Job Openings Unexpectedly Rose For A Second Month To 9.6 Million, Beating Estimates
          US Job Openings Unexpectedly Rose For A Second Month To 9.6 Million, Beating Estimates

          After today’s below-estimate ADP report, and the disappointing Manufacturing ISM index where the employment number tumbled into contraction from 51.2 to 46.8 – the second lowest since the covid crash – all eyes were on the September JOLTS report for additional insight into Friday’s jobs report. However, those expecting a big outlier print were to be disappointed after the BLS reported that in September, the number of job openings rose modestly by 56K, from a 9.497MM August print (which of course was revised lower from the original 9.610MM number, which as a reminder was driven by a staggering – and goalseeked0 – 35% increase in professional and business services job openings) to 9.553MM…

          … above consensus estimates of a 9.4MM print.

          According to the BLS, job openings increased in accommodation and food services (+141,000) and in arts, entertainment, and recreation (+39,000); job openings decreased in other services (-124,000), federal government (-43,000), and information (-41,000).

          As for last month’s “surge” in professional services job openings, it looks like we are back to reality.

          The 2nd consecutive increase in the number of job openings meant that in September the number of job openings was 3.193 million more than the number of unemployed workers, the highest since June and reversing the last three months of normalization in the labor market.

          Curiously, despite the recent surge in job openings, the concurrent increase in unemployed workers (which in September rose to 6.36 million), meant that the number of job openings for every unemployed worker was virtually unchanged for the 3rd month at 1.50.

          And while the paradoxical continued increase in job openings at a time when even the ISM institute is saying that the latest Manufacturing print implied a -0.7% Q4 GDP, remained a head-scratcher one certainly could not see a similar euphoria in the other data points tracked by the JOLTS reported, starting with the number of quits, which dropped in September to 3.661 million, down from 3.663 million, and far below the quitting frenzy observed in late 2021/early 2022 when 4.5 million workers quit their jobs every month.

          Furthermore, while the DOL goalseeked job openings higher, it forgot to do the same to not only quits but also hires; in fact, hires rose a tiny 21K to 5.5871 million, also just barely above the lowest level since March 2021.

          And while we have previously discussed the chronic fabrication of job openings data by the BLS, which goes against all private surveys, we are confident that when the Biden admin finally falls and some enterprising forensic accountant digs to find out just where all these bullshit numbers came from, what they will find is some political hack at the BLS/DOL claiming that it’s not their fault, but rather that it’s the response rate. And indeed, as the BLS itself indicates, the response rate to most of its various labor (and other) surveys has collapsed in recent years, nothing is as bad as the JOLTS report where the actual response rate has tumbled to a record low 31%

          In other words, more than two thirds, or 70% of the final number of job openings, is estimated!

          And at a time when it is critical for Biden to still maintain the illusion that at least the labor market remains strong when everything else in Biden’s economy is crashing and burning (or soaring as is the case of inflation) we’ll let readers decide if the admin’s Labor Department is plugging the estimate gap with numbers that are stronger or weaker.

          As for the market, it appears to also have given up on any signaling information from JOLTS because unlike last month when yields spiked on the JOLTS report, today’s increase in job openings had exactly zero impact on rates, which dropped to session lows, focusing far more on the ugly ISM employment number and the ADP miss, while completely ignoring the JOLTS data.

           

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 10:29

        • Bankman-Fried Admits To Wining And Dining With Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, In Last Day Of Testimony
          Bankman-Fried Admits To Wining And Dining With Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, In Last Day Of Testimony

          The end to Sam Bankman-Fried’s time on the witness stand at his own trial was, to say the least, unceremonious.

          On the last day of his cross-examination, Tuesday, SBF testified that he was aware in 2020 that FTX’s customer funds were stored in a bank account managed by its affiliate, hedge fund Alameda Research, according to CNN. He also stated he doesn’t remember instructing Alameda staff to secure those funds.

          US Assistant Attorney Danielle Sassoon also pointed out SBF’s hobnobbing with the political elite and members of the Bahamian government, CNN noted. 

          In his testimony, Bankman-Fried said he dined with the prime minister of the island, as well as former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

          After FTX temporarily halted customer withdrawals during a liquidity crisis last November, he testified that he briefly reinstated withdrawals for Bahamian customers. SBF also stated that he doesn’t remember instructing Alameda staff to avoid using FTX customer deposits.

          Then, despite later finding out in fall 2022 that Alameda owed FTX $8 billion, no one was terminated as a result, he testified. 

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

          Finally, on Tuesday, Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, allowed him to elaborate on the FTX-Alameda relationship. SBF stated that after stepping down as Alameda’s CEO, he reduced his involvement but remained engaged in its financial updates, venture investments, and crucial hedging decisions, which he viewed as vital for the firm’s survival.

          “I was essentially uninvolved with those core operations,” he claimed. 

          Judge Lewis Kaplan said at about lunchtime Tuesday: “That concludes the presentation of evidence in this case.”

          Closing arguments are slated for Wednesday.

           

          Tyler Durden
          Wed, 11/01/2023 – 10:15

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