Oct 10

Today’s News 10th October 2023

  • Where Vacation Days Are Over & Underused
    Where Vacation Days Are Over & Underused

    While nations in Asia have in the past seen reports about their workaholic ways and failure to take off days from work, a 2023 release by Expedia paints a different picture of how employees in Japan and Hong Kong handle their vacation time.

    As Statista’s Katharina Bucholz reports, according to the survey carried out in early 2023, Japanese and Hongkongese have actually requested four extra days off work on average beyond the time allotted to them in 2022. This gave them a longer average real vacation time last year than workers in Germany and France. People in these countries had more days available to them, but failed to take them all.

    Some countries such as the United States rank towards the bottom of the list when it comes to the average number of vacation days allotted (and at its very bottom when looking at statutory leave with 0 days guaranteed). Despite this, the average American worker still leaves vacation days on the table, albeit just few at an average of 1.5. A more workaholic nation in Asia is Singapore, with 17 days allotted on average and an average of 2.5 unused days. Germany and French people have more unused days on average at four and 5.5, respectively. In these two countries, average vacation days allotted per year are also more numerous, however, at 28.5 each. Guaranteed by law are 20 days in Germany and 25 in France. In the U.S., Germany and France, between 10 and 14 public holidays are added to the vacation day tally as well. In Japan, this number is even higher at 16 days.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 02:45

  • 6 Takeaways From AfD's Massive Gains In Bavaria And Hesse Regional Elections
    6 Takeaways From AfD’s Massive Gains In Bavaria And Hesse Regional Elections

    Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

    While the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Socialists (CSU) received the most votes in the regional elections of Hesse and Bavaria, the headline news story across Germany is the Alternative for Germany’s (AFD) overperformance in both states. The outcome of the election is reverberating throughout Germany, with implications for the federal level as well. On the issues of immigration, the economy, and green energy, the AfD is pulling ahead, while the ruling left-liberals will be left searching for answers after an election shellacking.

    Here are six takeaways from the election results and what they could mean for the future political landscape of the country.

    AfD may be stronger than the polls say

    With both Bavaria and Hesse combined, the AfD party will now have 70 seats, a 50 percent increase compared to its previous 2018 elections. The party actually did better than the polls said it would, which had already painted a rosy picture for the anti-sanctions, anti-immigration party.

    For example, AfD was polling at around 16 percent in Hesse, but actually ended up in second at 18.4 percent, while in Bavaria the AfD is on par with the Greens and Free Voters, where it earned 15.8 percent, making it the third-largest party.

    The party has for years had a stable level of support at around 10 to 12 percent, but in the last year, it has soared in the polls up to 23 percent and continues to hover at 21 percent.

    Many new potential AfD voters may be “shy” voters who are afraid to express their support to pollsters, meaning that pollsters may not be capturing the full picture. The party is, after all, facing a potential ban, openly mocked and attacked by the political and journalistic establishment, and supporters of the party along with politicians have been physically assaulted in the past.

    Furthermore, with the AfD’s success in local elections, it may begin to “normalize” the party in the eyes of voters, which could contribute to more open support for the party — and even a jump in the polls — going into the future.

    Germans are fed up with mass migration

    In the run-up to the elections, Remix News reported a new groundbreaking poll showing a huge majority of Germans wanted fewer migrants and also saw migrants bringing fewer advantages than disadvantages.

    If we look at the polling surrounding these specific elections, it only cements the reality that Germans are remarkably shifting against mass immigration.

    For example, in Bavaria, immigration was rated as the second most important factor by voters, behind the economy, with 48 percent of all respondents telling Infratest dimap that they “welcomed” that the AfD wanted to limit the number of foreigners and refugees more strongly. In Hesse, 42 percent backed the AfD’s anti-immigration policies. In Hesse, the issue of immigration was decisive for 18 percent of voters in terms of their vote, meaning that this was their number one issue.

    This polling data shows the massive disconnect between the left-liberal mainstream that promotes mass immigration in the media and culture and the actual sentiment of the German people.

    The AfD’s Robert Lambrou, who was second on his party’s election list in Hesse, leaned heavily into the issue of migration during the campaign. Notably, he not only called for faster deportations but stated that skilled legal immigrants should only be accepted in exceptional circumstances and then only from “neighboring countries that are culturally close to Germany.”

    AfD rises in the west

    The AfD has been historically strong in the east of the country, but with a result of over 18 percent in Hesse, it marks the first major breakthrough in the west of the country. The results come as the AfD recently broke the 20 percent mark in wealthy Baden-Württemberg, the first time it has achieved such a result in a western state.

    Notably, the German mainstream is now noting that the AfD’s rise in two Western states is not a fluke or a mere protest vote, with Taggeschau writing:

    To interpret the strong results in both states as just a protest election would be too short-sighted. More and more people are voting for the AfD out of conviction. The current situation benefits the party: Asylum and refugee policy concerns many people, and support for a more restrictive migration policy is growing, as data from Infratest dimap shows. At the same time, fewer and fewer voters in both states have a problem with voting for a party that is partly right-wing extremist. And it is not just in migration policy that it is increasingly being given authority: more people are also placing their hope in the far-right party when it comes to the issues of internal security, the economy and social justice.

    Such an acknowledgment from the state-run Tagesschau regarding the AfD is big news all in itself.

    Massive blow to the traffic-light government

    Besides the AfD, the other big outcome was how incredibly poorly Germany’s left-liberal government performed in the election. Now, the political fallout could be felt for months and even years.

    For starters, the business liberals of the Free Democrats (FDP) were completely wiped out and failed to obtain the 5 percent needed to enter parliament in both states. It follows a long string of election losses for the party, which has been accused of abandoning many of its principles in its coalition alliance at the federal level. The party is now suffering the consequences, with the results likely sending party leadership scrambling to avert all-out disaster. The FDP, which has already criticized its coalition partners at the federal level, will undoubtedly be seeking out a more independent path in the future, which could lead to a serious governing crisis for Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    However, the SPD and Greens also fared poorly, particularly the SPD, which earned an abysmal 8 percent in Bavaria and only 15.1 percent in Hesse, both historic lows. The Greens earned 14 percent in both Bavaria and Hesse, a substantial drop in both instances from their previous election results.

    There is in all likelihood trouble ahead for this coalition, and the far-left Interior Minister Nancy Faeser could still lose her job over her party’s election debacle in Hesse, although there are currently denials from top party brass that this is a possibility post-election.

    The CDU could shift further right

    Of course, the CDU is also taking note of the AfD’s rise. The CSU, the sister party of the CDU, saw 100,000 of its voters shift to the AfD in Bavaria. In short, the AfD could quickly cut into the CDU’s base, especially over the issue of immigration.

    According to German state-run media outlet Tagesschau, it also sees the CDU potentially shifting its stance over the issue, writing: “These results may well lead to a shift in the policies of the mainstream conservative CDU towards a stricter stance on migration. The votes — and the preceding campaign largely focused on national rather than regional issues — may also force the government to revisit its policy of phasing out fossil fuels.”

    Will anything change?

    Despite the AfD’s surge and a mass rejection of the left, the two elections are notable for another key reason. In both Bavaria and Hesse, both governing coalitions survived. In Bavaria, the CSU can continue governing with the Free Voters, and in Hesse, the CDU could form a theoretical coalition with the Greens once again. In other words, the status quo was maintained.

    The AfD may have seen a serious boost in both states, but for now, all parties have vowed to never work with the party. In the short term, the AfD is working to create the conditions that make it increasingly difficult for ruling parties to form status quo coalitions. In the long term, it sees the only viable path to power through a coalition with the CDU. The big question mark is if and when that will ever happen.

    Many voters may agree with the AfD’s positions on a range of issues, but many are mentally conditioned to never consider voting for the party. The CDU and other parties are aware of this and will continue to hone their message to keep their voters from straying too far away, even if they plan to maintain the status quo once they achieve power.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 02:00

  • Israel Shows Why Americans Have Right To "Weapons of War" For Self-Defense
    Israel Shows Why Americans Have Right To “Weapons of War” For Self-Defense

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    As videos emerge from Israel about the recent invasion by Hamas, it should become clear that the Second Amendment here in the US is “Necessary to the security of a free state.”

    While gun control continues to be pushed by the Biden administration, Israel, a state lauded by gun control advocates for its strict regulations, has axed some of its gun control measures in an attempt to fight the recent terrorist invasion.

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    It’s no wonder that Israel has realized that their gun control measures are getting their citizens hurt or worse. Horrifying video from border towns near Gaza shows Hamas fighters going house to house looking for Israelis.

    Without access to firearms, Israeli citizens are helpless to defend themselves against these heavily armed fighters, resulting in kidnappings and killings.

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    While Israel removing some of its firearms regulations is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, gun ownership still comes with heavy restrictions and unnecessary bureaucratic red tape.

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    During the hours of the initial invasion, US Senators continued to tweet support for gun control while similar policies were resulting in deaths across the ocean.

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    Additionally, to those that say “that could never happen here” regarding the United States, be aware that the ATF recently notified FFLs in border states warning firearms dealers about straw purchases of 50 caliber and belt-fed firearms.

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    These threats are precisely why Americans have the right to own “weapons of war” for self-defense. Politicians who push gun control should realize that their actions will only empower criminals and terrorists.

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    *   *   * 

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 23:30

  • Online Child Pornography Skyrockets
    Online Child Pornography Skyrockets

    The amount of online child sexual abuse has skyrocketed in the past few years, according to the latest annual report of the UK-based NGO and watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). As many as 255,588 URLs were confirmed to contain images or videos of the abuse last year, up from 132,676 URLs in 2019.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this rise is partly being linked to the pandemic, when lockdowns meant more people – including younger children – were staying at home and turning online for longer periods of time than before. According to child safety experts, this increased exposure could have left them more vulnerable to communities of criminals looking to find and manipulate children into recording their own sexual abuse on camera.

    According to the report, “self-generated” content has become particularly prevalent in this time, with the number of confirmed URLs containing images or videos of “self-generated” material rising from 38,424 confirmed cases in 2019 to 199,363 in 2022.

    This is where children have been groomed and coerced into taking the images without the abuser present in the room, which have then been put online.

    Infographic: Online Child Pornography Skyrockets | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    These images are most often taken at home, in a child’s bedroom or a bathroom.

    The IWF notes that the term “self-generated” child sexual abuse is limited in that it does not fully encompass the full range of factors often present within this imagery, and which appears to place the blame with the victim themselves. They note:

    “Children are not responsible for their own sexual abuse. Until a better term is found, however, we will continue to use the term ‘self-generated’ as, within the online safety and law enforcement sectors, this is well recognised.”

    Of the 255,571 web pages actioned during 2022, over three quarters (199,363 or 78 percent) were assessed as containing “self-generated” imagery.

    This is a six percentage point increase on 2021 when 72 percent of actioned reports (or 182,281) were captured in this way. Girls aged 11-13 were the group that appeared most frequently in this content.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 23:00

  • China Makes Advances In Space Lasers, Microwave Weapons
    China Makes Advances In Space Lasers, Microwave Weapons

    Authored by Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The People’s Liberation Army, the army of the Chinese Communist Party, recently announced a breakthrough on a key weapons programs that may change the nature of war.

    The Long March-2F rocket carrying China’s manned Shenzhou-10 spacecraft blasts off from launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, on June 11, 2013. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

    Chinese scientists claim they’ve had unexpected success in developing a high-powered microwave (HPM) weapon, according to The Diplomat. The magazine notes that in January, Huang Wenhua, deputy director of China’s Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, was awarded for his research on directed energy, which HPM weapons use.

    HPM systems are able to destroy electronic equipment, and in an age when most combat systems—from tanks to planes, radios to satellites—rely on electronics, the weapons could change the way wars are fought. Warships will be fitted with HPM weapons to intercept incoming missiles.

    The HPM project, alongside other projects involving lasers and electromagnetic pulses, is part of the Chinese regime’s “Assassin’s Mace” (or “Trump Card”) program designed to defeat a technologically superior opponent by disabling or destroying the technology that makes the opponent superior.

    Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant, wrote in his 2016 book “The Hundred-Year Marathon” that the first time the United States lost a simulated war game was when his team was asked to employ China’s Assassin’s Mace weapons as the opposition.

    He wrote that in the exercises, “whenever the China team used conventional tactics and strategies, America won—decisively. However, in every case where China employed Assassin’s Mace methods, China was the victor.”

    According to Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, the Chinese regime’s new developments go even beyond the Assassin’s Mace program and represent an overall pivot toward “fifth-generation warfare concepts.”

    It is a shift toward the areas of cyberwarfare, electronic warfare, and space warfare, using autonomous weapons.

    The key to this shift, he said, is the Chinese military’s new Strategic Support Force branch, introduced in December 2015. Fisher said the new branch brings the military’s new weapons under one roof and demonstrates “the weaponization of broad information capabilities, plus the weaponization of outer space.”

    The idea of space warfare, in particular, was center stage during the Cold War. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which is now ratified by 105 countries. It set laws on the use of outer space and banned any nation from stationing nuclear warheads in space.

    What the program did not forbid, however, was the use of conventional weapons in space, and China, in particular, has been developing weapons designed to destroy or disable satellites—which are the Achilles’ heel of the U.S. military.

    The National Interest, an international affairs magazine, reported on March 10 that “China’s military is developing powerful lasers, electromagnetic railguns, and high-power microwave weapons for use in a future ‘light war’ involving space-based attacks on satellites.”

    It cites a Chinese military journal from 2013, in which researchers disclosed the idea of placing a five-ton chemical laser in low-earth orbit. They wrote that “in future wars, the development of ASAT [anti-satellite] weapons is very important” and that “the space-based laser weapon system will be one of the major ASAT development projects.”

    The Diplomat article reported on March 11 that China’s developments on high-powered microwave weapons “would undermine the efficacy of even the most advanced U.S. missiles,” and “applications could also include its use as an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon or incorporation with missiles in order to overcome enemy air defenses.”

    Fisher said that by using the space-based laser platform, China would “realize the dream of Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative,” as it grants them a large-scale defense system that could intercept warheads.

    Fisher said that overall, the threat of fifth-generation weapons systems is growing, and that Chinese military doctrine and developments are making a significant push in this direction.

    With its proposed laser system, in particular, he said that in a war scenario with China, they could “take down all of our satellites that we’re using to target China, to communicate with our forces, to conduct optical or electronic surveillance. We could very quickly become blind and vulnerable to Chinese strikes; and if we did launch our own strikes, these lasers could shoot down incoming warheads.”

    Fisher said this system would go far beyond the anti-ballistic missile system known as THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, that the United States is currently deploying in South Korea.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 22:30

  • One Of China's Biggest Commodity Traders Goes Missing 
    One Of China’s Biggest Commodity Traders Goes Missing 

    He Jinbi, the founder and chairman of Maike Metals International, one of China’s top commodities traders, has reportedly gone missing in recent days and is suspected to be in police custody, as reported by Bloomberg, citing sources close to the situation. 

    Colleagues have not heard from Jinbi for several days. The people indicated that Jinbi “was escorted by police for questioning in his home province of Shaanxi.” The reasons for Jinbi’s detention were not immediately known to the people. 

    Over the past year, Maike, based in Xi’an in Shaanxi province, and Jinbi have faced legal scrutiny by creditors, especially after the firm experienced severe challenges paying for imported copper. The company, responsible for a quarter of China’s copper imports, was crushed by repeated Coivd lockdowns last year and, a deepening property market collapse and ongoing economic slump. 

    Maike’s troubles outline how one of China’s biggest commodity trading houses has stumbled into a crisis as the multi-decade commodity supercycle for raw materials falters in the world’s second-largest economy. Also, banks have increasingly grown cautious toward the commodity sector, adding further pressure on Maike’s ability to raise additional capital. 

    In an interview last fall, Jinbi told the Financial Times, “We’re actively selling assets and equities to replenish our liquidity and reduce debt.” He said Maike was “breaking arms to survive,” an expression that means sacrificing parts of the business to save it from bankruptcy.

    “The entire private sector has encountered a lot of liquidity difficulties, and we are no exception,” he said. “Now it’s all about the survival of the fittest.”

    In February, Maike filed a request to a court for “preliminary restructuring” as it aimed to restart copper trading operations. Bloomberg noted Maike’s “continued absence from the market has weighed on liquidity in China’s copper trade.” 

    We noted in April, “And when Maike Metals International ran into trouble later last year, JPMorgan was left with around 30,000 tons of copper it had been financing for the trading company in Shanghai. In the end, the bank was able to sell the metal without major losses, the people said, but the episode highlighted the risks of trading in China’s base metals industry. Maike has since filed a request for a court-led restructuring.” 

    By July, ING Groep NV in Hong Kong sued Jinbi for $147 million in unpaid debt. The combination of Maike’s short-term obligations and illiquid property portfolio makes it very hard for the trading firm to raise additional capital. 

    Mystery still revolves around why Jinbi was taken into custody by police. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 22:00

  • COVID Reinfections Clear Faster, Including In Unvaccinated People: Study
    COVID Reinfections Clear Faster, Including In Unvaccinated People: Study

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

    Reinfections cleared faster than initial COVID-19 infections, including among people who never received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new study.

    Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. (NIAID via The Epoch Times)

    People infected with COVID-19 for a second time cleared the illness a mean of 6.6 days, compared with a mean of 9.3 days for the initial infection, U.S. and British researchers reported in the paper.

    Researchers drew the findings from 1,796 first infections and 193 second infections.

    The difference held for a subset of 71 people who had two well-documented infections.

    Among that subset, the mean clearance time was 6.3 days, down from 9.2 days.

    “Immunity from a first SARS-CoV-2 infection affects the viral kinetics of a second SARS-CoV-2 infection principally by speeding up viral clearance and thus shortening the overall time of acute infection,” the researchers, including Dr. Yonatan Grad of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote.

    SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

    The researchers also found that people who cleared infections quickly the first time also cleared them quickly the second time.

    “While prior infection and vaccination can modulate a person’s viral kinetics in absolute terms, there may also exist some further immunological mechanism, conserved across sequential infections, that determines one’s strength of immune response against SARS-CoV-2 relative to others in the population,” the researchers posited.

    The analysis was based on COVID-19 tests taken from players, staff members, and affiliates of the National Basketball Association between March 11, 2020, and July 28, 2022.

    Limitations include the population being primarily young, male, and healthy, though adjustments were made for age. Researchers also said that people who were infected multiple times “may differ in important immunological and behavioral ways from those who only underwent one infection during the study period.”

    Earlier studies have estimated strong protection from natural immunity, or prior infection, against severe illness, but that the shielding against infection waned over time.

    “This research supports the textbook expectation and other papers in that our immune systems clear SARS-CoV-2 faster 2nd time,” Kasper Planeta Kepp, a computational biologist who was not involved in the research, wrote on X.

    Vaccine Impact

    Like many U.S. businesses, the basketball association imposed harsher restrictions on unvaccinated players, leading to most receiving a vaccine. The association also imposed a vaccine mandate on workers.

    Most of the people with documented infections had received a vaccine. Of the 1,796 first infections, 1,095 were among the vaccinated. Some had received a booster. Another 574 had an unknown vaccination status. Just 127 were unvaccinated.

    Of the 193 people who experienced documented reinfections, 160 were vaccinated. Another 25 had an unknown vaccination status. Just eight were unvaccinated.

    A person was not counted as vaccinated until 14 days had passed following their second Moderna or Pfizer shot, or 14 days after a single Johnson & Johnson shot. That counting method has been used widely because vaccine proponents argue that it takes two weeks for the vaccines to have a full impact. Critics have noted the method obscures some infections, because infections do happen in the initial days following vaccination.

    The total number of people who tested, regardless of whether they tested positive, was not listed by vaccination status.

    Researchers said they did not detect “significant differences in viral kinetics” when comparing the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. Kinetics include the clearance time and the peak viral concentration.

    They also found that the kinetics of reinfection did not differ significantly based on the virus variant with which the person was infected. The study period covered the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants.

    The researchers were funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Yale University, the National Basketball Players Association, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Disclosures included one researcher with a consulting agreement with the National Basketball Association and Moderna, which makes a COVID-19 vaccine, and another with a consulting agreement with the league.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 21:30

  • Bumble & Tinder Top Dating Apps In US
    Bumble & Tinder Top Dating Apps In US

    Bumble and Tinder are the most popular dating apps in the US.

    As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, Bumble, which makes women initiate the conversation, has been making strides and has caught up to older service Tinder in the U.S., according to Statista Consumer Insights.

    The female-led company behind the Bumble app went public on March 10, 2021, raising $2.15 billion.

    In the Statista survey, 38 percent of U.S. dating app users said they had used Bumble in the past 12 months – the same number as Tinder.

    Infographic: The Most Popular Dating Apps in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In the following ranks were Plenty of Fish, Badoo and LGBTQ+ service Grindr.

    Casual platform Ashley Madison was the most popular paid service, reaching 40 percent of paying customers, an identical result with the premium subscription of Tinder, which appealed to just as many.

    9 percent of Americans said most recently that they were users of online dating services, while around 6 percent were using dating and matchmaking services offline.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 21:00

  • In US, Concern Over An Increasing Number Of Boy Victims Of Human Trafficking
    In US, Concern Over An Increasing Number Of Boy Victims Of Human Trafficking

    Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    When Elijah Muhammad was 12, his parents, members of an unnamed cult headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas, received a call from one of the executive representatives of the group, saying that it was “the will of God” that Mr. Muhammad and his brother begin their “pilgrimage into manhood.”

    Lugging gallon jugs of water, illegal immigrants thread their way along footpaths just north of the Mexico/Arizona border. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)

    His parents agreed and allowed Mr. Muhammad and his brother to travel 600 miles to Kansas City in the back of an 18-wheeler semi-truck.

    Once there, Mr. Muhammad began his “pilgrimage” by working a daily shift from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. as a dishwasher in a restaurant owned by the cult. During his limited downtime, Mr. Muhammad lived in a small apartment with “dozens of boys and men.”

    “One time, I showed up late for work,” Mr. Muhammad said during a TEDx talk. “Almost immediately upon walking through the doorway of the small diner, I found myself on the floor bleeding after being hit in the mouth with a Yellow Page[s] phonebook.

    “Attempting to stand to my feet, the man began to beat me on the back until I passed out. Acts of violence were not of rare occasion at all.”

    Mr. Muhammad was the victim of labor trafficking, which the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines as “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

    It’s also a significantly underreported problem in the United States and is much more prevalent than sex trafficking.

    Trafficking, which is exploitation-based, is different from human smuggling, which is transport-based.

    Human smuggling is the act of bringing people into the United States involving “deliberate evasion of immigration laws, as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of noncitizens already in the United States,” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    But, smuggling can lead to trafficking, and often does.

    Sue Aboul-hosn, the regional human trafficking prevention coordinator for the Florida Department of Children and Families, cited data from a Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) report that looked at data from 2012 to 2018.

    She said that 71 percent of trafficked victims are forced into labor, 20 percent are exploited for commercial sex, and nine percent experience both sex and labor trafficking.

    But 91 percent of trafficking investigations concern sex trafficking, according to the State Department’s Office for Victims of Crime.  Five percent of investigations were labor-related, and four percent were both sex and labor, Ms. Aboul-hosn said during a human trafficking summit in Florida on Oct. 3.

    And while sex trafficking of women and girls has received considerable attention, human trafficking of boys is growing significantly. It’s now almost identical to the percentage of girls trafficked—girls account for 18 percent of trafficking victims. Boys now account for 17 percent, the DOD’s 2023 Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report found.

    Labor Trafficking

    According to the National Institute of Justice, determining exact numbers for human trafficking is impossible due to the “covert and criminal nature” of the practice.

    However, the Global Slavery Index, published by the International Labor Organization (ILO), is considered the most accurate.

    In its latest report, the ILO estimated that 49.6 million people are being trafficked globally—with 27.6 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. Women and girls make up a majority of those in forced marriages.

    Within the forced labor category, the ILO reported 17.3 million victims in the private sector, while 6.4 million are being exploited for commercial sex, and 3.9 million are in forced labor imposed by the state.

    Of the forced labor victims in the private sector, 11.3 million are men and boys and 6 million are women and girls. In the sexual exploitation industry, 4.9 million victims are women and girls and 1.5 million are men and boys. More than 3.3 million victims of forced labor are children.

    Forced labor human trafficking. (Courtesy of The Exodus Road)

    The United States doesn’t aggregate human trafficking numbers at the national level, “making the true number of cases reported difficult to ascertain,” however, the Global Slavery Index estimates suggest that on any given day, 1.1 million people are being trafficked in the United States.

    The estimate is based on National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH) data, which separates labor and sex trafficking.

    The primary venues for labor trafficking in the United States are domestic work, agriculture and farm work, construction, restaurant and food service, and illicit activity (for example, forcing someone to smuggle drugs or commit other criminal activity), according to the Human Trafficking Hotline.

    The organization also found that while a fair amount of reported trafficking cases include U.S. citizens, such as Mr. Muhammad, more than half of reported trafficking cases (1,086 out of 1,741) involve foreign nationals.

    California, Texas, and Florida have the highest percent of reported cases at 12.8 percent, 8.8 percent, and 7.5 percent, respectively.

    New York came in at a distant fourth with 3.9 percent of reported cases.

    The State Department’s 2023 trafficking report found that while women and girls still account for approximately 60 percent of identified victims of human trafficking, “the percentage of boys … more than quintupled between 2004 and 2020.”

    Overlooking Boys

    Nearly twice the number of men than women are in forced labor situations, and illegal immigrant men and boys are especially at risk, according to ILO.

    “Imagine you woke up in a place where you don’t know the culture, you don’t know the laws, and you don’t know what resources are available and how to access them,” said Harold Henry D’ Souza, co-founder of Eyes Open International, in the State Department’s trafficking report.

    “Imagine that you thought you were going to achieve a better life for yourself and your family but find yourself on a floor with no bed. You’re working 16 hours a day. Imagine you have no food and no money because someone you trusted took the small amount of money you had ‘to keep it safe’ and provided you a one-bedroom apartment, then threatened you with arrest and deportation if you didn’t continue working without pay,” Mr. D’Souza said in the report.

    “Perpetrators in America use a variation of four words to silence foreign national victims. Traffickers shout to the victims, ‘I will get you 1) arrested, 2) handcuffed, 3) jailed, 4) deported.'”

    Illegal immigrants discovered in the bed of a pickup truck in Kinney County, Texas, on June 14, 2021. (Kinney County Sheriff’s Office)

    Ms. Aboul-hosn said a factor leading to the increased number of trafficked boys in the United States is that once an unaccompanied minor is apprehended at the border, they’re placed into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of Health and Human Services (HHS).

    “Usually, they are intercepted at the border, and they go through ORR, and ORR tries to find them a sponsor who they can go live with while they’re going through the process of applying for asylum or refugee status through the court,” Ms. Aboul-hosn said.

    “And through this process, there’s a lot of inadequate screening and supervision of the placement. … There are a lot of good sponsors out there who are doing it for the right reasons, but there’s some out there that are really just wanting to exploit the child.”

    The vast majority of sponsors are family members of the child who are also in the country illegally, according to ORR.

    Ms. Aboul-hosn said that in 2022, ORR released 55,960 children to sponsors throughout the United States and only conducted 8,618 home studies.

    “So only 15 percent of these kids, when they’re placed with a sponsor, had any type of home study or background being done,” she said.

    Once a trafficker has a child under their control, Ms. Aboul-hosn said they’ll keep that kid’s money and charge them for things like rent, food, and other “debts.”

    She said most of the boys being trafficked are traveling to the United States from the Northern Triangle countries of  Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The boys are usually 15 years or older, have no legal documentation, and little education. Most don’t speak English and distrust authorities, making them perfect victims for traffickers.

    HHS Failures

    In 2014, a teenager from Guatemala called his uncle in Florida, begging for help. He said he was being kept against his will and forced to work at an egg farm called Trillium Farms in Ohio. His traffickers told the boy that if he didn’t “pay back his debt,” they’d “shoot your dad two or three times.” His uncle agreed to help and contacted the sheriff in Collier City, Florida.

    The resulting investigation by federal prosecutors into Trillium Farms revealed that traffickers had detained approximately 45 people, and at least 10 were victims of trafficking, including eight minors. Four people pleaded guilty to participating in a human trafficking scheme, and one, Pablo Duran Ramirez, admitted that he knew some of the workers were unaccompanied minors, who’d been threatened or coerced. On June 19, 2020, Mr. Ramirez was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and ordered to pay a $67,232 fine. Trillium Farms was not charged in the case.

    Former slave Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos demonstrates how he clears brush with his sickle on a piece of land in Monsenhor Gil, Brazil, on April 8, 2015. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    In a press release after the sentencing, U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, said, “Ramirez exploited the desperation of migrant workers and, in some instances, their children for his own personal financial gain.”

    The other defendants, Ana Angelica Pedro-Juan, of Guatemala, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, of Guatemala, and Conrado Salgado-Soto, of Mexico, also pled guilty to participating in a labor trafficking scheme. Mr. Castillo-Serrano, the leader of the scheme, was sentenced to 188 months in prison, while Ms. Pedro-Juan, who oversaw the victims in Ohio, was sentenced to 120 months, and Mr. Salgado-Soto, a subcontractor, was sentenced to 51 months.

    A separate investigation led by then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) found that HHS was responsible for releasing the boys to the traffickers in Ohio.

    “We’ve got these kids. They’re here. They’re living on our soil, and for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat out wrong,” Mr. Portman said. “I don’t care what you think about immigration policy. It’s wrong.”

    During Mr. Portman’s committee investigation, HHS told the committee that it had strengthened its procedures regarding children. However, the committee found more than 12 other cases of trafficking related to the Trillion Farms case and reported, “It’s impossible to know just how many more victims there are.”

    Unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS’s ORR by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

    In fiscal year 2022, DHS referred 128,904 unaccompanied children to ORR.

    “Approximately 72 percent of all children referred were over 14 years of age, and 64 percent were boys,” HHS reported.

    The children were mostly from Guatemala (47 percent), followed by Honduras (29 percent), El Salvador (13 percent), and other countries (11 percent) in fiscal 2022, HHS said.

    On Oct. 4, HHS reported that it currently has 10,818 unaccompanied children in its care. The agency noted that the average length of time an unaccompanied child remains in ORR’s care is 24 days, but “is working to further reduce length of care in ways that do not jeopardize the safety or welfare of the children.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 20:35

  • "A Real Trend": Trump Now Ahead Of Biden In Key Battleground States According To Polls
    “A Real Trend”: Trump Now Ahead Of Biden In Key Battleground States According To Polls

    After a summer replete with martyr-making indictments and other legal controversies, former President Donald Trump’s political vigor remains unassailable. Recent polls from battleground states and on the national stage delineate a narrative that leans in favor of Trump, showcasing his astonishing and perhaps unforeseen political resilience.

    “Trump can absolutely win a general election, that has always been true, and his odds get better every day Joe Biden is president,” pollster Nathan Klein of OnMessage told the Daily Caller. Trump has continued to make strides in recent polls, albeit with leads in many swing states situated within the margin of error, presenting a cautious optimism within his camp.

    Among states with the narrowest margins of victory in 2020, such as Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin—Trump is firmly ahead of Biden at 41% vs. 35%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll from mid-September. Indeed, the shift in political currents has been noteworthy, all while President Biden’s approval rating languishes around 40%.

    States that were pivotal in 2020, such as Pennsylvania, where Trump currently leads Biden by 2 points, and Georgia, where he is ahead by 9 points, signal not just a tepid approval for the Biden administration but a potential recalibration of political allegiances and sentiments among American voters.

    “Remember, Trump lost Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin by a collective 40,000 votes. The hypothesis that Biden would have a breezy route to re-election if Trump becomes the nominee was, from inception, deeply flawed,” Klein noted.

    “As Biden’s likeability has waned, we’re seeing a real trend of voters being drawn back in by Trump’s policies,” he continued. “As Trump now sits on a small put persistent lead in national polls, if he continues to win back a few thousand of the voters he lost in 2020 the path to victory certainly exists.”

    Biden’s support has been on a downward trajectory across diverse demographic and political spectra. Crucial issues such as crime and immigration have been described by critics as “rampant mismanagement,” causing many Americans to sour on the administration. “Around 60% of Americans now disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration, an all-time high,” Klein added.

    In late September, a McLaughlin & Associates survey suggested that Trump would emerge victorious over Biden by 43% to 38% in a national head-to-head matchup.

    “We are positioned to win the presidency, and we must defeat Joe Biden,” emphasized John McLaughlin, CEO and partner of McLaughlin & Associates, echoing a robust confidence within the Trump team. McLaughlin ascribes Trump’s advantageous position to the American people’s “buyers’ remorse” and a comparative review of the records of both candidates, particularly relating to the economy, crime, and border issues.

    An aggregate of polls also has Trump wiping the floor with Biden. Via RealClear Politics:

    Kyle Kondik, a nonpartisan polling analyst, cautions about the predictive validity of these early head-to-head matchups but does acknowledge the current data’s indication of a “close and competitive” race.

    But can Trump solidify his lead and convert it into a tangible victory? According to GOP polling analyst Jon McHenry, even though other Republican nominees might stand a better chance against Biden, Trump could theoretically clinch victory on an economic basis. However, he recognizes that the situation is too tight to definitively forecast.

    “We have such a unique situation right now with both party’s leading candidates in negative territory on their favorable to unfavorable ratings — and the current and previous officeholder. Reelection campaigns are typically a two-step process as a referendum on the incumbent: first, does he or she deserve reelection, and second, would the other candidate do better? I think right now President Biden is losing the referendum, with voters disapproving of his job overall, and especially on the economy and immigration,” said McHenry. “But if the choice is between two candidates with 35 to 40 percent favorables, voters are likely to choose the one who had the better economy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 20:10

  • US Gives More Than $4.1 Billion In Grants For LGBT Initiatives Worldwide
    US Gives More Than $4.1 Billion In Grants For LGBT Initiatives Worldwide

    Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times,

    During the past three fiscal years, $4.1 billion in federal money from taxpayers has been flowing to LGBT initiatives in the United States and around the world, an Epoch Times investigation has revealed.

    From Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2023, the U.S. government issued more than 1,100 grants to fund LGBT-promoting projects around the world, according to the Epoch Times review of a federal spending website.

    The scope of projects varies widely.

    Plans to create a “safe space for LGBTQ youth and adults to seek support and resources” earned a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. government in 2022 for the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, Virginia.

    A proposal for encouraging “diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia” also was a winning plan. To fund it, the U.S. government awarded Serbian activist group Grupa Izadji a grant of $500,000.

    An Armenian activist group, the Pink Human Rights Defender, received $1 million from the United States “to empower the LGBTI community” in Armenia, a tiny country next to Turkey.

    The federal spending website can be filtered to show entries that include specific keywords. A list of payouts filtered by using the keyword “LGBT” included 1,181 grants, 31 loans, and nine direct payments during the past three fiscal years.

    Overall, during the past fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the government issued 454,821 grants.

    Government grants provide free money for specific purposes. Federal loans can be repaid over long periods of time at low interest rates. Direct payments from the government give money to groups—they may be unrestricted, or for a specific use.

    Of grants connected to the keyword “LGBT,” individual payouts of at least $1 million totaled more than $3.7 billion combined. Many additional smaller grants also were awarded for LGBT initiatives but were not reviewed.

    When the list was filtered for grants including the word “transgender,” 574 were listed. In that category, grants that paid out at least $1 million totaled nearly $478 million. Seven direct payments and nine loans with the keyword “transgender” also were issued by the U.S. government.

    An independent researcher who asked to remain anonymous has been tracking how the federal government spends money on grants related to gender ideology.

    He started the work when he was laid off from his oil field job in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. After doing some digging, he was shocked to learn that, while he and his friends got little relief from the federal government, taxpayer dollars poured into LGBT activist causes, he said.

    “I just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “We’re all getting laid off, getting exempted from all this COVID money that’s getting handed out to everybody, and nobody seemed to give a [expletive].”

    He now works at a politically left-wing oil company, he said. And his superiors likely would object to how he now presents his findings on social media, he told The Epoch Times.

    “I could write for 20 years about just the money that’s already been spent over the past three or four years,” he said.

    The oil worker-turned-investigator shares his findings on X under the handle Randoland.us. The account has more than 12,000 followers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

    “If you search for grants from the [U.S.] Department of Education with the word ‘equity’ in them, it’ll blow your mind how much money is being spent just on equity-aligned initiatives,” he said. He figures he’s uncovered about $240 million in “grants going toward equity initiatives.”

    Rainbow Revolution

    One discovery revealed an ongoing grant paid to Emory University so researchers can study “the rectal mucosal effects of cross-sex hormone therapy among U.S. and Thai transgender women,” The Epoch Times confirmed.

    Activists rallying to support people who identify as transgender gather on the steps of City Hall, in New York, New York, on Oct. 24, 2018. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    The project started in 2019 with a projected end date of July 2024. According to the government website, researchers will receive almost $3.5 million from the U.S. government to do the work.

    The project is categorized under “allergy and infectious diseases research,” with the stated purpose to “assist public and private nonprofit institutions and individuals to establish, expand, and improve biomedical research and research training in infectious diseases and related areas,” according to the federal spending website.

    Some small grants focus on studies that examine equally tiny portions of the population.

    One grant recipient examines the impact of alcohol on intimate partner violence in transgender and non-gender-conforming adults, The Epoch Times confirmed.

    A 2023 project received nearly $350,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to translate the Homosaurus—a thesaurus of LGBT terms—into Spanish.

    The Homosaurus website includes definitions for sexual terms such as: “anonymous sex,” “aromantic porn films,” “pederasts,” “children’s sexuality,” and “gay children.”

    The Homosaurus has reclassified as “fetishes” the words “gerontophilia,” “ephebophilia,” and “hebephilia,” Greek words that mean sexual attraction to the elderly, people 15-19, and children 11-14, respectively.

    The Epoch Times contacted the NEH about the grant but received no response.

    A rainbow flag hangs below the American flag near the entrance to the U.S. embassy in Moscow, on June 25, 2021. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

    LGBT cultural projects in America that received funding include more than $333,000 for an LGBT radio and television “digitization and access project.”

    Another provided $324,000 to map “historical LGBTQ spaces through gay travel guides.”

    One grant offers $1 million “to advance the human rights and social inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people” worldwide. The money went to Outright Action, an American activist group dedicated to global LGBT advocacy operating in many countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, the Philippines, Iran, and China.

    Another grant pays for a “social biography of same-sex desire in postcolonial Ireland.”

    One provides funding to chronicle contributions to “gender identity development” among Belarusian teenage girls in vulnerable families.

    LGBT Initiatives in Schools

    The government directed LGBT grants at American educational institutions, as well.

    And Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice isn’t happy about it.

    “The federal government is using the grant process to change the culture and climate in America’s public schools,” Ms. Justice told The Epoch Times.

    In her experience as a local school board member, she saw government-funded activist groups lead the ideological capture of schools, she said.

    “The grants go to ‘community partners,’ and ‘community partners’ then go in, and they work to change the procedure in the schools” to favor and teach LGBT activist worldviews, she said.

    Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty. (Tiffany Justice/Moms for Liberty)

    The federal government pursues this policy of “cultural revolution” against the will of more than 70 percent of Americans, according to polls by Moms for Liberty, Ms. Justice said.

    A recent poll by the group found that more than 70 percent of Americans want schools to teach basic educational skills and do not want gender ideology or sexual orientation instruction in classrooms, Ms. Justice said.

    Yet money flows to these projects.

    The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) gave $1.2 million to “LGBTQIA+ pride centers” in the San Diego Community College District.

    Another DOE grant of almost $1.6 million was awarded for North Dakota’s “indigenous, LGBTQIA+, rural and underserved school-based mental health needs.”

    A DOE grant gave $1.4 million to Boston College to study “mechanisms of health promotion in diverse youth through gay-straight alliances.”  In plain speak, the grant funded the promotion of gay-straight alliance clubs in Massachusetts middle and high schools.

    The Epoch Times contacted the DOE but received no response.

    “The federal government thumbs their nose at the American people and continues to push this ideology into our schools,” Ms. Justice said.

    “They’re doing it all over the world.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:45

  • McCarthy Would Entertain Return As Speaker In GOP Deadlock
    McCarthy Would Entertain Return As Speaker In GOP Deadlock

    Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) isn’t ruling out a return to his old post if the House Republican Conference is deadlocked on a replacement.

    In a Monday interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, McCarthy – who lost his job as Speaker last week after eight House Republicans joined with Democrats, teased a return to the job.

    “Look, the conference has to make that decision. I’m still a member. I’m going to continue to fight and act,” said McCarthy.

    When Hewitt asked again what McCarthy would do if the eight GOP members who opposed him retreated, the former Speaker kept the door open.

    “Look, whatever the conference wants, I will do,” he said, adding “I think we need to be strong. I think we need to be united. The eight, in my view, don’t look to be — it was a personal thing.”

    He expressed frustration with the Republicans who voted against a GOP-only stopgap proposal. The party’s repeated failure to pass a temporary funding bill that included spending cuts and policy provisions prompted McCarthy to pass a “clean” stopgap to avoid a government shutdown, infuriating the hard-line GOP members who then voted to oust him. –The Hill

    “They’re the ones who wanted a government shutdown,” McCarthy said of the GOP holdouts. “We wouldn’t be paying our troops while we’re putting out a carrier strike fighter there – 30,000 American men and women in our armed services in the Middle East wouldn’t be being paid right now? I mean, what weakness would we be at?”

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    On Friday, McCarthy refuted a Politico report that he planned to resign before the end of his term.

    “No, I’m not resigning. I’m staying, so don’t worry,” McCarthy told reporters on Friday, adding “We’re going to keep the majority, I’m going to help the people I got here and we’re going to expand it.”

    House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the current frontrunners to replace McCarthy as Speaker.

    The House GOP will hold a candidate forum Tuesday, and an internal conference election Wednesday.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:20

  • Over 100 Bodies Found In Israeli Kibbutz; Biden Confirms 11 Americans Killed & "Likely" More In Captivity
    Over 100 Bodies Found In Israeli Kibbutz; Biden Confirms 11 Americans Killed & “Likely” More In Captivity

    Update(1905ET): The numbers of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas has been revised upward to an estimated 150. By Monday’s end at least 900 Israelis have been reported killed and nearly 2,400 wounded since the Saturday surprise assault from Gaza. Palestinian emergency sources report 560 dead and over 2,700 wounded in Gaza has heavy Israeli bombardment of the strip has continued.

    In one single kibbutz near the border, at least 108 bodies have been discovered amid the ongoing Israeli search, rescue and recovery efforts: 

    Israeli volunteer rescue organization ZAKA said Monday night that it had discovered more than 100 bodies in Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border.

    “Large teams cleared bodies all day from kibbutz Be’eri,” the organization said. “There were weapons everywhere, grenades, and RPGs. We cleared 108 bodies and we are not done yet.”

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    The New York Times has also begun to piece together eyewitness accounts of the Saturday invasion into southern Israel, as more identifies of the kidnapped have come to light:

    The hostages were seized from homes in towns along Israel’s border with Gaza — including the Kalderons’ small village of Kibbutz Nahal Oz — as well as from military bases and an enormous outdoor dance party.

    They include civilians, soldiers, people with disabilities, children, grandparents and even a 9-month-old baby. The hostages are also believed to include at least one Palestinian resident of Israel, a bus driver who spent the night near the outdoor party after driving Israelis there, his family said.

    The capture of so many Israelis by Palestinian militants has taken the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into uncharted territory — not only in the sheer number of hostages, but also in the dire threats Hamas is making against them.

    And The Washington Post has verified some of the horrifying footage to have emerged, including summary executions of Israeli hostages in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas/PIJ incursion: 

    At least four Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during their unprecedented incursion into Israel on Saturday were killed soon after being taken captive, according to videos reviewed by The Washington Post. Graphic video shared on Telegram on Oct. 8, and verified by The Post, shows multiple bodies in the street in Be’eri, a kibbutz in southern Israel, just yards from where Hamas militants were filmed walking with several civilians who appear to be those same hostages.

    Huge swathes of Gaza are under rubble…

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    Netanyahu in a Monday speech vowed, “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”

    Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s involvement from the north appears to be growing.

    The US has issued a stern warning for the Lebanese Shia paramilitary group not to enter the conflict. President Biden on Monday said that at least 11 Americans were confirmed killed. He said there are “likely” more being held hostage. Many of these may be dual citizens. Here’s part of Biden’s statement:

    “It’s heart wrenching,” Biden said in a statement. “These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence.”

    Biden said his administration is aware other U.S. citizens are missing and that they are working with Israeli officials to learn more about their whereabouts, though he didn’t elaborate on how many Americans are unaccounted for as the conflict rages.

    “The safety of American citizens — whether at home or abroad — is my top priority as President,” Biden said.

    “While we are still working to confirm, we believe it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held by Hamas,” he continued. “I have directed my team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts.”

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    Below is a brief review of other developments of the last 24-48 hours, via Academy Securities:

    • Israel has seized control of the communities around Gaza that were at the center of the horrific attacks by Hamas over the past 48 hours.
    • Israel’s Ministry of Defense has ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza cutting off electricity, food, fuel, and water to the region and has called up 300,000 reservists.
    • Israel flew in munitions from the U.S. over the weekend, including GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs and the expectation is that Israel will ask for small arms, ammunition, tank rounds, and Tamir interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
    • The U.S. is also sending the USS Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean to show solidarity with Israel and to discourage other parties from getting involved/supporting Hamas in this conflict, i.e., Iran and Hezbollah.
    • Hezbollah exchanged artillery and rocket fire on Sunday with Israeli forces raising concern of an escalation of the violence, but Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah BouHabib said that his government has been assured by Hezbollah that it will not join the fighting unless Israel “harasses” Lebanon.
    • While unconfirmed by U.S. intelligence (and denied by Iran), Iranian security officials reportedly helped plan Hamas’s attack and gave the “green light” for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
    • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that creating a Palestinian state was the “most reliable” solution for peace in Israel and could see Russia as a peacemaker (it has a relationship with all the parties involved).

    And thoughts on market-related impact via The Academy T-Report:

    How far does Israel go, given that this has shaken the nation to its core. The veil of safety has been pierced. Maybe the better question is how far can they go without turning a part of the world against them? While the most vicious and deadly battles will be fought in the streets (and underground) there will be information and misinformation campaigns trying to shift global opinion. Can you “win” the battle but risk “losing” the war? This will be tricky, and the relative small size of the Gaza Strip and a high population density will make it extremely difficult to be effective and not harm civilians. This will be a tough balancing act.

    Do others get involved? While many find it difficult to believe that Hamas acted alone, that remains the official line. This has not escalated into a battle for Israel on multiple fronts. Iran has not been brought into the war, which would up the ante significantly.

    While not directly part of this discussion, our increasing concern that our global adversaries understand that inflation has become an “Achilles Heel” and this will only make adversaries more aware of that.

    Over the next 48 hours, we should get answers to these questions, which will help from how the markets and global economy and companies will respond (many companies with operations in Israel have faced an incredibly difficult and scary weekend, that is continuing into this week).

    On markets fronts:

    Oil should be higher. There is risk to shipping. There is risk to whatever Iranian oil has been making its way to the market (especially if they are implicated in any way). The Saudis could increase production to help, but how this is being viewed on social media in the region could shape their behavior significantly (the information war will be important). Our inability, unwillingness, or lack of urgency in replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not helpful as our “insurance policy” was used and hasn’t been re-upped.

    Treasury yields lower. It doesn’t matter what oil does, yields will be lower. The price of oil is not in the Fed’s control right now, but the risk of economic slowdown is. The risk of escalation and spreading the violence is real and should keep investors focused on safety. Many (including us) thought treasury yields were too high before this, so look for a push to lower yields, regardless of what oil does. Oil is a secondary factor in the rates market right now.

    Stocks are a wildcard. I’ve been in the “bad news is good news” for stocks and that seemed to play out again today. I don’t know how much “bad news” stocks can take before the lower yields/higher stocks algos fail and we get a more traditional “flight to safety” like we had overnight. If things don’t escalate, stocks can continue to squeeze higher as so much negativity was priced in (while at the same time pricing in a hawkish Fed). I’d be reducing equity exposure here, still long, but this “bad news” has the risk of being really bad.

    * * *

    Update(1350ET): Casualties in the Gaza Strip are soaring (at over 560 dead) after a full day of very heavy, frequent airstrikes by the Israeli Air Force. For the first time Monday, Israel says it has pacified the border, with a military spokesperson announcing, “There are no terrorists crossing the fence from Gaza into Israel.” The confirmed death toll among Israelis is now over 900.

    “Since this morning, there have been a few encounters with terrorists. There have been none at all in the last few hours,” the military spokesman said. Israel earlier announced a full “siege” of Gaza, and there are signs a ground invasion could be imminent. Hamas and Gaza militants have announced holding at least 100 hostages, but now Hamas is threatening to execute them. Netanyahu on Sunday had warned Palestinian civilians to begin clearing out, but as some observers have noted, where will they go? 

    According to the latest from the Times of Israel on Hamas’ new threat to kill more Israelis:

    The Hamas terror group is threatening to begin executing hostages in response to Israeli strikes in Gaza carried out without warnings, the spokesperson for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades says, according to Gaza’s Shehab news outlet.

    “From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio,” says the spokesperson, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Obeida.

    A defense official reportedly told Knesset members in a briefing earlier in the day that Israel was not dropping dummy bombs on roofs of buildings set to be targeted, meant to warn civilians to flee.

    Via AP: A woman holds a photo during the ‘Jewish Community Vigil’ for Israel in London, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023.

    Many of these hostages, foreigners among them, are believed to have been kidnapped from the Saturday music festival which had been taking place in the southern desert, near the border with Gaza.

    Meanwhile more shocking footage has emerged as Hamas invaded the event and began shooting civilians at random: 

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    * * *

    Update (1100ET): Israel has confirmed its forces are now striking targets in southern Lebanon, as the conflict slides into the much-feared scenario of a two-front war… Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north. Interestingly, it seems that Gaza-based militants are trying to provoke Hezbollah’s entry into the war, given they need the firepower and for the IDF to be bogged down in the north:

    ALERT Palestinian Islamic Jihad claims Israel infiltration from Lebanon: official

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    According to CNN:

    Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a brief statement on Monday that its helicopters are currently striking in Lebanese territory. No further details were provided. 

    Earlier, the IDF said a “number of armed suspects” who “infiltrated” into Israel from Lebanon were killed, and that IDF soldiers were searching the area.

    The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers said in a statement on Monday that it has reported explosions near Al-Boustan in southwest Lebanon.

    There are also reports IDF heavy armor has been seen headed to northern border with Lebanon:

    Cross-border attacks are intensifying in the growing tit-for-tat:

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    * * *

    The total death toll among both sides as all-out war between Israel and Gaza militants enters its third day has topped 1,100 – with most of these deaths being Israeli, at an estimated 800.

    Israel’s defense minister has as of Monday ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza which alarmingly includes cutting off all supply of electricity, fuel, and food, but even water for a densely packed population of 3+ million people in the strip.

    Image via Fox

    Yoav Gallant said, “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege.” He added: “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.”

    At the same time a statement from energy minister Israel Katz confirmed, “I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately.”

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    Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly retaken all the southern towns and settlements which were hit hardest by Saturday’s shock invasion of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants from Gaza.

    A fuller picture of the devastation is still emerging. Israeli authorities have confirmed recovery of 260 bodies from the site of the desert music festival which was among the first to be invaded by Hamas gunmen…

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    Meanwhile, the IDF continues to pound the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, with top Israeli officials increasingly voicing their approval for a ground invasion, which some say is imminent: 

    Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 493, including dozens of children, and left 2,651 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

    An incursion by Gaza militants of this scale has not been seen in Israel since the nation’s founding in 1948.

    But if an Israeli ground assault does ensue, it will be deeply controversial inside Israel given the likely high casualties the IDF will take on (as has been the case in prior high-risk ground incursions).

    There are emerging reports that Gaza-based terrorists have beheaded IDF soldiers:

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    At the same time, Hamas and PIJ terrorists are now holding some 100 Israeli hostages taken in Saturday’s cross border raids.

    According to Reuters, Qatar is currently seeking to mediate hostage negotiations. The Palestinian side has demanded the release of some 5,000 of their own who have been held in Israeli jails, sometimes for years.

    There are believed to be Americans (or dual US-Israeli citizens) currently in captivity in Gaza:

    A spokesperson for the NSC said the agency can confirm the deaths of “several” U.S. citizens, but did not provide a specific number.

    “We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected, and wish those injured a speedy recovery,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement shared with The Hill.

    Additional US media sources reported that so far four Americans have been confirmed killed. And later in the morning on Monday the State Department announced nine Americans have been killed.

    U.S. STATE DEPT SPOKESPERSON CONFIRMS THE DEATH OF NINE AMERICANS IN ISRAEL

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    BBC is also reporting that at least 10 British citizens are feared dead or missing. According to Israeli officials, the numbers of Americans confirmed to be in captivity could grow as more details emerge:

    Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, confirmed American citizens were among those taken captive but gave no details about them or those who had been killed.

    “Unfortunately, I can’t,” he told CNN. “We have a lot of dual citizens in Israel. I suspect there are several, but we’re still trying to sort through all of all this information after this horrific surprise attack and we’ll make sure to put that information out so that the loved ones of these people who were killed and who are held hostage, they know as quickly as possible.”

    On Sunday the Pentagon announced it is sending an aircraft carrier and warships near Israel in a “show of support” – also as Americans as well as dual passport holders and tourists scramble to get out.

    Ben Gurion international airport has come under a barrage of rockets fired from the strip, disrupting all flights in and out.

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    developing…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 19:05

  • What If UFOs Have Been A Cover For High-Tech Human Defense Research Programs?
    What If UFOs Have Been A Cover For High-Tech Human Defense Research Programs?

    Authored by John Ruehl via AsiaTimes.com,

    Could the decades-long pursuit of unraveling the UFO mystery potentially function as a cover for advanced government research and testing programs for innovative forms of propulsion and craft design? Moreover, might the recent rollout of official government hearings signal a gradual disclosure of some of those capabilities?

    This scenario is worth considering, as the process of investigating UFOs comes into sharper public focus.

    This year, fascination with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) has spiked. David Grusch, a former intelligence official who led the analysis of UAPs within the US military, told a congressional hearing in July that the United States had been collecting non-human craft “for decades.”

    At the first Republican presidential debate on August 23, candidates were asked about the US president’s responsibility to provide information to the public about UFOs. And on August 31, the Pentagon launched a new website providing the public with declassified information about sightings.

    Mainstream intrigue surrounding UFOs was born after the 1947 Roswell incident, the crash of what was initially described by the US military as a “flying disc” in Roswell, New Mexico, but later attributed to a weather balloon.

    To quell public fear and speculation, official government studies to investigate UFO/UAP reports, including Project Blue Book, Project Sign, and Project Grudge, were launched. While the US government feared air warning systems could be overwhelmed by reports, it was also wary of Soviet attempts to boost false sightings and promote conspiracy theories that could instigate panic and allegations of a coverup.

    During the Cold War, UFO reports became common, often coinciding with missile and rocket tests (a habit that continues today). Several Soviet and US military personnel also testified that UFOs were able temporarily to take control over missile and nuclear facilities.

    Official disinformation

    However, in 1997, the US Central Intelligence Agency revealed that the military had lied to the public throughout the Cold War about many UFO sightings to obscure its black projects and keep Moscow in the dark about technological advancements. Blaming sightings on natural phenomena like ice crystals and temperature inversions fueled public distrust toward the government and its claims about UFOs/UAPs.

    Many secret military aircraft were frequently mistaken for UFOs, such as the U-2 reconnaissance plane, introduced in the 1950s, which featured a gray frame that often reflected the sun. The SR-71 “Blackbird” meanwhile started service in 1966 and wasn’t declassified until the 1990s. Its distinctive shape, speed, and altitude capabilities were often mistaken for a UFO.

    The B-2 Spirit, introduced in the late 1980s, also had a unique aerodynamic design and its ability to control lift, thrust, and drag at low speeds often gave the appearance that it was hovering.

    Since the Cold War, secretive experimental military aircraft have continued to generate UFO reports. But unexplained phenomena have also fueled conspiracy theories.

    In November 2004 off the coast of San Diego, US Navy pilots filmed UFOs demonstrating rapid acceleration, physics-defying sudden changes in direction, and other feats in videos eventually released to the public in 2017. And despite formalizing a UFO/UAP reporting process in 2019, navy pilots and other US military personnel who have witnessed them have been hesitant to come forward because of fear of ridicule or professional repercussions.

    The US military’s reluctance to disclose UFO/UAP information is often linked to the need to protect classified technology. Military agencies can choose neither to confirm nor deny such information exists.

    But when the government transparency website, the Black Vault, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the navy for more UFO/UAP videos, it was denied because it would harm national security and “may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities.”

    Releasing these videos without additional information may also be an effective way for the US military to hint at its own new technological capacities for various strategic, political, and scientific reasons. Suddenly revealing these technologies could result in rising geopolitical tensions and trigger a reaction, while merely hinting at it may also serve as a deterrence to adversaries.

    Gradually preparing the public for emerging technologies is equally as important, while encouraging speculation about UFO/UAPs could divert attention away from classified projects.

    By clandestinely testing experimental new technologies on their own defenses without resorting to lethal forces, military agencies can also gain valuable insights into their capabilities and vulnerabilities in real-world scenarios.

    A 2021 report by the DoD’s intelligence agencies also noted that many UFOs/UAPs were “technologies deployed by China, Russia, another nation, or a non-governmental entity.” The New York Times broke the story days before an updated version was provided to Congress in 2022.

    An ongoing investigation by The Warzone meanwhile suggests there are a large number of hostile drones mistaken for UFOs/UAPs that the US government has until recently failed to confront.

    Being unable to properly identify another country’s experimental aircraft, by labeling it a UFO/UAP, would also demonstrate shortcomings in US air defense systems. Similarly, releasing documentation of US surveillance of other countries’ stealth aircraft and other technology would give them a better idea of US military capabilities and would alert these countries that they were being surveilled.

    Corporate involvement

    In addition to other countries, companies are also responsible for a significant number of UFO/UAP reports.

    The first drones were manufactured more than a century ago in the UK and US, and the capabilities of the private sector have grown considerably since then.

    Camouflage technology has made commercial drones increasingly difficult to clearly identify, and hundreds of drones by China’s largest drone maker, DJI, were noted to have entered restricted airspace in Washington in 2022 alone. And, of course, commercial drones can be purchased and used by other governments.

    Nonetheless, many of the technological developments concerning advanced aircraft stem from the US military and other agencies.

    Since the 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has expanded on ideas developed by scientist and engineer Arthur Kantrowitz to use lasers to launch satellites without fuel or an engine, with successful tests carried out in the late 1990s.

    The US Air Force and NASA have both continued developing this technology in the 21st century, while NASA has also explored plasma propulsion technology that may have caused numerous UFO/UAP reports.

    The US Navy has pushed the boundaries of technology further with the development of laser-induced plasma technology, patented in 2018. This innovation can generate extremely high temperatures in the air, creating plasma that can be harnessed to form intricate shapes and lifelike optical illusions, even simulating aircraft performing seemingly impossible maneuvers.

    Additionally, the US military has developed the ability to produce sound out of lasers, which would add an additional layer of realism to UFO/UAP sightings.

    Over the last few years, increasing attention has also been brought to projects by Salvatore Cezar Pais, an aerospace engineer and scientist who has worked for the US Navy and the US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD).

    Despite lacking empirical evidence and rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific scrutiny, his alleged breakthroughs in propulsion and energy generation would serve as some of the most groundbreaking technological breakthroughs in history.

    Pais’ patents with the US Navy relate to the development of advanced propulsion systems that could potentially lead to rapid thrust technology and an abundance of clean energy generation. This includes a “craft using an inertial mass reduction device,” which was patented in 2018, while a patent for a “plasma compression fusion device” was also filed but later appeared to be abandoned.

    Nonetheless, documents retrieved by The Warzone through the US Freedom of Information Act reveal that his inventions are being considered for the Air Force, NASA, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

    Of course, like the late US president Ronald Reagan’s proposed “Star Wars” missile defense system in the 1980s, Pais’ patents could be designed to bait adversaries into a costly arms race. That is not to say that these countries are not already developing their own fascinating projects.

    China has been drastically increasing its development of plasma technology in recent years, and alongside the UK, Germany and Japan, is developing Active Flow Control (AFC) technology to improve aerodynamic performance in aircraft. European entities have also recently made breakthroughs in plasma propulsion technology, which may boost UFO/UAP reports across the continent.

    Amid these developments, it remains crucial for the public to stay engaged and informed about UFOs/UAP – the more publicly observed the evidence is, the harder it becomes to manipulate. Considering the history of government audacity in crafting political and war propaganda, we should remain skeptical of the entities shaping narratives about extraplanetary intelligent life.

    A shift toward de-stigmatizing and embracing a public approach to UFOs/UAP, both domestic and foreign, is essential.

    Alongside the Black Vault, initiatives like the open-data Galileo Project, spearheaded by Avi Loeb of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department, are actively seeking evidence of extraterrestrial life and pushing our understanding of outer space.

    By involving the public in the search for answers, we can bridge gaps in understanding and move closer to demystifying these phenomena.

    This article was produced by Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:55

  • Rabies Vaccines Airdropped From Planes Throughout The Southeastern States In October
    Rabies Vaccines Airdropped From Planes Throughout The Southeastern States In October

    The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is now airdropping millions of doses of oral rabies vaccines (ORV) throughout several Southeastern states, as wild raccoons and other wildlife are reportedly spreading the disease.

    Oral Rabies Vaccination sachet dropped from airplanes. (Courtesy of USDA)

    The program to scatter the vaccines in the mountainous forests of the Western North Carolina region is being coordinated between the USDA and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS). Affected counties include Buncombe, Haywood, and Transylvania counties.

    “Avoiding contact with wild animals and vaccinating our domestic animals and pets is the best way to prevent rabies, which can often be fatal,” said Erica Berl, NCDHHS Deputy State Public Health Veterinarian, in a press release. “The wildlife rabies vaccination program prevents the spread of rabies among animals in the wild, which in turn prevents humans, pets, and other animals from becoming infected.”

    The vaccine, RABORAL V-RG, comes in a matchbook-sized plastic packet which is coated in fishmeal, or encased inside a fishmeal polymer coating.

    “Humans and pets cannot get rabies from contact with the baits, but if they encounter them, they should leave them undisturbed,” said the USDA. “Dogs that consume large numbers of baits may experience an upset stomach, but there are no long-term health risks. If adults or children come in contact with baits, immediately rinse the contact area with warm water and soap.”

    More via the Epoch Times‘ Matt McGregor;

    The program began in August distributing throughout the Northeast to mid-Atlantic regions such as Maine, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

    It continued into mid-September from mid-September to mid-October in Massachusetts.

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    Throughout October, the program will be dispersing vaccines by airplane, helicopter, and vehicle in the Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

    ‘A Serious Public Health Concern’

    According to the USDA, ORV distribution has taken place in the United States since 1990.

    In Canada, it’s been used since 1985, and in Europe, it began in 1980.

    There are 16 states in the U.S. distributing vaccines for raccoons.

    Texas uses them for gray foxes and coyotes.

    “Rabies is a serious public health concern,” the USDA said in an August press release. “While rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, it also is 100% preventable. Human exposures can be successfully remedied if medical attention is sought immediately following exposure.”

    Ninety percent of rabies cases in the United States are found in wildlife, the USDA said.

    “Costs associated with rabies detection, prevention, and control may exceed $500 million annually in the United States,” the USDA said.

    The goal of the program, according to the USDA, is to keep raccoons from spreading the virus to states where it hasn’t been found or isn’t widespread.

    This undated electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows rabies virions, dark and bullet-shaped, within an infected tissue sample. (F. A. Murphy/CDC via AP)

    How it Spreads, Symptoms

    The virus is carried in the infected animal’s saliva and transmitted usually through bites and scratches; however, the saliva can also spread through the eyes, nose, and mouth, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Rabies affects the central nervous system, the WHO said.

    “In up to 99% of cases, domestic dogs are responsible for rabies virus transmission to humans,” the WHO stated in a 2023 Fact Sheet.  “Yet, rabies can affect both domestic and wild animals.”

    Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are often victims of rabies, the WHO said.

    “The incubation period for rabies is typically 2–3 months but may vary from 1 week to 1 year, depending on factors such as the location of virus entry and the viral load,” the WHO said. “Initial symptoms of rabies include generic signs like fever, pain, and unusual or unexplained tingling, pricking, or burning sensations at the wound site. As the virus moves to the central nervous system, progressive and fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord develops. Clinical rabies in people can be managed but very rarely cured, and not without severe neurological deficits.”

    The two main types of rabies are furious rabies and paralytic rabies.

    Furious rabies causes hyperactivity, hallucinations, a fear of water and fresh air, excitable behavior, and ultimately, after a few days, death caused by cardiorespiratory arrest.

    Paralytic rabies is what is found in 20 percent of human cases, and is a kind that is more subtle than the former.

    “Muscles gradually become paralyzed, starting from the wound site,” the WHO said. “A coma slowly develops, and eventually, death occurs. The paralytic form of rabies is often misdiagnosed, contributing to the under-reporting of the disease.”

    Diagnosis for detecting a rabies infection is limited.

    “Unless the rabies-specific signs of hydrophobia or aerophobia are present, or a reliable history of contact with a suspected or confirmed rabid animal is available, clinical diagnosis is difficult,” the WHO said. “Human rabies can be confirmed intravitam and post mortem by various diagnostic techniques that detect whole viruses, viral antigens, or nucleic acids in infected tissues (brain, skin or saliva).”

    Rabies is present on all continents except Antarctica, the WHO said, with over 95 percent of deaths occurring in Asia and Africa, though cases aren’t frequently reported.

    In the U.S., hematophagous bats have become the primary source of human rabies deaths, the WHO said, because rabies in dogs has been contained.

    “Bat-mediated rabies is also an emerging public health threat in Australia and Western Europe,” the WHO said.

    “Human deaths following exposure to foxes, raccoons, skunks, jackals, mongooses, and other wild carnivore host species are very rare, and bites from rodents are not known to transmit rabies,” the WHO said.

    A fruit bat is hanging on a tree at the Amneville zoo, eastern France. Recently, Vampire bats infected with rabies have caused the deaths of several people in a remote part of the Amazonian rainforest. (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/Getty Images )

    Post-Exposure Prevention

    The emergency response to rabies exposure, the WHO said, is called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which involves extensive washing with soap and water for 15 minutes, including direct treatment of the wound; the injection of a “potent and effective rabies vaccine that meets the WHO standards,” and the “administration of rabies immunoglobulin or monoclonal antibodies into the wound.”

    “This prevents the virus from entering the central nervous system, which would invariably result in death,” the WHO said.

    *  *  *

    Remember… if you are bitten by a rabid animal and you become afraid of water, it’s over.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:30

  • Thoughts On Proclamation 7463, Or "Digital McCarthyism" On The Move
    Thoughts On Proclamation 7463, Or “Digital McCarthyism” On The Move

    Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

    On September 14, 2001, George W. Bush, exercising “the power vested in [him] as President of the Untied States,” issued Proclamation 7463, a “Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks.” That got the ball rolling on the construction of the surveillance state.

    At the time, the extreme measure seemed justified. Three days earlier, the United States had suffered its most devastating terrorist attack in history.

    But how about this: On September 8, 2023, Joe Biden quietly renewed the Bush era emergency measures for another year. I was told there would be no math, but that makes 22 years and counting that a vast array of surveillance assets have been mobilized against—against whom?

    When George W. Bush was president, they were focused on al Qaeda and kindred groups.

    Today?

    Today, that fearsome governmental power is still assembled. Increasingly, however, it seems to be focused against those the administration fears or dislikes.

    Traditional Catholics, for example, or parents upset with their local school boards.

    At the head of the list of potential “domestic extremists” are the tens of millions of people who support Donald Trump (not to mention, of course, Trump himself). A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton took to CNN (it would be CNN) to say that something needed to be done to silence those misguided people who supported Trump. “Maybe,” she said, “there needs to be a formal deprogramming” of MAGA “cult members.”

    Apparently the FBI agrees. According to a much-cited article in Newsweek, the agency has created a “new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.” That article suggests that the FBI is struggling to combat genuine threats without attacking people who simply support Trump and other populist candidates. I wonder, though, how scrupulous they are being in protecting people’s Constitutional rights to free speech and political dissent.

    Actually, I do not wonder. It is quite clear, as The New York Post observed, that the agency is deploying “some of the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda” in its scrutiny of Trump supporters and “AGAAVE,” i.e., “anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism” (an acronym that, as the Post suggested, “looks like a typo for a sugar substitute”).

    Let me reprise here something I wrote back in April of this year: As a working principle, the conviction that things are always worse than they seem is hard to beat.

    Along with the observation from William Dean Howells that the problem for a critic isn’t making enemies but keeping them, that mournful conviction that things are worse than they seem has the twin clarifying advantage of being psychologically helpful and empirically true.

    Both have stood me in good stead.

    That is to say, if Johnny Mercer was right that one should “accentuate the positive,” one should also avoid the attitude of Dr. Pangloss who, Leibnizian that he was, taught that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”

    As readers of “Candide” will recall, that rose-colored sentiment didn’t do much to protect Cunégonde.

    I was reminded of this constellation of mottos while reading Jacob Siegel’s long and meticulously researched “Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.”

    Siegel’s brilliant if melancholy overview shows in exhaustive detail how the U.S. government, abetted by the mainstream media and what has come to be called “elite” or “ruling class” opinion generally, has repurposed surveillance tools developed to combat terrorism and turned them against the American people.

    I know that sounds dramatic. In fact, it’s actually an understatement.

    We have been vouchsafed glimpses of life behind the curtain for a while now. Hillary’s Clinton’s recent CNN rant and FBI’s new, extra-wide category of what counts as “extremism” or incipient terrorism show that the threat is metastasizing.

    Siegel focuses mostly on developments in the United States. But it’s worth noting that the story he unravels is an international concession, proceeding, for example, with initiatives such as the Davos-inspired “Great Reset.”

    I have written about various aspects of the phenomena that Siegel aggregates in his sinewy and alarming essay. For example, I wrote about Matt Taibbi’s exposé of “Hamilton 68,” a shadowy group of anti-Trump activists who succeeded in publicly branding anyone or anything they didn’t like as emanating from “Russian disinformation.”

    “Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes,” Taibbi notes, “Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”

    Simply in terms of volume, Taibbi estimates that Hamilton 68 “may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history.” Virtually every major news organization in America was involved: NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

    Even fact-checking sites such as Politifact and Snopes, Taibbi notes, “cited Hamilton 68 as a source. The people at Hamilton 68 simply targeted individuals they didn’t like, individuals such as Devin Nunes, Mike Flynn, Tulsi Gabbard, or Donald Trump—and then smeared them as witting or unwitting stooges of Vladimir Putin.

    The whole scheme, Taibbi shows, was a splendid example of “digital McCarthyism, taking people with dissident or unconventional opinions and mass-accusing them of ‘Un-American activities.’”

    But Siegel shows this was the but the tip of the censorship iceberg. His essay shows that kindred developments stood behind the state narrative about COVID-19, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol, “domestic terrorists,” as well as anything having to do with Trump.

    A critical moment was Jan. 6, 2017. It was then, in the waning days of the Obama administration, that Jeh Johnson, head of the Department of Homeland Security, placed the property of all 8,000 election jurisdictions under the control of the DHS.

    “It was a coup,” Siegel notes, that Johnson had been aiming at since 2016.

    At first, he was blocked by local authorities who explained that, as the Constitution stipulates, running elections was the sole responsibility of state legislatures. Johnson justified his action by invoking the emergency of (totally spurious) “Russian interference.”

    His success meant that in the final weeks of the Obama administration, “the new counter-disinformation apparatus scored one of its most significant victories: the power to directly oversee federal elections that would have profound consequences for the 2020 contest between Trump and Joe Biden.”

    But Siegel shows that the rot began much earlier. Remember the “Global War on Terror” mounted by the Bush administration following the terrorist attacks of 9/11?

    It was then that the Patriot Act and kindred initiatives (like  Proclamation 7463) licensed the construction of a sprawling surveillance network, ostensibly focused on foreign bad guys but soon repurposed in a way that “suspended constitutional rights and placed millions of Americans under a shadow of mass surveillance.”

    “The seamless transition from the war on terror to the war on disinformation,” Siegel writes, “was thus, in large measure, simply a matter of professional self-preservation. But it was not enough to sustain the previous system; to survive, it needed to continually raise the threat level.”

    And raise the threat level “it”—the deep state—has consistently done, such that anyone who challenges its diktats is regarded as an enemy. How did this happen? Americans didn’t choose to give up their liberties and constitutional rights. The choice was made for them.

    As Siegel writes: “Americans are no longer presumed to have the right to choose their own leaders or to question decisions made in the name of national security. Anyone who says otherwise can be labeled a domestic extremist.”

    Siegel’s essay is a tour de force whose richness and detail I can only hint at here. If I had to summarize his findings, I would emphasize three points.

    • First, that “after the pretense of fighting a foreign threat fell away, what was left was the core mission to enforce a narrative monopoly over truth.” We see that everywhere, whether the subject is Trump, Jan. 6, COVID, Russia, the joys of transsexuality, or the brittleness of the Constitution in the face of the perpetual emergency foisted upon us by the permanent state.

    • The second point follows that brittleness: “The pattern in these cases is that the ruling class justifies taking liberties with the law to save the planet but ends up violating the Constitution to hide the truth and protect itself.”

    • And that brings me to the third and most fundamental principle that Siegel has uncovered in this harrowing piece of work: That the ruling class, the elite that officiates over the ceremonies, perquisites, and directives of the deep state, are bound by one overriding conviction. “As a class,” Siegel concludes, “their highest principle is that they alone can wield power.” No one who reads this essay can doubt that this is true.

    As I say, things are always worse than they seem.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 18:05

  • Smith & Wesson Celebrates New Tennessee Headquarters After Ditching Massachusetts
    Smith & Wesson Celebrates New Tennessee Headquarters After Ditching Massachusetts

    Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson celebrated the grand opening of its new headquarters in Tennessee on Saturday after leaving its longtime home in Massachusetts for the more gun-friendly state.

    The company’s new digs in Maryville, TN are approximately 650,000 square feet, as part of the company’s $125 million relocation plan announced in 2021.

    The ribbon cutting event showcased renowned competitive shooter Jerry Miculek, who set an NRA record for hitting six steel plates with a 9mm revolver in 1.88 seconds.

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    “From where I stand, the next 170 years of Smith & Wesson are looking pretty good,” Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith said on Saturday during the grand opening. “It is something special here in Tennessee.”

    He cited a welcoming regulatory environment and close collaboration with the Tennessee state government as a crucial piece of the plan to relocate. The company has said the new facility would create hundreds of jobs.

    Tennessee has moved to loosen gun restrictions in recent years under Republican leadership. In 2021, the state passed a law to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns without a permit that requires first clearing a state-level background check and training. –AP

    Smith & Wesson was established in 1852 in Connecticut, before soon moving its headquarters to Springfield, MA.

    Attendee view guns on display at the Smith & Wesson booth during the Latin American Aerospace & Defense (LAAD) conference and exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, April 13, 2023.Photographer: Maria Magdalena Arrellaga/Bloomberg (Getty Images)

    “Congratulations to Smith & Wesson on their grand opening in Tennessee. This move is a testament to their enduring legacy, their commitment to firearm excellence, and to the importance of preserving America’s gun industry and Second Amendment rights in a fair environment,” NRA Executive Director of Advancement, Tyler Schropp, told Fox News.

    “Representing millions of NRA members and gun owners, the NRA was proud to be the tip of the spear for the passage and enactment of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that saved America’s firearm industry,” he continued, citing the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that prohibits firearms manufacturers from being held liable if their products are used to commit a crime.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 17:40

  • The Welfare-Warfare State's War On Income And Savings
    The Welfare-Warfare State’s War On Income And Savings

    Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

    According to an article at CNBC.com, 60% of adults said they are living paycheck to paycheck. According to an article at Forbes.com, about a third of Americans were unable to save any money in the past year. According to an article at Yahoo! Finance, while financial advisors recommend savings of $1 million to $2 million for retirees, the average 70-year-old has only around $426,000 in savings. On top of that, consider how much the value of people’s money is debased each decade through the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve.

    Welcome to the welfare-warfare state way of life, which plunders and loots people’s income to fund the ever-increasing expenditures of welfare-state programs and the warfare-state programs of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

    If we think back to America’s founding principles with respect to income, wealth, welfare, and warfare, we find that our American ancestors chose a totally different way of life than today’s Americans have chosen.

    Consider, for example, 1890 Americans. They lived without an income tax and an IRS to enforce it. Just think about that: People were free to keep 100 percent of their income, and there was nothing the government could do about it. Imagine if you were free to keep everything you earned. Imagine if that had been case during your entire work life. 

    When Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, they obviously were able to save a larger percentage of their income. Wouldn’t you be saving more money if suddenly you no longer had to pay any income taxes whatsoever?

    Internal Revenue Service. Licensed under Creative Commons.

    Interestingly, as our American ancestors found themselves saving lots of money, that actually led to a higher standard of living for everyone in society. That’s because those savings were put into banks, which then lent them out to businesses, which used the money to invest in tools and equipment that made their workers more productive. That increased productivity brought lower prices for consumer goods, increased profits for businesses, and higher wages for workers. Thus, there was a harmony of interests in the unlimited accumulation of wealth and higher standards of living for people.

    Twentieth-century Americans chose to go in an opposite direction. They traded the right to keep everything they earned for a welfare state and then, later a national-security state. The idea of the welfare state was to have the government take a large share of people’s income and then use the money to take care of people. The idea behind the national-security state was to have the government take a large share of people’s income to protect them from the communists and, later, the terrorists, Muslims, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, Russians, Chinese, and many others.

    Our American ancestors, of course, refused to make that trade. They didn’t want the government to take care of them. They wanted to take care of themselves, with their own money and on a purely voluntary, charitable basis. They also knew that a national-security state (or what they termed “standing armies”) would inevitably embroil them in endless wars and crises that would mean even higher taxes (and lower savings).

    At the same time, our American ancestors rejected the plunder and looting that comes with a system of paper money and the Federal Reserve. That’s why the Constitution required that gold coins and silver coins be the official money of the United States. The result was the soundest monetary system in history, one in which people felt secure in saving large percentages of their income in longterm bonds.

    The question is: Which system do we go with moving forward — America’s founding system, which led to a massive increase in income, profits, savings, and charity? Or today’s system, which has led to poverty, suffering, and a vast welfare-warfare racket that has led to impoverishment of finances and spirit?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 17:15

  • Desperate Disneyland Slashes Children's Ticket Prices By More Than 50%
    Desperate Disneyland Slashes Children’s Ticket Prices By More Than 50%

    Disneyland is slashing ticket prices for children ages 3-9 by more than 50% for park entry early next year.

    Visitors on Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A. in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 1, 2023. (Carol Cassis/The Epoch Times)

    The deal, which will go on sale Oct. 24, offers tickets for as little as $50 per child per day, and can be used between Jan. 8 through March 10 at Disneyland or Disney California Adventure. Current prices for children are $104 and up.

    The new deal is for 1, 2, or 3 day ticket packages.

    “These limited-time child tickets are a great value,” said spokesperson Kelsey Lynch on the Disney Parks blog.

    The deal provides significant savings compared to current children’s ticket prices, which are $270 for a 2-day pass and $340 for 3 days. Under the promotion, a 3-day child pass is $150.

    One-day kids’ tickets can sell for up to $179, which is the park’s “highest demand” date ticket, usually falling around Halloween or Christmas.

    The new deal has no blackout dates and will expire 13 days after the first day of use, if multiple days are purchased. That means customers will have to use their multi-day tickets within a two-week window after the first visit. -Epoch Times

    Adults will need to reserve their full priced tickets separately.

    That said, even lower prices aren’t going to convince many conservative parents to patronize the woke entertainment company.

    “I just don’t think we’ll be taking our kids back any time soon, especially after their new movie basically makes God into the bad guy,” one recent Disneyland visitor told the Epoch Times, referring to Disney Pixar’s latest movie reveal for “Wish,” which turns the movie’s God-like figure into an antagonist.

    In August, Disney came under fire for their upcoming Snow White remake, after the son of the man who animated and directed the original version called it a “disgrace” and labeled the “woke things” they’ve made up as “insulting.”

    David Hand—son of the animator and director of the original version who was known by the same name—issued a harsh rebuke of the remake, telling the Telegraph on Aug. 18 that Disney’s “woke” version is an insult to his father’s work.

    “It’s a whole different concept, and I just totally disagree with it, and I know my dad and Walt would also very much disagree with it,” Mr. Hand said.

    He said he disagrees with the entire concept, calling it a “disgrace,” suggesting that Disney is “trying to do something new with something that was such a great success earlier.”

    The aforementioned ticket discount also comes a week after the park lost a class action lawsuit alleging that Disney used deceptive practices over how they allocate reservations to annual passholders.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 16:50

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Oct 09

Today’s News 9th October 2023

  • Korybko: Top 10 Takeaways From Hamas' Sneak Attack On Israel
    Korybko: Top 10 Takeaways From Hamas’ Sneak Attack On Israel

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

    Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.

    Hamas launched an unprecedented sneak attack on Israel over the weekend that completely caught the self-professed Jewish State by surprise after all its security systems unexpectedly failed at the same time. The border wall was breached, some military bases were captured, and dozens of hostages were taken back to Gaza.

    Israel responded by launching airstrikes inside the strip and preparing a ground operation.

    Here are the top ten takeaways from everything that’s happened thus far in the latest Israeli-Hamas war:

    1. Israel’s Alleged Invincibility Was Dispelled As An Illusion

    For starters, nobody is under the illusion any longer that Israel is invincible. Up until this weekend’s sneak attack, some had continued to cling to the claim that its conventional military-technical capabilities and massive aid from America made it the regional hegemon, but that perception was just shattered.

    2. It Was Totally Unprepared For Hamas’ Hybrid War Tactics

    Upon the breaching of its border wall, which was the result of a colossal intelligence failure and subsequent collapse of all security systems, Israel proved that it was totally unprepared to counter Hamas’ Hybrid War tactics of lightning-fast squad assaults and rudimentary drone attacks.

    3. Political Infighting Likely Contributed To This Intelligence Failure

    Had Israel’s military and intelligence services not gotten involved in the political dispute over Netanyahu’s planned judicial reforms, which was exacerbated by the Biden Administration’s meddling as explained here, then they might have detected Hamas’ plans in advance and thus been able to foil them.

    4. It Also Didn’t Help That US Spies Are Distracted With Ukraine

    Israel must take full responsibility for its intelligence failures, but it also didn’t help any that its American ally’s spies have been distracted with Ukraine. If they weren’t so focused on that conflict, then they might have kept at least one satellite over Gaza that could have discovered Hamas’ military buildup.

    5. America Is Now In A Dilemma Over Who Gets Finite Military Aid

    Business Insider drew attention to America’s newfound dilemma over whether to give finite military aid, particularly artillery shells, to Ukraine as planned or redirect these resources to Israel instead. Its decision could have major implications for both conflicts since the choice between them is zero-sum.

    6. Saudi Arabia Will Probably Freeze Its Peace Talks With Israel

    Saudi Arabia is under immense pressure from the international Muslim community to freeze its reported peace talks with Israel after the latter’s strikes against civilian targets in Gaza. It’ll probably comply with these demands, which would then ruin the Biden Administration’s plans for a deal before the elections.

    7. The IMEC Megaproject Will Likely Be Put On Ice For Some Time Too

    The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) can’t be completed if Saudi Arabia and/or especially Jordan freeze their role in its construction to protest Israel’s involvement in the latest conflict, though this won’t harm India’s trade with any relevant party since it’s entirely conducted by sea.

    8. Russia & China’s Balanced Statements Surprised Some Observers

    Many in the Alt-Media Community wrongly thought that Russia and China favored Palestine, hence why those two’s balanced statements here and here surprised them. Even fewer knew that President Putin fully supports the IDF as proven by his official statements over the years that were documented here.

    9. The Debate Over Whether The Ends Justify The Means Has Re-Opened

    Hamas’ killing of IDF-trained settlers-civilians and kidnapping of children, women, and the elderly to swap for prisoners was justified by some Palestinian supporters as a legitimate means for pursuing national liberation while other supporters criticized these tactics for undermining their cause’s morality.   

    10. Hezbollah Is The Wild Card In The Latest Israeli-Hamas War

    Hamas’ sneak attack against Israel brought to life one of the latter’s worst nightmares, which might become even worse if Hezbollah decides to commence large-scale hostilities. In that event, Lebanon and possibly also Syria could be dragged into the fray, which could easily become existential for all parties.

    Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.

    The reputation of Israel’s security services has been shattered, Hamas’ has never been better in the eyes of most non-Western observers, and many among the latter finally learned that neither Russia nor China favor Palestine.

    Should the latest conflict become protracted, let alone expand into a regional one, then there’s a real possibility that the US will freeze the Ukrainian Conflict in order to redirect finite military aid to Israel.  

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/09/2023 – 00:10

  • "Can You Be Extradited For Treason?": Former Army Soldier Arrested Over Attempted China Espionage Involving Classified Materials
    “Can You Be Extradited For Treason?”: Former Army Soldier Arrested Over Attempted China Espionage Involving Classified Materials

    A former US Army soldier has been arrested and charged with two felonies over alleged attempts to deliver national defense information to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as illegal retention of national defense information following his exit from the service.

    Joseph Schmidt, a former Sergeant, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Friday after a grand jury indicted him on Wednesday.

    Schmidt, who served as a team leader of an Army human intelligence squad supporting US espionage in the Indo-Pacific, is accused of attempting to spy for China following his departure from the service in February 2020.

    The “shocking” plot includes allegations that Schmidt’s search history includes “can you be extradited for treason?”

    During a trip to Istanbul the same month he left the military, Schmidt made nearly 30 Google searches related to defection and spilling military secrets, ranging from “countries with most negative relations with US” to “what is China’s intelligence agency?” and “soldier defect,” according to an FBI investigative report.

    Other search terms included “subreddit spying” and “looking for a subreddit about spy stuff.”

    Schmidt also queried Google Maps for driving directions from Beijing’s airport to the headquarters of China’s Ministry of State Security, which has a similar role to the CIA.

    On Feb. 24, 2020, Schmidt sent a message to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul requesting a meeting, calling himself a United States citizen looking to move to China.”

    “I also am trying to share information I learned during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government,” he wrote. –NY Post

    “I have a current top-secret clearance, and would like to talk to someone from the Government to share this information with you if that is possible,” Schmidt wrote.

    “Individuals entrusted with national defense information have a continuing duty to protect that information beyond their government service and certainly beyond our borders,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen in a prepared statement.

    “The National Security Division is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who violate that duty.”

    More via The Epoch Times;

    Mr. Schmidt served in the Army for five years, ending his service in 2020.

    His primary active-duty assignment was at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where he served in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion. He was given access to Secret and Top Secret information in his role there.

    After separating from the military, Mr. Schmidt is alleged to have illegally held onto classified intelligence about national defense matters that he had obtained as part of his duties. Mr. Schmidt then allegedly reached out to the Chinese consulate in Turkey and then through email to Chinese security services and offered the information to the regime.

    “As alleged by the government, Schmidt betrayed his promise and potentially placed our nation at risk in his attempts to pass national defense information to Chinese security services,” said FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Suzanne Turner.

    “The FBI and our partners remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the American people and U.S. national security.”

    Two months after Mr. Schmidt’s separation from the Army, he traveled to Hong Kong where he allegedly told Chinese security services that he had access to a device that could access the United States’ secure military computer networks. It is alleged Mr. Schmidt offered to provide this device to the regime.

    Mr. Schmidt has resided in Hong Kong since 2020, but was arrested upon flying into San Francisco this week.

    “Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman.

    “In that context the alleged actions of this former military member are shocking, not only attempting to provide national defense information, but also information that would assist a foreign adversary to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.”

    Both of the alleged crimes are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 23:40

  • Judge Denies Sidney Powell's Motion To Dismiss Charges In Georgia Election Case
    Judge Denies Sidney Powell’s Motion To Dismiss Charges In Georgia Election Case

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

    A Georgia judge on Thursday rejected lawyer Sidney Powell’s attempt to dismiss her charges in a racketeering case that also ensnared former President Donald Trump and multiple others.

    Lawyer Sidney Powell (C) speaks to media while flanked by President Donald Trump’s lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (L) and Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis at a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, on Nov. 19, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied her motion to dismiss the charges, coming after she alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in her case.

    “I don’t see that as clearing just a procedural bar of being something that’s under the court’s authority,” the judge said as he denied Ms. Powell’s motion, the Washington Examiner reported. He added that it is the “jury’s job to decide contested issues” regarding her case.

    Ms. Powell is scheduled to go on trial later this month along with election lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. Several weeks ago, the two tried to sever their cases from each another, which Judge McAfee also denied, while the other 17 defendants—including President Trump—will go on trial at a later undetermined date.

    Both Ms. Powell and Mr. Chesebro have pleaded not guilty.

    “I can sympathize with the idea that someone who vigorously contests and believes in their innocence doesn’t want to sit through a long trial, but that is the state’s right to do,” Judge McAfee said in his remarks. “That’s simply the process as it stands.”

    Election Claims

    In August, Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor who drew headlines in 2020 for her “Kraken”-related claims about the 2020 election, was charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, and more after prosecutors alleged that she was involved in an unlawful breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.

    Her motion to dismiss accused Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, of misconduct because her “indictment represents troubling and unethical conduct by the prosecutors.”

    Ms. Powell’s lawyers also said Ms. Willis and her team of prosecutors likely violated Napue, referring to a 1959 Supreme Court decision about the knowing use of false testimony by a prosecutor, and therefore violated the due process clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

    The prosecutors “must have presented a misleading and false case to the grand jury, or the grand jury simply rubber-stamped the Indictment,” her filing in late September stated. “The State was in possession of substantial exculpatory evidence which it must not have presented, and this Court should carefully review the grand jury proceedings for Napue and ethical violations by the prosecution.”

    But the Fulton District Attorney’s Office vigorously opposed Ms. Powell’s motion to dismiss, saying Thursday that her claims about her innocence should be up to the jury.

    While reports have said that Ms. Powell was an attorney for President Trump after the 2020 election, she wrote in a filing that she didn’t serve on the former president’s legal team at the time. There was some confusion after she appeared alongside then-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis in a news conference about election irregularities.

    After Judge McAfee’s ruling, Ms. Powell has not made any public comments.

    Powell’s Co-Defendants

    The ruling comes weeks after Ms. Willis’ team confirmed that attorney Lin Wood, who also made a number of claims around the 2020 election, would serve as a “state witness” in Ms. Powell’s trial. In a comment to The Epoch Times, Mr. Wood said last month that he did not flip on President Trump or others, saying: “I have no idea why I am being called as a witness in the [Sidney] Powell trial.”

    In the Georgia case so far, all the defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges except for one. Last week, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty to multiple charges as part of a plea agreement that requires him to testify against the other co-defendants.

    His case relates to the incident in Coffee County, according to prosecutors. It’s not clear if Mr. Hall will be called to testify against Ms. Powell or the others.

    As for President Trump, he also faces state charges in New York City after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him for allegedly falsifying business records in connection to the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors earlier this summer charged President Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House and for his actions following the 2020 election.

    Attorneys for President Trump last week made a court filing saying he won’t seek to move the Georgia case to a federal court, coming after he previously wrote in a court filing that he might do so.

    “This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this Honorable Court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of

    Fulton County, Georgia,” Trump attorney Steven Sadow wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 23:10

  • What Was Behind Last Week's Stunning Drop In Oil, And Where Does Crude Go Next
    What Was Behind Last Week’s Stunning Drop In Oil, And Where Does Crude Go Next

    Oil prices have been a veritable rollercoaster in just the past 10 days.

    After soaring more than 36% from its June lows to a 1-year high just above $97 at the end of September, Brent tumbled $14 in just six sessions, including last Wednesday’s brutal plunge, which was the biggest one-day drop since the UK’s Mini-Budget fiasco of Sept 2022 when funds were literally blowing up and liquidating commodities to avoid collapse, and which ended up with another BOE bailout.

    What was behind the furious plunge? While there wasn’t one single catalyst, Goldman’s commodities strategist Callum Bruce views the tumble in oil as driven by three reasons:

    1. Overvaluation: Goldman’s inventory-based modelling suggests oil timespreads and flat price was already elevated versus the bank’s forecasted inventory draws. Discretionary positioning was the longest since the Russia-Ukraine war, and the market was very much overbought.
    2. Recession fears: Renewed fears in a rates-led recession saw significant sell-offs in the more deferred timespreads, implying concerns regarding next year’s demand; this was exacerbated by the strategically timed very weak US EIA weekly gasoline demand print, that as many have observed (and speculated about the EIA’s political mandates) were implausibly low. In response, Goldman maintains its relatively serene macro-economic outlook, with FCIs not overtightening and real incomes still rising. Retail prices similarly are not yet at demand destructive levels and demand is still tracking robustly.
    3. CTA unwinds: Mechanical selling of oil as prices hit sell-stop triggers for short term momentum flows. Admittedly much length likely remains here.

    Goldman commodity products trader Madhav Janakiraman chimes in and writes that while “not a lot has actually changed fundamentally…. the market created a bit of downside momentum because of government shutdown risk/chatter about Kurdish crude coming back to market/Russian diesel returning etc. Once that little push occurred, the positioning did the rest particularly because a decent chunk of the length was CTA style momentum following strategies and they were quite close on some of their signals turning. At the same time index, commodity ETFs saw decent outflows into month-end and earlier this week. So retail, pension fund type long term investors were also exiting the space. Discretionary playxers simply didn’t have the ability to stem the tide…”

    So while it is tempting to think this is silly CTA led washout and a huge buying opportunity, Janakiraman says that the path risks are still significant. China being out this week for Golden week hasn’t helped either in terms of liquidity. They also tend to be pretty aggressive buyers of physical molecules when they see flat price get to cheap levels. One could also argue at current price set Saudi Arabia is unlikely to bring back crude they have held out from the market “and so it is cheap.”

    Whatever the reason for the drop, Goldman has stuck to its view of steep deficits into next year driven by (1) robust demand, and (2) significant OPEC+ discipline and pricing power, allowing inventories to draw down to critically low levels once again. The bank also expects prices to reach $100/bbl by mid-24 – driven by deferred timespreads – while the back-end of the curve is kept anchored by plentiful spare capacity and cost deflation in US shale. Meanwhile, the sudden break out of the Hamas-Israeli war in the middle east will likely push oil prices higher and faster (for more see “Oil Could Spike Well North Of $150″: Here Are The Main Implications For Oil From The Israeli War“.)

    In retrospect, last week’s oil tumble now seems like ancient history, and after Saturday’s unprecedented events in Israel, oil has moved sharply higher after the weekend attack by Hamas against Israel, with Brent topping $88 a barrel to repair some of last week’s heavy losses, and according to some, set to continue rising until it tops $150.

    Here, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Jake Lloyd-Smith are five early highlights from the market’s reaction that will help to shape trading in the coming days.

    • First, the immediate fallout has been seen right along the curve, with timespreads widening. Among them, Brent’s prompt spread — the difference between its two nearest contracts — gapped out to $1.64 a barrel in backwardation, a bullish pricing pattern. Still, banks aren’t yet rushing to upgrade their price forecasts.
    • While the latest events in Israel don’t pose an immediate threat to supply, the risk of escalation across the region remains acute, especially the potential for Hamas-backer Iran to be drawn in. That could pose a risk to supplies from Tehran, particularly if the US enforces sanctions with greater rigor.
    • Market watchers are also putting the spotlight on the fallout for Riyadh, which has been both curbing output to bolster prices, while at the same time seeking to normalize ties with Israel. If the latter now proves to be a far tougher ask, the former voluntary supply restrictions could last for longer.
    • OPEC+ members are signaling that there’ll be no immediate change to their collective stance. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates’ energy ministers all stressed their support for OPEC+ policy, saying continued cooperation was needed.
    • While benchmark prices did take a tumble last week before the weekend assault, the global oil market remains very tight following OPEC+ supply cuts. Further draws in inventories this week, especially at the Cushing hub, could trigger a meaningful surge in prices.

    Finally, going back to Goldman, the bank’s preferred oil trade is one that is bullish yet net sells volatility. The bank is currently recommending buying a 90-95 Jun-24 Brent Call spread and selling a 80-100 Jun-24 Brent Straddle to benefit from convex and backwardated forward curves, contangoed vol structure, and rangebound price action. Such a strategy raises almost $8/bbl up front, for a max profit of $13/bbl, and currently make profits in the $72-$113/bbl range.”

    More on Goldman’s current positioning and proposed trades as discussed earlier in “

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 22:40

  • Alabama Deploys National Guard In Response To Illegal Immigration Crisis
    Alabama Deploys National Guard In Response To Illegal Immigration Crisis

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

    Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has pledged to send 275 National Guard troops to the southern border while blaming President Joe Biden’s policies for fanning the flames of the illegal immigration crisis.

    A Texas National Guard soldier watches as an illegal immigrant walks into a makeshift camp in El Paso, Texas, on May 11, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    With the move, Ms. Ivey joins other Republican governors in dispatching their military forces to help stem the tidal wave of people seeking to cross the border without authorization.

    “Every state has become a border state under the current policies,” Ms. Ivey said in a statement.

    “Alabama remains committed to being an integral part of the mission to protect our Southern Border,” she added.

    Earlier, Ms. Ivey joined 24 other governors in writing a letter to President Biden on Sept. 19, blaming his policies for incentivizing illegal immigration, which they said had risen exponentially under his watch, “in some areas by nearly 850%.”

    “States are on the front lines, working around-the clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted,” Ms. Ivey and the others wrote, citing estimates that the annual cost of illegal immigration at federal, state, and local levels is at least $150.7 billion.

    Citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the governors pointed out that there have been over 5.8 million illegal crossings since President Biden took office—and another 1.6 million gotaways who evaded capture.

    In September, CBP recorded over 260,000 illegal crossings at the southern border, marking an all-time high in a single month.

    An aerial view of migrants waiting to be processed on the Mexican side of the border in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2023. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS)

    Biden’s Policies In Focus

    Republicans have blamed President Biden for gutting the policies of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, whose pledge to build a wall was a rallying cry for a series of actions that they credit for yielding comparatively low numbers of illegal border crossings.

    During his first 100 days in office, President Biden took dozens of executive actions on immigration, including ordering a halt to the construction of the border wall—which his administration is now rushing to resume in an embarrassing yet welcome about-face.

    In early 2021, when the Biden administration stopped the ongoing construction of the border wall, President Biden claimed that his predecessor’s focus on constructing the wall was misguided and an example of his supposed inability to manage immigration and secure the border.

    White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has denied that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants while accusing Republicans of turning the border issue into a “political stunt.”

    Illegal immigrants climb a section of the U.S.–Mexico border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, on April 29, 2018. (David McNew/Getty Images)

    ‘Invasion’ at Border

    One of the most outspoken critics of the Biden administration’s border policies is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Sept. 20 declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration while ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.

    “I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, wrote in a post on X.

    “We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants,” he added.

    The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying the state is “at capacity.”

    A Texas National Guard soldier speaks to illegal immigrants at a high-traffic illegal border crossing area along the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 20, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images)

    While Republicans have long been tough on the problem of illegal immigration, Democrat governors are also getting fed up.

    ‘They’re Coming From All Over’

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, recently expressed frustration with the illegal immigration crisis gripping the Big Apple, telling would-be asylum-seekers to “go somewhere else.”

    “They’re coming from all over,” she told CNN in an interview. “But we have to let the word out that when you come to New York, we’re not going to have more hotel rooms. We don’t have capacity.”

    Illegal immigrants sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel as they wait for placement at the hotel in New York on Aug. 1, 2023. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

    Saying that New York City has run out of space and is at a breaking point, Ms. Hochul also threw her weight behind an initiative by New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office to suspend a decades-old “right to shelter” law that basically says officials must give shelter to anyone who asks for it.

    According to New York City officials, over 110,000 illegal immigrants have come to the city over the past year, with around 60,000 living in the city’s shelter system, costing billions of dollars per year.

    Ms. Hochul, too, has called in the National Guard, but in New York’s case, the troops are being deployed locally to help with case management operations meant to get asylum seekers work permits and clear out some of the tens of thousands crowding the city’s shelters.

    New York City officials are pressing ahead with an effort to suspend the right to shelter law, asking the state Supreme Court to modify the mandate, which they have described as “onerous” and “demonstrably ill-suited to present circumstances.”

    So far, New York City has spent more than $2 billion dealing with the influx, and Mr. Adams’ office has said it expects that to climb to $5 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 22:10

  • Oakland Police Tell Residents Not To Confront Auto Burglars
    Oakland Police Tell Residents Not To Confront Auto Burglars

    Police in Oakland, California are telling residents not to confront people breaking into their cars after seven suspects were arrested in three incidents late last month.

    “The individuals involved in locked auto burglaries have become extremely brazen. Something that’s typically a non-violent crime has become much more dangerous for police and for the community,” said Oakland interim assistant police chief, Tony Jones. “We want to caution the public. Don’t try to engage with these individuals who are breaking into your car.”

    During one of the incidents, officers caught thieves cutting a catalytic converter out of a vehicle in an underground garage. When officers approached, the suspects fled and rammed a police vehicle blocking the exit.

    “A lot of these individuals have guns, and they’re armed, and they’re dangerous,” said Jones. “[Our officers] got rammed, it could have gotten deadly, and so we don’t want people to risk their personal safety over personal belongings that they can acquire some other day. It’s just not worth it.”

    Jones says that officers have trained for such encounters, which allows them to respond without the use of lethal force.

    “This operation got a little dangerous, and our officers showed tremendous restraint,” he continued. “We have experienced an uptick in individuals ramming our police cars attempting to escape.”

    Following a chase which include a foot pursuit, police apprehended the catalytic converter thieves, discovering burglary tools and catalytic converters in their vehicle.

    In another case, criminals who switched license plates fled when officers attempted a traffic stop. Upon apprehending them they found several firearms in their car.

    According to Jones, stolen vehicles with swapped license plates are common.

    “We have to be just as vigilant in how we adapt to the different techniques they do,” he said, adding “We’re aware of the plates being switched, but you can’t switch the color of the car. You can’t turn a Honda into a Lexus.”

    There have been approximately 11,000 auto burglaries and 11,000 auto thefts in Oakland this year, a 40% increase over last year, according to OPD.

    “That’s a significant increase, and that’s why you’re seeing the police department take more of an initiative to focus on auto burglaries in the city,” said Jones. “We’re going to be out there a lot more, focusing on this, trying to prevent these crimes from occurring, trying to investigate these things and find people’s property that’s been taken.”

    Oakland residents have recently taken to complaints regarding calls for emergencies, with some saying they are put on hold for extended periods of time and often wait hours or days for officers to respond.

    The interim assistant chief acknowledged the predicament and said the department is working on solutions.

    “We are aware of the challenges with the 911 system, and we’re doing everything that we can to get the staffing up in the communications division so that those problems are rectified,” Mr. Jones said. “What’s more important is the personal safety of the people of Oakland.”

    With budgetary constraints facing the department, and the city failing to secure millions of dollars in public safety grants because they missed a state deadline earlier this year, the department is working to reallocate its budget to further investigate auto burglaries, he said.

    “We do have limited resources, but we can manage them in a way that allows us to do these operations regularly,” Mr. Jones said. -Epoch Times

    “We must and we will do more to hold accountable those individuals behind these crimes,” said Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during a recent press conference. “This is harming our community at large. We take this very seriously.”

    In August, a recall effort was launched against Oakland’s Alameda County ‘Soros’ DA, Pamela Price, after several groups called out the rampant violence and lack of response.

    Members of a “Save Alameda for Everyone” (SAFE) filed a Notice of Intent with Alameda County officials to begin the recall process, following years of inaction by Price.

    “As crime spirals out of control on Alameda County streets, DA Price reduces sentencing for criminals and even refuses to charge violent felons with crimes,” reads a statement from the group which cites Oakland PD statistics stating that homicides are up 80% vs. pre-pandemic figures, and violent crime and burglaries are up 15% and 40% respectively over the same period.

    “African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland,” the group states, per KRON. “Women have been beaten and robbed by youths; hate crimes against Asian Americans are surging; street vendors have been assaulted, and basic services are under attack.”

    Earlier that month, the Oakland branch of the NAACP said that the city’s “failed” leadership had placed ‘everyone in danger.’

    “Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis,” reads the letter.

    “Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” reads the op-ed by Cynthia Adams, President of the Oakland Branch of the NAACP, and Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church.  

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 21:40

  • China Markets Face Choppy Return From Holidays
    China Markets Face Choppy Return From Holidays

    By John Cheng, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

    Chinese markets are set to reopen after the Golden Week holidays against an uncertain global market backdrop, which may temper optimism from the spending boom at home.

    A lot has happened overseas while mainland markets were shut. Risk assets were hammered as renewed concern about higher-for-longer US interest rates spurred a Treasuries selloff that rippled through world markets, while the surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas added a fresh layer of uncertainty. On the domestic front, however, tourism revenue from the holidays surged year-on-year, adding to bets that China’s economy has likely bottomed.

    The conflicting signals set the stage for a choppy start for mainland equities on Monday. A gauge of Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong rose on Friday, helping trim its losses since Sept. 28 — when onshore markets last traded — to 0.3%. Meanwhile, an index of the nation’s US-listed stocks has gained 0.3% in the period. The offshore yuan has weakened about 0.2% against the dollar.

    “The Golden Week consumption data should give more confidence to markets that demand is stabilizing, which may help boost sentiment for consumer and service sectors,” said Marvin Chen, a strategist with Bloomberg Intelligence. “But easing domestic worries come with rising external headwinds from markets adjusting to higher-for-longer Fed rates.”

    Traders had been pinning their hopes on a holiday consumption boost to provide a new catalyst for the sluggish market. Travel and spending surged compared with lockdown-hit 2022, with 826 million travelers representing a 71% increase from last year. Spending jumping nearly 130%. Other key sets of data released during the break also showed the broader economy is on the mend, though far from roaring back.

    Investors will weigh these modest improvements against concerns about tighter Federal Reserve policy following a hotter-than-expected US jobs report. China is seen at particular risk as a wider interest-rate gap with the US can increase pressure on the yuan and accelerate a capital flight.

    The CSI 300 Index, a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks, was down 4.7% for the year before heading into the break. A further 4.9% decline will see it erase all its gains from the reopening rally that took off in October 2022. Reaching that grim milestone may embolden China skeptics, who continue to shun the market due to deepening property-sector woes and geopolitical concerns.

    The housing market slump remains a major overhang, with the crisis embroiling debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group and other key builders showing little signs of abating. Home sales continued to post double-digit declines from a year earlier in September, a traditionally busy season for builders, underscoring weak buyer confidence despite a recent slew of property easing measures.

     

    Some investors, however, say this year’s relentless selloff has created some buying opportunities. There are also hopes that the upcoming third plenum of the 20th Party Congress, a gathering of top leaders to discuss major economic and reform issues, will offer hints of further stimulus. The meeting, to be held toward the end of October and early November, could act as a positive catalyst, said Chen of Bloomberg Intelligence.

    “We can expect a recovery toward the end of the year or early next year with the economy coming toward the end of the de-stocking cycle, and as we see more coordinated policy efforts to tackle the weak economy,” said Elizabeth Kwik, investment director of Asian equities at abrdn Plc.

    For now, winning back foreign investors is proving to be hard. Global funds sold Chinese shares on a net basis for a second consecutive month in September, trimming their exposure to the lowest level since 2020. Pessimism is such that “short China equities” emerged as one of the biggest convictions among money managers in the latest Bank of America Corp. monthly survey.

    “We have economic data showing improvement so that’s a good start, but markets are skeptical given how confidence was badly damaged,” said Christopher Wong, FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. It will take time for Chinese markets to recover, he added, as “sentiment needs to recover and confidence needs to be repaired.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 20:50

  • "There's Just Way Too Much Debt": This Is Now The Greatest Bond Bear Market In History
    “There’s Just Way Too Much Debt”: This Is Now The Greatest Bond Bear Market In History

    There was a remarkable chart in the latest Flow Show note from BofA resident bear Michael Hartnett: after peaking in July 2020 and in the subsequent 28 months drawing down by a record 25%, this is now the single greatest bond bear market of all time!

    Considering that BofA’s historical data goes back 236 years all the way to the founding of the republic, this is a jarring statistic, and a poignant reminder of the magnitude of the pain rippling through the financial world in the aftermath of an inflation shock and interest-rate surge that few saw coming… a shock which Deutsche Bank last week quantified as a $70 trillion Mark to Market hit to duration portfolios (while some may claim it’s not a loss unless you actually sell the bond, the truth is that any bond which is pledged as collateral in the repo markets or elsewhere is valued daily, and the cumulative haircut assuming all eligible duration was pledged is, drumroll, $70 trillion).

    Worse, the historical bond bear market also underscores the growing angst in some corners of Wall Street about the increasingly shaky state of US government finances. As a reference, it took the US government just 18 days to add more than $500 billion dollars in debt after rising above $33 trillion for the first time: a run-rate of $1 trillion in new debt in under 2 months. Also, it took the US until March 1975 to accumulate its first $500 billion. It just did the same in 18 days.

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    As Bloomberg Markets Live reporter Ye Xie writes, massive deficits as far as the eye can see seemed fine when the Federal Reserve had interest rates pinned at zero and was monetizing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Treasuries every week. Free money can mask a lot of problems.

    But at today’s 5% rate, though, the math gets tricky. The government’s tab, and, as a result, the supply of bonds it needs to sell, adds up so fast that it can overwhelm what was long considered to be insatiable demand for the world’s safest investment.

    “There’s just way too much debt,” says Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni Research. And so, Xie goes on, the price on the 10-year Treasury bond is tumbling, driving its yield up to the highest level in 16 years. Investors, in other words, are demanding a discount to buy the debt, a dynamic that’s magnified by the Fed’s sudden exit from the market. Quantitative easing, as the Fed’s bond-purchase program was known, became untenable once policymakers deemed inflation was Enemy No. 1; it just pumped too much cash into an already overheated economy. Central banks in Brazil, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have also halted their US bond purchases. In some cases, they’ve taken to outright selling.

    The vacuum created by the central banks’ departure is once again empowering the traditional forces in finance: banks, hedge funds, insurers. Yardeni refers to this group as the bond vigilantes, a term he coined first back in the 1980s. Right now, he says, they’re back to doing their thing, pushing bond prices down and yields up, and sending a warning to Washington to rein in the deficit and inflation.

    This isn’t about the US defaulting on its debts. The periodic histrionics surrounding the debt ceiling and government funding deadlines are, for now at least, just that. The real concern is that by pursuing a fiscal policy that drives up yields so much, Washington is putting the squeeze on companies and consumers across America. Push yields too high, too fast and something in the economy will break, something both JPMorgan and Goldman agree on (see “Goldman, JPMorgan Pull The Alarm: As Yields Soar “Risks Are Growing Of A Sharp, Impulsive, Negative Feedback Loop… There Will Be A Financial Accident“.)

    Last March, it happened with SVB, and while nothing was fixed the problem of massive mark to markets bond losses was masked courtesy of the Fed’s BTFP facility which has hit new record highs every weeks since its inception (the facility is supposed to terminate next March; instead it will be greatly expanded). Yardeni frets it will happen again now, and potentially drag the economy into a painful recession in the process.

    “We’re getting pretty close to the level where something could break,” he says. A key level for him: 5% on the 10-year bond. Surpass that, he says, and the odds of a recession really pick up. The yield got as high as 4.89% last week. Just two months earlier, it was hovering around 4%. During the pandemic, it was as low as 0.3%.

    Meanwhile, Xie points to the latest Hartnett notes and reminds readers that the superlatives quantifying the bond rout are endless. One comparison being made is to the wipeout in stocks during the dot-com bust (in both cases, the losses reached 50%).

    Another startling reference is that at one point last quarter the spike in yields was the biggest since the increase that proceeded the 1987 stock market crash. The pain has started to spill into stocks this time, too, albeit to a far lesser extent. Corporate bonds have also slid while the dollar has rallied against most other currencies. Even oil, which had largely been impervious to broader economic forces throughout the summer, got sucked into the bond market vortex last week, posting losses that broke a months-long rally.

    What makes this moment all the more shocking to Wall Street veterans is that it disrupted years of Fed-orchestrated stability in the bond market. That comatose state, in which benchmark yields hovered around 2% day after day, year after year, had become known as the new normal. The US—and much of the rest of the world—had entered an era of low growth and low inflation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, so rock-bottom rates made sense.

    Few on Wall Street saw much that might change that, not even when the pandemic unleashed a torrent of government spending. Now that change is here at such a radical pace, many of finance’s best and brightest are suddenly citing all sorts of economic forces that could keep yields high for years: global warming, the transition to green energy, deglobalization, demographic shifts and, of course, the ever-growing supply of government bonds. “We are in a world with a permanently higher cost of capital, and that does have consequences,” says Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management.

    The years from 2008 to 2020 were abnormal, even if at some point they came to feel normal, Slok says. The Bank of America strategists dug up another historical nugget to underscore the point: Global interest rates during this period were the lowest in 5,000 years. “The new world that we live in,” Slok says, “is really the normal world that we were in.”

    It’s a world in which Yardeni’s vigilantes, the bond traders, have a much bigger voice, the Fed has a smaller one, and consumers, corporate executives and Washington lawmakers have to confront a harsh reality: America’s free-money experiment is over.

    And while it is certainly admirable that central banks are, at least superficially, seeking a return to the old normal, the problem is that if the Fed truly hopes to put the QE years behind it, it better be prepared to also wipe away about 80% of the stock market gains since 2009.

    Of course, this will never happen, as the alternative would be the biggest depression in global history, one which promptly mutates into social unrest and civil and global war. Which is why it is amusing to watch the Fed play chicken on two front: inflation on one, and the threat of unprecedented capital markets collapse on the other.

    Amusing, because in the end everyone knows which alternative the Fed – an unaccountable, private entity owned by America’s private banks and financial interests…

    Classification of central banks by ownership

    Source: Bank of England

    … will choose, and it’s also why we are fully certain that within a few years the new inflation target in the US will be 3%, if not much higher.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 20:34

  • Rubin And Tribe Under Fire For Using The Massacre In Israel For Bizarre Attacks On Political Figures
    Rubin And Tribe Under Fire For Using The Massacre In Israel For Bizarre Attacks On Political Figures

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    In academia, one of the most common criticisms in research and discussions is that correlation does not mean causation.

    It refers to the logical fallacy for some who draw a cause-and-effect relationship between two events. The logical fallacy is captured in the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc (‘with this, therefore because of this’). With the horrific attacks on Israel this week, some well-known commentators have been criticized for using the killing of hundreds by Hamas as a criticism of conservative figures or Republicans in general.

    That includes the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin who appeared to blame the GOP for inviting the attack and Professor Laurence Tribe who suggested (and later retracted) that the war was actually a “wag-the-dog” operation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to distract from corruption allegations.

    Rubin (who goes by the moniker “Jennifer Truthful, Not Neutral Rubin”) immediately attempted to use the attack as another attack on Republicans: “How about this: With US House in chaos and US military promotions on hold, Hamas struck. Republicans’ weakness invites terror.”

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    Putting aside the effort to use this tragedy as a political cudgel domestically, Rubin ignores the fact that the motion to vacate the chair succeeded due to a unanimous Democratic vote and just eight dissenting Republicans. The Democrats wanted to vacate the chair even though McCarthy was being criticized by the dissenters for working with them and they will now likely receive a far more strident speaker.

    Rubin has also called for expelling Republican members, who voted against certifying the 2020 election. She further declared that “we have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.”

    The Washington Post has repeatedly failed to take down or correct columns containing false claims by Rubin. Instead, it has run her calls to end impartiality and neutrality in journalism.

    Now Rubin is suggesting that Hamas decided to launch this massive attack because there is an acting Speaker in the House until next week. It appears that Hamas was just waiting for the motion to vacate to pass.

    Laurence Tribe immediately used the massacre to attack Netanyahu.

    Citing the Washington Post, Tribe wrote “Is Netanyahu wagging the dog of war to take attention away from his own war on the independent judiciary? Can anyone put that past him?”

    The response was fast and furious.

    It was even too much for figures like Keith Olbermann who condemned Tribe stating, “Well this is a moronic and indefensible POV.”

    What was striking is that the media finally called out Tribe, who has regularly posted bizarre legal theories and personal attacks against conservative figures, including attacking Bill Barr (erroneously) over his faith. On MSNBC and other outlets, Tribe regularly makes profane or personal attacks against those who hold opposing views of constitutional interpretation, including myself. These attacks include false assertions that had to be later corrected.

    These controversies highlight the need to restore an element of maturity and civility to commentary. The “everything-goes” mentality has now taken hold of major media outlets, which regularly feature trash talking and sensational claims. If the target of these attacks is a conservative or Republican, there is a sense of license to remove the safeties in public engagements.

    Once again, it is possible to restore a modicum of civility and accuracy in our public discourse. All it takes is for people of good faith to turn away from the rage and return reason in our commentary.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 19:50

  • "This Is Unacceptable": Blue States Blast Biden Over Border Blunders As Backlash Intensifies
    “This Is Unacceptable”: Blue States Blast Biden Over Border Blunders As Backlash Intensifies

    Blue states buckling under the strain of hundreds of thousands of migrants bussed into their Democratic strongholds are blaming President Joe Biden for not doing enough to curb the influx of illegals.

    The latest politician to blast Biden is Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who told Biden in a Monday letter that his state is in an “untenable situation,” and that the feds need to take “swift action.”

    In August, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) joined with business leaders to implore the administration to do something about the “humanitarian crisis” that’s overwhelmed New York City with more than 100,000 migrants.

    The next month, NYC Mayor Eric Adams predicted that the migrant crisis “will destroy New York City.“

    Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D), meanwhile, issued a state of emergency in August in response to the illegal migrant crisis, telling DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a letter that her state has taken action “to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction.”

     White House officials are scrambling to respond – and have already fumbled the ball on the border wall. Earlier last week, reports emerged that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, in an official document, that there is “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers” along the US border- while the Biden administration waived 26 federal laws to build more border wall.

    Two days later, he backpedaled furiously, claiming “There is no new administration policy with respect to the border wall,” adding “From day one, this Administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer. That remains our position and our position has never wavered. The language in the Federal Register notice is being taken out of context and it does not signify any change in policy whatsoever,” the statement continues.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to downplay the move, arguing that the government is following Trump-era laws but still does not believe in the wall’s effectiveness.

    “We believe that we need border technology that is modernized and land ports of entry. And that’s what we want to see,” she told reporters on Thursday, adding that Biden “does not believe it is effective. He has been very clear about that.”

    Jean-Pierre added that the wall funds were from a Trump-era border appropriations bill.

    “We asked Congress to reappropriate the funds,” she said, “But they’ve refused, and so now we’re moving forward.”

    More via The Epoch Times;

    Biden Trying to Appease Democratic Leaders: Border Experts

    The White House is acting in accordance with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which forbids the President or other government officials from bypassing Congress in making funding decisions. This is not, however, the primary reason why the administration is restarting the construction of the wall, according to Andrew Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

    The decision is clearly “driven by a need to respond to concerns voiced by Democratic-elected officials in northern U.S. cities,” Mr. Arthur told The Epoch Times.

    “Barriers will help agents in the apprehension and processing of illegal entrants, but they will do nothing to discourage those migrants improper entries absent a concomitant policy shift—but at least the administration can claim that it is ‘doing something.’”

    ‘We’re Here Abandoned’

    Last month, Mayor Rolando Salinas of Eagle Pass, Texas, a Democrat, criticized President Biden for the border crisis. In an interview with CNN, he complained that the White House had not communicated with him while thousands of illegal immigrants poured into his small city.

    “We’re here abandoned. We’re on the border, we’re asking for help. This is unacceptable,” he said.

    In a recent letter to the White House, Gov. Pritzker also raised a similar concern, urging that “there be one person in the federal government” who works directly for the president and is in charge of overseeing efforts at the border.

    When asked about this request, Ms. Jean-Pierre said, “There are multiple folks” at the White House who have been in contact with governors across the country.

    “Look, let’s not forget, we provided a billion dollars to those counties, states, cities who are dealing with this issue,” she said. “It is an issue that’s incredibly important to this president.”

    Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 19:15

  • Strike To Start At 4 Prime Healthcare California Hospitals
    Strike To Start At 4 Prime Healthcare California Hospitals

    By Kelly Gooch at Becker’s Hospital Review

    Members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals and Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West are set to launch a strike Oct. 9 at four Prime Healthcare facilities in Southern California.

    The unions represent about 2,400 workers at four Prime hospitals: St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, and Encino Hospital Medical Center, according to union statements shared with Becker’s. Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare operates 45 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient locations in 14 states.

    Members of both unions, which include registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, medical assistants, emergency room technicians, respiratory therapists and others, have been in negotiations with Prime for new contracts at the four facilities. Union members contend that during negotiations, management has not adequately addressed workers’ concerns about issues related to alleged unsafe staffing and high turnover.

    “We are calling on Prime Healthcare to stop their unfair labor practices, bargain in good faith, and listen to the front-line healthcare workers that this community depends on,” Bernie Espinoza, an ultrasound tech at Prime Garden Grove Hospital, said in a statement. “Staffing has been so critically low that many caregivers have left. The remaining workers are stretched thin and rushed. We’re forced to take on more patients with less staff, which leaves much less time for quality one-on-one patient care.”

    In its statement, UNAC/UHCP claimed that Prime cut nurse salaries when it bought St. Francis in 2020 and that registered nurse turnover has doubled to more than 50% since then, leaving the hospital “dangerously understaffed.”

    Prime emphasized its commitment to bargain in good faith.

    “Proposals have been delivered to the unions that would increase wages and provide comprehensive benefit programs, including healthcare, that is among the best in the nation at little to no cost to employees,” the health system said in a statement shared with Becker’s. “We believe the current proposal benefits all our employees and hope to reach an agreement so we can continue our mission of providing compassionate, quality care to patients.”

    Prime also noted recognition its hospitals have received for care and service; efforts it has made to hire, recruit and retain staff; support and growth opportunities it offers through continuing education, tuition reimbursement, career development and other programs; and investments it has made in improvements to hospitals.

    Regarding St. Francis specifically, Prime said the hospital “has a special story having been rescued from bankruptcy during the pandemic. After millions in investments to improve technology, systems and infrastructure, the hospital has achieved nationally recognized patient safety and quality awards while providing vital care for its community, earning commendation from local and state leaders. None of this would have been possible without our dedicated staff.  We are committed to ensuring a workplace that honors their work and continues to provide lifesaving care for the most vulnerable.”

    At St. Francis, registered nurses represented by UNAC/UHCP will join other healthcare workers for a five-day strike beginning Oct. 9. SEIU-UHW healthcare workers plan to strike at the three other Prime hospitals at the same time.

    A strike could be averted if a deal is reached before Oct. 9.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 18:40

  • As "Most Important Election Of Our Lives" Looms, Trump Blasts "Weak & Ineffective" Biden For Hamas Attack On Israel
    As “Most Important Election Of Our Lives” Looms, Trump Blasts “Weak & Ineffective” Biden For Hamas Attack On Israel

    During a campaign rally on Oct. 7 in Waterloo, Iowa, former President Trump responded to the surprise attack on Israeli towns by the terrorist group Hamas earlier in the day, criticizing President Biden for being a “weak leader”.

    “We’re here today for a very important reason: to commit to caucus, we know what that means right, commit to caucus, exactly 100 days from now each and every one of you is going to cast the most important vote of your lives.

    I believe that too. I believe that this will be the most important election of our lives because this country is headed in a horrible horrible direction and you so what took place today in Israel.

    This country is just headed so badly [sic].”

    Trump made it clear who was to blame for the attacks in Israel:

    “The Israeli attack was made because we are perceived as being weak and ineffective and with a really weak leader and and uh the brutal murder of citizens is an act of savagery that must and will be crushed, has to be… It has to be dealt with very powerfully.

    This is a time where the United States needs leadership –  we don’t have leadership – but Israel is at War and the United States obviously is going to stick with Israel and strongly…”

    Trump concluded with a pitch for his caucus:

    “if we don’t take back our country, we’re not going to have a country. If we do take back our country, our country will be greater than ever before, I promise you that…”

    Watch the clip below:

    The Ron Paul Institute’s Adam Dick made an interesting point as Republican Party presidential candidates rushed out statements setting forth their related views, the statement of Donald Trump stood out as relatively noninterventionist.

    While placing blame on Hamas, Trump refrained from promising support for the government of Israel in the conflict. This set him apart from the other prominent Republican candidates who made comments pledging support for Israel.

    Here is Trump’s Saturday statement on the matter:

    These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force. Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration. We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible. Here we go again.

    So far so good. Trump is not endorsing in his statement the United States government supporting the Israel government in this conflict. But, there certainly is much pressure on him to make such an endorsement soon.

    Other Republican presidential candidates, in contrast, jumped immediately at the opportunity to declare their support for aiding Israel in this new rising conflict. Tara Suter reported Saturday at The Hill on other prominent Republican candidates’ early statements on the matter. Every one of them took a step beyond Trump, pledging their support to the Israel government in the rising conflict.

    Below are excerpts from those candidates’ statements presented in Suter’s article.

    Doug Burgum: “Iran and its terror sponsors in Gaza are showing the world their true face: pure evil. Israel is at war with brutal terrorists and the United States must provide maximum support to our democratic ally.”

    Chris Christie: “We must do whatever it takes to support the State of Israel in its time of grave danger, and we must end the scourge of Iran-backed terrorism.”

    Ron DeSantis: “Israel not only has the right to defend itself against these attacks, it has a duty to respond with overwhelming force. I stand with Israel. America must stand with Israel.”

    Nikki Haley: “Israel has every right to defend its citizens from terror. We must always stand with Israel and against this Iranian regime.”

    Mike Pence: “Our prayers are with the families and soldiers of our most cherished ally. @netanyahu [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu)] says Israel is ‘at war’ America Stands With Israel[.]”

    Vivek Ramaswamy: “Israel’s right to exist & defend itself should never be doubted and Iran-backed Hamas & Hezbollah cannot be allowed to prevail. I stand with Israel and the U.S. should too.”

    Tim Scott: “Israel has a right to defend itself and the United States must stand in support of its steadfast ally.”

    Can Trump continue to resist the pressure being put on him to declare that he does, and the US government should, “stand with Israel” in regard to this rising conflict?

    We’ll see.

    Taking a solitary course concerning this matter would be consistent with Trump’s apparent effort to run as the peace candidate among the contenders in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 18:05

  • Dollarization Puts Foreign Economies At The Mercy Of The US Regime
    Dollarization Puts Foreign Economies At The Mercy Of The US Regime

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Argentinian presidential candidate Javier Milei – who could actually win in the general election later this month – has become famous for his fiery speeches and his libertarian views from central banking to government spending.

    Milei’s proposed policies – if he’s able to actually implement them – would do much to help the Argentinian economy recover from decades of malaise caused by runaway government spending and monetary inflation.

    Among Milei’s positions, however, is his call for the dollarization of the Argentinian economy. It is unclear if Milei seeks currency competition within Argentina or if he seeks “full-blown” dollarization. In the case of the former, the dollar would merely be permitted to openly compete with other currencies. Full-blown dollarization, on the other hand, would mean the complete abandonment of the Argentinian peso and the adoption of the US dollar as the state’s preferred currency.

    Here at mises.org, authors Simon Wilson and Kristoffer Hansen have already addressed some of the economic problems presented by dollarization. There are geopolitical problems that come with full dollarization, as well. Dollarized countries open themselves up to more ready control by the US regime should Washington decide it wishes to impose economic sanctions on a dollarized country. The impact of sanctions within a dollarized economy can have especially devastating effects on ordinary people who must use dollars in everyday transactions.

    At least, this is what happened in Panama in 1988 and 1989. The Panamanian economy had been fully dollarized for decades when the US government imposed economic sanctions on the country as part of the US government’s efforts to capture the Manuel Noriega. Full dollarization led in part to a severe economic contraction which did little to unseat Noriega but which impoverished ordinary dollar users in the country.

    While Argentinians may think it’s unlikely that the US will seek to impose sanctions on the country—and thus such geopolitical concerns are irrelevant—the US in recent years has been increasingly enthusiastic about using economic sanctions against regimes Washington doesn’t like. Any regime considering dollarization would do well to at least consider how dollarization can increase the US’s potential for direct political control over dollarized economies.

    Panama: A Case of Full Dollarization

    The nominal Panamanian currency is the balboa, but it only circulates as coins and is pegged to the dollar in a 1:1 ratio. The US dollar is used in most transactions, Panama has never had its own central bank, and the dollar has functioned as legal tender for more than a century in Panama. This means the Panama economy is now—and has been since economic liberalization in the 1970s—fully integrated into the US financial system. 

    This comes with some undeniable benefits. As Juan Luis Moreno-Villalaz has noted,

    The unified currency system eliminates foreign exchange risk, currency mismatches, and speculative attacks so common in other countries with central banks and “sovereign” money. The absence of “policy decisions” regarding monetary or exchange rate affairs reduces risk because less information is needed by outside investors.

    Because of this relative stability and economic integration, however, the role of dollar-denominated US banks in Panama is unusually large, and ordinary consumers and business owners use US banks and dollars to carry out everyday transactions. Because the US government can directly regulate these US banks and their payment systems, this makes Panama’s economy more directly affected by US domestic policy, including executive orders from US presidents.

    Not that non-dollarized economies are immune from this. In the modern world, even non-dollarized economies use dollars heavily. Dollars are key to the eurodollar economy—including petrodollars—and dollars are used extensively for international trade. Cutting off access to dollars can be used as a chokepoint against many countries should the US wish to impose economic sanctions against those countries. We have seen this phenomenon at work in recent years in the form of new US sanctions against Russia and Iran. Thus, one could reasonably conclude that the dollar can be weaponized against countries whether or not those countries have dollarized. This is true to an extent, but the Panama experience suggests that full dollarization magnifies and extends a foreign economy’s susceptibility to US policy. 

    Dollarization and US Sanctions Against Panama 

    The problem of dollarization for Panama became acute in 1988 and 1989 when the United States engaged in efforts to arrest General Manuel Noriega and try him for a variety of drug-related crimes in the United States. From the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, Noriega had been a valued unofficial agent of the CIA and the US regime. He funneled resources to the Contras in Nicaragua at the behest of the US government and allowed the CIA to carry out spy operations from bases in Panama. As the de facto ruler of Panama throughout much of the 1980s, he was, in short, one of the US regime’s many “strongman” allies in Latin America. When Noriega began to assert more independence from Washington, however, the US regime turned against him and sought his extradition.

    Economic sanctions were subsequently imposed in 1988. According to a 1989 report from the General Accounting Office, the State Department advised US banks “to not disburse funds to the Noriega regime.” The report continues:  “On March 11, 1988, the President [Reagan] …announced a program to reduce the flow of U.S. dollars to Panama. This included requiring that all payments due to Panama from the operation of the Panama Canal Commission be deposited into an escrow account established at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”  The US also assisted Noriega’s adversaries in Panama in an effort to “freez[e] Panamanian assets in the United States which ultimately led to the closure of domestic Panamanian banks in March 1988.” 

    The sanctions did not succeed in convincing Noriega to surrender, but they did damage the Panamanian economy considerably.  As political scientist Benjamin J. Cohen describes it,

    Panamanian assets in U.S. banks were frozen, and all payments and dollar transfers to Panama were prohibited, effectively demonetizing the economy. … The effect on the economy was devastating despite rushed efforts by the Panamanian authorities to create a substitute currency, mainly by issuing checks in standardized denominations that they hoped recipients would then treat as cash.

    The sanctions may have reduced Panama’s economic output by as much as 20 percent, yet it is notable that the US did not even employ its full arsenal of economic sanctions. Given the extensive dollarization of the Panama economy, the US could have easily further destroyed the Panama economy by “curtailing … inter-bank transfers of US dollars.” 

    Some historians and economists have investigated to what extent Panama’s dollarization put it at the mercy of US sanctions. Cohen concludes “In political terms … Panama has been especially vulnerable in its relations with Washington.” In a study titled “Full Dollarization: The Case of Panama,” the authors conclude 

    the suspension of payments (resulting from the freezing of Panamanian accounts in New York) could be a risk associated mainly with a dollarized economy, given that the dollarization regime leads to a large presence of overseas bank accounts. … It is true that the United States cut off the supply of new paper currency and froze Panamanian bank accounts in New York. The first action had little real adverse economic impact, however, while the efficacy of the second derived not from dollarization per se but from the large role of New York banks in the economy. But the latter was in part the consequence of the former” [emphasis added.]

    In other words, dollarization likely led to greater reliance on US banks which, in turn, increased the ability of the US to more effectively impose sanctions on Panama’s economy. 

    Perhaps one of the most notable effects of the sanctions in Panama’s dollarized economy was the fact the sanctions had such a large effect on ordinary Panamanians. In a non-dollarized economy, sanctions limiting access to dollars can take more time to be felt by the bulk of the population, especially those parts of the population not directly involved in international trade and finance. With dollars as the ordinary everyday currency, however, efforts to cut off the flow of dollars had a greater direct impact on the economy. In a 1990 study for the Army War College, Kay. B. Witt concludes “the average Panamanian bore the brunt of the sanctions,” and it might also be noted that the sanctions were most felt by law-abiding citizens who were not involved in the “informal” economy where dollars still flowed via illegal conduits. The Noriega regime had access to both the normal economy and the informal economy, however, and thus could continue to access dollars even as ordinary people greatly suffered at the hands of US policymakers.  Witt concedes, “the sanctions had no significant effect on General Noriega and his loyal followers.” 

    Noriega, of course, was eventually captured in early 1990 in the wake of a US invasion, and the sanctions were lifted. It is instructive, however, to note the speed and ease with which the US was able to devastate the Panama economy by cutting off dollars.

    Dollarization does indeed bring economic benefits, but Latin American policymakers might be well-advised to consider the geopolitical effects of dollarization as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 17:30

  • Iran Helped Hamas "Plot Israel Attack Over Several Weeks", Gave Green Light, WSJ Reports
    Iran Helped Hamas “Plot Israel Attack Over Several Weeks”, Gave Green Light, WSJ Reports

    Readers may recall that we ended our first post-mortem to the war between Israel and Hamas by speculation if Iran would get dragged in:

    Finally, there is some speculation that Iran may get dragged into what is rapidly emerging as the worst Middle-Eastern crisis in years, with various pro-Israeli hawks claiming that the Hamas attack would have only occurred with explicit Iranian backing. If Israel does indeed attack Iran, as it has hinted it would do for years, may we suggest you fill up your gas tank.

    That speculation has been all but validated moments ago when the WSJ reported that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday“, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.

    Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions, the WSJ reported citing its Hamas and Hezbollah sources.

    Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.

    At the same time, officials from the deep state blob – who have been desperate to appease both Iran and Venezuela in recent months in hopes of getting sanctions against the Tehran regime lifted so that it can officially supply extra oil to the US ahead of the 2024 elections (instead of just unofficially shipping oil to China), with Biden terrified what high gas prices may do to his reelection chances – say they haven’t seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.”  This was echoed by an U.S. official of the meetings who said that “We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account.”

    A European official and an adviser to the Syrian government, however, both of whom are not bound by the price of oil in Nov 2024, gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack as the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members.

    Some more details from the WSJ:

    A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.

    The IRGC’s broader plan is to create a multi-front threat that can strangle Israel from all sides—Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.

    Whether or not Iran actually did help Hamas plan and execute the attack, and whether Mossad – the world’s best intelligence agency – was really completely unaware of what was going on, is – for the time being – irrelevant. What matters is that the narrative is now being shaped so that the mainstream media will cast blame on Iran alongside Hamas, just as a US aircraft carrier arrives in the Gulf to provide support to Israel.

    The geopolitical implications are staggering, but once again we repeat our advice from Saturday morning: fill up your gas tank now.

    * * *

    Update(1345ET): For the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the government of Israel has issued a formal and legal “declaration of war” after Saturday’s devastating assault from Islamic militants out of Gaza, which according to the country’s health ministry has left over 700 Israelis dead and thousands injured. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told CNN in a morning interview, “There will probably be more hundreds, several hundred more.”

    At least 350 have been killed on the Palestinian side, as a large-scale Israeli bombing campaign over Gaza ensues. Israeli officials are expected to embark on some kind of hostage rescue operation. According to Israeli media there are foreigners, likely including Americans, among the kidnapped hostages being held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad:

    The Government Press Office, a body that operates under the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said Sunday in a Facebook post that the number of hostages in Gaza was over 100.

    Among the kidnapped were small children, the elderly, and foreign nationals including 11 Thais working on farms near the border. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the State Department was attempting to confirm reports that Americans had been killed or kidnapped.

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    Currently, there are reports that internecine gunfire has erupted in different parts of Israel and the West Bank. Overnight there were also reports of sporadic shelling and exchanges of fire in the north, between Hezbollah and Israel’s military.

    Will a northern front open up? This would likely put Israel in an even greater state of panic as things spiral…

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    Below is a brief review of major events over the last several hours, courtesy of Academy SITREP:

    • Early this morning, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel firing thousands of rockets in a coordinated air and land assault.
    • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was now “at war” and has retaliated with massive airstrikes on Hamas targets.
    • Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia organization that fought a war with Israel in 2006, said that it was monitoring the situation but has not yet pledged its support to join forces with Hamas in this attack on Israel.
    • An adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that Iran supported the cross-border operation by Hamas, which is not surprising and could partially be in response to the ongoing Saudi Arabia /Israel diplomatic talks.
    • Netanyahu has spoken with President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin said that “The Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
    • While still early, initial reports are coming in indicting over 40 Israelis have been killed along with hundreds more injured.

    Fighting along Israel’s southern border with the Gaza Strip is ongoing Sunday:

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    Meanwhile, US Neocons clamoring for war and escalation by saying an attack on Israel is an attack on America…

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    * * *

    Among the most shocking images to come out of Saturday’s surprise deadly assault by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) out of Gaza was the scene of dozens of militants flying over the southern Israeli desert using motor-powered hang gliders.

    Some of the first footage to go viral soon after the broader cross-border assault was of militants parachuting down into a crowd of thousands of unsuspecting young Israeli partiers who were enjoying a rave concert in the southern desert. Foreigners, including Europeans and possibly Americans were also in attendance. The surreal scene looks like something out of the 1980s movie “Red Dawn”…

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    The above is being widely described as the moment it all started. The event was described as a “Music Festival for Peace” – ironically enough, but was very close to the Gaza border.

    Possibly dozens of festival goers were abducted and others were killed. There were seen huddled in the back of large trucks and driven into Gaza by armed militants. 

    Others, more fortunate, later fled across the desert by foot – and made it to their vehicles, as the below additional footage shows…

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    The whole paraglider aspect to the Hamas operation shows a high level of planning, coordination, and sophistication by the Gaza-based militant group. Many Western observers are questioning how Israel’s celebrated Mossad intelligence organization could have missed it, given clearly the operation was at least months or longer in planning.

    Hamas subsequently published high quality footage of its ‘special ops’ units launching the motorized paragliders…

    Later in the day, some of the captives – including apparently foreigners – were paraded by the Islamic terrorists in front of cameras. One particularly gruesome image included what looked like a young woman’s mangled, lifeless body face-down in the bed of a pick-up truck with a militant sitting on top of her (it’s as yet unknown whether she’s dead or alive).

    There are reports that she may be a German national and her family is said to be seeking information on her whereabouts. She remains missing and is possibly deceased:

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    Americans were also likely among the captives. On Sunday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We have reports that several Americans were killed. We are working overtime to verify that,” he told reporters. Here’s what the US top diplomat said:

    “Does the administration know at this point if U.S. citizens were among the dead or those taken hostage?” NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Blinken.

    Blinken said: “So we have reports that several Americans may be among the dead. We are very actively working to verify those reports. Similarly, we’ve seen reports about hostages and they’re, again, we’re very actively trying to verify them, and nail that down.”

    Pressed again on whether some U.S. citizens could have been taken hostage as well, Blinken replied: “That’s correct.”

    Additionally Fox News correspondent Will Cain followed with, “Was just told by Israel’s Ambassador to the UN that there are dozens of American citizens among the hostages in Gaza.” He explained that many of these would be dual nationals. 

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    As more details emerge from the scene, there are unverified reports that multiple dozens of the festival attendees may have been killed or kidnapped – again among them international tourists and visitors.

    The Irish Times on Sunday reported that 22-year-old dual citizen Kim Damti was among the many unaccounted for.

    Ms Damti was attending an all-night outdoor rave with hundreds of others close to the Gaza border when the first rocket barrage hit close to 7am on Saturday, taking everyone by surprise.

    In the last phone call made by Ms Damti, at 7am on Saturday, she was running with a friend towards a car in an attempt to flee the rocket barrage. That was the last contact with her.

    More and more disturbing footage like the below has been trickling out.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 17:30

  • Most Americans Oppose Corporate Political And Social Campaigns; New Poll Finds
    Most Americans Oppose Corporate Political And Social Campaigns; New Poll Finds

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have been discussing shareholder and consumer opposition to companies like Disney and BudLight tying their brands to social agendas and political questions. Now a Gallup survey shows that public support for these companies is continuing to fall, even among Democrats who still overall favor corporate messaging on social and political issues. Only 41 percent now approve of such corporate campaigns. However, neither public support nor sales were the driving forces behind these campaigns.

    The support for these corporate campaigns has dropped another seven percentage points since the last survey. Given the political alignment of companies like Disney, it is not surprising that they receive their greatest support among Democrats who would likely change their views if companies began to adopt opposing views. Currently 62% of Democrats believe businesses should take a public stance on current events. That is down from 75% just a year ago. Only 17% of Republicans and 36% of independents favor these corporate campaigns.

    Yet, even with the drop, these companies knew beforehand that roughly half of their consumer base opposed their entry into social and political messaging. Indeed, after BudLight imploded over its promotion featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, other companies boldly moved forward with their own controversial commercials including shaving company Braun, clothing company North Face, shoe company Nike, and jeans company Levi’s.

    Disney, however, shows how resistant executives can be to consumer backlash. For years, Disney’s controversial movies and policies have driven away many families — and reduced profits. Now, CEO Robert Iger is saying that he wants to “quiet the noise” with the company’s fight with Florida and take a less controversial public position.

    Yet, earlier this year, I wrote that Disney would ultimately have to back down in a fight that it could not win in the long run. Instead, Iger moved aggressively against the state and threatened to pull out of major projects. At the same time, the company moved ahead with controversial retakes on classic movies. Revenues at the company have continued to fall and layoffs increased. Now, Iger apparently has had enough — at least in the fight with Florida.

    Indeed, some executives appear to dislike their base.  Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light,  appears to have cost the company billions after pledging to drop Bud Light’s “fratty reputation and embrace inclusivity.”

    She certainly succeeded in changing the entire view of the brand in less than a year on the job. Heinerscheid knew that the brand image sells the beer. That image is now unpalatable for many consumers. The social value of these campaigns is lost if consumers reject beer with the branding message.

    The Gallup poll again raises the question of who these companies are selling to. Like many media outlets that have written off half of the country, these campaigns are slashing the market for products in order for companies to sell political or social positions. Even many Democrats now want companies to get back to just selling their products and stay out of politics.

    The legal question, again, is whether shareholders have a claim to demand an accounting from the management over such campaigns.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 16:20

  • "Go Back To Jersey, You Migrant-Hating Creep": NYC Mayor Heckled In Unusual Trip To Colombia
    “Go Back To Jersey, You Migrant-Hating Creep”: NYC Mayor Heckled In Unusual Trip To Colombia

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams made an unusual trip to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia this weekend, attempting to dissuade migrants from coming to supposedly ‘sanctuary cities’ in the US. Democrat mayors, like Adams, who months ago welcomed migrants with open arms, have made drastic U-turns on their immigration politics amid a flood of migrants. Now, the progressive mayor wants the migrants out, as well as other Democrats.

    During Adams’ visit to Central and South America, seemingly an effort by the Democrat party to address criticisms over their failed southern border policy – which many blame for the influx of undocumented immigrants and transforming some cities like NYC into a -world-like country, the mayor could not catch a break in Colombia and was heckled by protesters.

    “Shame on you Eric Adams!” a man shouted in English at Adams in the port town of Necoclí, Colombia, according to New York Post. 

    The man continued shouting: “It will increase the amount of violence against migrants across the United States!” The man referenced Adams’ recent comments telling migrants they were not welcomed in the Big Apple. 

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    NYPost said a number of other protesters gathered at the port town with one person holding up a sign that read, “Go back to New Jersey, you migrant-hating creep.”

    Source: AP News

    Adams told local media the migrant tour, led by Colombian officials and law enforcement, has given him a “true analysis” of the Darién Gap, a dangerous trail used by human smugglers to transport people from South America to the US.

    A recent NBC News poll now finds voters favor Republicans over Democrats for dealing with immigrants. 

    You know things are bad for the Democrats when Bill Clinton has to get on the radio and denounce NYC as a sanctuary city. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 15:45

  • Schumer Meets Shanghai Party Chief In Bipartisan Senate Trip To China
    Schumer Meets Shanghai Party Chief In Bipartisan Senate Trip To China

    Authored by Frank Fang and Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with Shanghai’s communist party boss in his first stop leading a bipartisan delegation to China, telling the latter he wants to see a level playing field as the two countries engage in economic competition.

    The meeting took place shortly after the senators’ arrival in Shanghai on an overcast and windy Saturday afternoon, which marks the first day of a three-country tour that will also take them to South Korea and Japan.

    “Many of our constituents feel that in instances China does not treat American companies fairly,” Mr. Schumer told Shanghai communist party secretary Chen Jining, adding that such feelings affect “America’s view of China.”

    “We believe we need reciprocity allowing American companies to compete as freely in China as Chinese companies are able to compete here,” he said. “We are prepared to compete but we do not seek to conflict.”

    The delegation is co-led by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idado). The four other senators on the trip are Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.).

    The Shanghai official in his public remarks avoided going into specific issues, stressing instead the importance of a stable China–U.S. relationship. Noting the over 5,600 U.S. companies in the Chinese city, he also offered windows to promote trade at the local level.

    Mr. Schumer also raised the issue of fentanyl, noting the supply of fentanyl precursors enabling the opioid’s production in Mexico.

    “They are fueling the fentanyl crisis that is poisoning communities across the United States,” he said. “Every one of us knows families who have lost young men and women to fentanyl.”

    U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.) (R) and other members of the delegation arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, on Oct. 7, 2023. (Aly Song/Pool Photo via AP)

    Last month, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found in its annual poll that U.S. firms’s China outlook was the worst in decades. Regulatory challenges facing U.S. firms included a lack of intellectual property protection, data localization, and other cybersecurity requirements.

    The senators’ trip comes after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to China in August. During her trip, she said American companies had complained to her that China has become “uninvestable,” citing changes to counterespionage laws, exorbitant fines without any explanation, and Chinese authorities’ raids on foreign firms.

    In September, Ms. Raimondo told NBC in an interview that the United States was trying to “choke” China’s military capacity. “Certainly, on my watch, we are not going to sell the most sophisticated American chip to China that they want for their military capacity,” she said.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, have all visited China this year.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Oct. 5 that the Biden administration has been in touch with the senate delegation and “certainly support[s]” their visit to the region.

    The China trip also took place amid bilateral tensions in the backdrop. On Saturday, China’s commerce ministry complained about the new U.S. restrictions on 42 Chinese companies that allegedly supplied parts to the Russian military, claiming it was “a typical act of economic coercion and unilateral bullying.”

    ‘Xi Is an Adversary’

    Before the delegation arrived in China, several Republican senators took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express doubts about engaging with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

    “Nothing [Schumer] says will stop the CCP’s human rights abuses, shipping of deadly fentanyl to our border or theft of American resources,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on Oct. 6.

    Mexico cartels have been buying precursor chemicals from China to make fentanyl and ship finished products to the United States. On Oct. 3, the Treasury Department sanctioned more than 20 entities and individuals in China involved in a network for manufacturing and distributing fentanyl and other drugs.

    On the same day, the Justice Department charged eight Chinese corporations and 12 Chinese nationals for allegedly illegally important fentanyl and related chemicals into the United States.

    In a separate X post on Oct. 6, Mr. Scott urged Mr. Schumer to ask CCP officials why they had recently placed a floating barrier at the entrance to the lagoon at Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground for Philippine fishermen.

    “He could ask them why they’re putting up illegal barriers to impede navigation and harm the fishers,” Mr. Scott wrote. “It’s acts of aggression like this that tell us precisely who Xi is, an adversary.”

    Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) speaks during a press conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on July 11, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Also ahead of the delegation’s arrival in China, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) released a short clip, explaining that he couldn’t be on the delegation because he had been sanctioned by China.

    The CCP imposed sanctions on Mr. Rubio and several other lawmakers in 2020, in retaliation against U.S. sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms.

    Also in his clip, Mr. Rubio warned that the United States cannot accommodate the CCP.

    “In the end, [China’s] viewpoint is, no matter how much these politicians talk tough, they’re so addicted to what we can provide them, and in the end, they’re really limited to what they can do. And they will perceive these leadership trips as an indicator of us looking for an exit strategy and an accommodation on that front,” Mr. Rubio says in the video.

    Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said Mr. Schumer should not have traveled to China; instead, the Senate Majority leader should have canceled the Senate’s October recess and have the senators debate all 12 appropriations bills, to avert another government shutdown on Nov. 17.

    “The last thing Chuck Schumer should be doing is going to China to try to secure a meeting with Xi Jinping with the appropriations process unfinished,” Mr. Hagerty wrote on Oct. 6. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 15:10

  • Israelis Question "Catastrophic" Intelligence Failure
    Israelis Question “Catastrophic” Intelligence Failure

    Never in history has Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad been able to kill and kidnap hundreds of Israelis in a single day. Saturday’s assault was clearly well-planned, highly coordinated, and well-armed, and very likely was in preparation for months or even years. The Times of Israel is reporting an Israeli death toll of over 600, with the military confirming over 100 now in Palestinian captivity. 

    Israeli officials and media pundits now want answers: how could Israel’s most celebrated and storied intelligence organization Mossad have missed it? How did the military not have any foreknowledge that it was coming? How did the Gaza jihadists overrun several IDF outposts so swiftly and easily? 

    Heavily armed Islamic militants were able to penetrate deep into several Israeli towns and settlements on Saturday.

    Current and former Israeli officials are now decrying the “catastrophic” intelligence failure, and warn it may have serious lasting political ramifications. This whole war could even serve to destabilize the Netanyahu coalition government. 

    Chuck Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser, has told Politico: “This is a catastrophic failure in regards to Gaza.”

    “It’s a failure in terms of intelligence, operationally,” Freilich said. “It’s clear we were caught totally unprepared by this. The divisional headquarters responsible for Gaza was occupied, they’re in disarray, and so the whole response has been delayed.”

    He predicts far-reaching “political ramifications”…

    “There’s always a short-term rallying around the flag. But once the dust settles we’ll have major political ramifications,” Freilich said. “After the Yom Kippur war, it took three and a half years for [then Israeli Prime Minister] Golda Meir’s government to be toppled — I don’t think it will take that long this time.”

    Former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin compared Saturday’s raids to the “intelligence failure” of the Yom Kippur War – which famously saw the Egyptian and Syrian armies mount a surprise attack on Tel Aviv forces.

    The common Israeli public has been voicing outrage as well…

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    Military men are asking similar questions, with Eli Marom – the former head of the Israeli navy, stating in a national broadcast, “All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the IDF, where is the police, where is the security?… It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

    And among Western pundits, an op-ed in The Guardian says it was “unthinkable” and an “intelligence failure for the ages.” Peter Beaumont writes:

    Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel, on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, will be remembered as an intelligence failure for the ages.

    In the space of several hours, dozens of Gaza militants broke through the border fence into southern Israel, surprising local military positions.

    Gunmen kidnapped and murdered Israelis in the southern border communities, filming their assault as they advanced in numerous locations. In one instance, a Gaza television journalist delivered a standup report about one attack from inside Israel, an almost unthinkable moment.

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    Some have gone so far as to speculate that the Netanyahu government may have had awareness that something was coming, but planned to exploit any assault as a justification to wipe out Gaza and to launch a major ground war against Hamas. As of Sunday, PM Netanyahu formally declared war.

    “The war declaration was taken in accordance with Article 40 of Israel’s Basic Law, the Israeli government press office said,” according to CNN.

    Will a fight at Israeli’s northern border be next?

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 14:35

  • WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom
    WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom

    Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

    That’s why only Central Banks can create digital currencies

    The Fed recently put out a white paper, Data Privacy for Digital Asset Systems, which contends that the expectation of privacy in digital currencies (read: CBDCs) stems from misunderstanding how digital systems work.

    “Concepts such as the desire for ‘cash-like anonymity’ are based on false underlying assumptions.”, is the crux of it (quick, somebody tell the Monero team, and everybody else already deploying anonymizing protocols and applications for digital assets).

    The subtext is that there can be some privacy and confidentiality safeguards built into CBDCs, but at the end of the day those would still be subject to being overridden or dispensed with. The paper doesn’t come out and say that, but it does make oblique references:

    “confidentiality implies that collected and stored data is protected from view in some manner, such as obfuscation or access restriction, and available only to authorized actors.”

    Which of course makes you wonder who exactly will be authorized and what will their capabilities be? It truly is the trillion dollar question.

    WEF: “Hold my beer”

    If we keep this paper in mind while we consider the World Economic Forum’s recent article on digital currencies, privacy and freedom, which put a finer point on it, while paying lip service to the desire for privacy in those characteristic WEF-speak euphemisms:

    “A digital cash replacement should not enable criminality, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.”

    “Some freedom” implies that any freedom will be subject to approval, because either you have complete freedom, or you don’t.

    “Some freedom” coming from the WEF especially, sounds a lot like their “Life in 2030” vision, which is mostly known for point #1: “You’ll own nothing and be happy”.

    Point #4 is “You’ll eat much less meat. An occasional treat, not a staple. For the environment, and for your health”.

    In other words, according to the WEF, digital currencies will afford some privacy and some freedom. Just like how in 2030 you’ll be able to eat some meat. (As long as you behave.)

    Throughout the piece the impetus toward digital currencies is ascribed to consumer preferences for convenience – that nation states and NGOs (including the WEF) are relentlessly pushing us there, along with digital IDs and health passports, is never mentioned.

    Through their preference for the convenience of electronic payments, we will inadvertently lose the historic freedom that only cash provides: to spend our money on what we want, with whom we choose.

    It’s always amusing to watch the Davos-darlings pretend to grapple with thorny ethical issues:

    As governments and central banks consider introducing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC), they must therefore answer the following: Once the last cash payment is made, does this mean our historic right to make payments that are not observable or censorable by the state will end on the same day? Is that what we want?

    The answer, of course, is a resounding “yes” if we’re to remember some of the more breathless pronouncements from their conclaves:

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

    “We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.

    The WEF article tackles the conundrum:

    any system that allows people to make payments that cannot be traced or blocked is bound to attract criminals as well as facilitate personal liberty… A digital currency system should not mimic the “wild west”, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.

    And while the article acknowledges that,

    “if a CBDC doesn’t have some element of this capability, my prediction is it will fail in some major developed economies.”,

    the entire framing is that Central Banks are the only game in town, and they need to get it right:

    If the private sector could deliver a truly cash-like product itself, then we wouldn’t need this debate, but even a limited degree of cash-like behaviour would be incompatible with electronic payments laws. The reality is that only a central bank could deliver this type of product, thanks to the precedent set by their monopoly on the issuance of cash.

    This paragraph would be the so-called “money-shot”. There is no mention of Bitcoin, or that crypto-currencies and stablecoins are already becoming ceded territory within the regulatory frameworks of nation states. There is no acknowledgement that many holders of wealth and capital will simply end-run CBDCs for the very reasons they articulate.

    One of the WEF’s core tenets is that nation states are losing their position as the sole arbiters of power in this Fourth Industrial Revolution. That means they will have to coexist within a rubric of “Stakeholder Capitalism”, but what the WEF sending mixed messages:

    On the one hand, governments are losing their primacy (and thus, monopoly on money issuance and supra-national initiatives like digital id’s and health passports), while on the other, only they have the authority to bless ascendent monetary systems. Which is it?

    And how could you possibly publish an article like this without observing the elephant in the room: Bitcoin (and crypto-currencies, including stablecoins) have already entered the monetary landscape and have changed it in irreversible ways.

    As expected when it comes to the World Economic Forum, it’s a display of truly breathtaking hubris and nescience.

    *  *  *

    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.

    Today’s post was an excerpt from the CBDC coverage section of the latest The Bitcoin Capitalist. TBC provides actionable intelligence on the macro forces shaping Late Stage Globalism and a tactical toolkit for preserving and growing your wealth as it plays out. Try it today here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/08/2023 – 14:00

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Oct 08

Today’s News 8th October 2023

  • Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountain
    Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountain

    Authored by Pepe Escobar,

    There was a whiff of Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ at the 20th Valdai annual meeting this week at a hotel over the gorgeous heights of the Krasnaya Polyana. north-west of the picturesque resort Sochi.

    But instead of a deep dive into the lure and degeneracy of ideas in an introverted community in the Swiss Alps on the eve of the First World War, we immersed ourselves in powerful new ideas expressed by a community of Global Majority intellectuals on the possible eve of a psycho neocon-intended WWIII.

    And then, of course, President Putin intervened, striking the plenary session like lightning.

    This is an unofficial Top Ten of his address, before the Q&A which was characteristically engaging:

    “I even suggested joining NATO for Russia. But no, NATO does not need such a country (…) Apparently, the problem is geopolitical interests and an arrogant attitude towards others.”

    “We never started the so-called war in Ukraine. We are trying to end it.”

    “In the international system, lawlessness reigns supreme.”

    “This is not a territorial war. The issue is much broader and more fundamental: it is about the principles on which a new world order will be built.”

    “The history of the West is a chronicle of endless expansion, and a huge financial pyramid.”

    “A certain part of the West always needs an enemy. To preserve the internal control of their system.”

    “Perhaps [the West] should check its hubris.”

    “That era [of Western domination] is long gone. It’s never coming back.”

    “Russia is a distinct civilization-state”.

    “Our understanding of civilization is quite different. First, there are many civilizations. And none of them is better or worse than the other. They are equal, as expressions of the aspirations of their cultures, their traditions, their peoples. For each of us it is different.”

    On The Road to “Asynchronous Multipolarity”

    The theme of Valdai 2023 was, most appropriately, ‘Fair Multipolarity’. The key axes of discussion were presented in this provocative, detailed report. It’s as if the report had prepared the stage for Putin’s address and his carefully crafted answers to the questions from the plenary.

    The concept of multipolarity in the Russian space was first articulated by the late, great Yevgeny Primakov in the mid-Nineties. Now, the road to multipolarity is based on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s concept of “strategic patience”.

    In a crisscrossed cornucopia of nation-states, larger blocs, security blocs and ideological historic blocs, we’re now deep into mega-alignments – even as the political West cultivates its universalist ambitions. The Eurasian “non-bloc” is in fact a mega-alignment, as much as the revitalized Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which finds its expression in the G77 (actually formed by 134 nations).

    The ideal path to follow might be horizontalism – in a Deleuze-Guattari sense – where we would have 200 equal nation-states. Of course the collective West won’t allow it. Andrey Shushentov, Dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University, proposes the notion of “asynchronous multipolarity”. Radhika Desai of Manitoba University proposes “pluripolarity” – borrowing from Hugo Chavez.

    The risk, as expressed by Turkish political scientist Ilter Turan, is that by trying to build a replica of the present system via, for instance, BRICS 11, we may be racing towards a parallel system that simply cannot organize itself as the leader of a new order. So, a clearly possible outcome is a bipolar system – considering the impossible convergence of common values.

    At the same time, a South-east Asian perspective, expressed by the President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Pham Lan Dung, points to what is really relevant for middle and small countries: everything should proceed on the basis of South-South friendships.

    The BRICS Bank: It’s Complicated

    In one of the key panels on BRICS as a prototype of a new international architecture, the star of the show was Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr, who drew on his vast former experience at the IMF and as Vice-President of the NDB – the BRICS bank – for a realist presentation.

    The key problem of the NDB is how to maintain unity while navigating power politics and reaching the upcoming stages of de-dollarization.

    Batista outlined how a new international financial architecture may imply a future common currency. He stressed the success of implementing two practical experiments: a BRICS monetary fund (called the Contingent Reserve Agreement, CRA) and a multilateral development bank, the NDB.

    Progress though “has been slow”. The monetary fund “has been frozen by the five Central Banks”, and must be expanded. Links with the IMF “must be severed”, but that incurs “fierce resistance” by the five Central Banks of BRICS members (and soon there will be 11).

    Turning the NDB around will be a Sisyphean task. Disbursement of loans as well as project implementation have been “slow”. The US dollar “is the unit of account for the bank” – which in itself is counter-productive. The NDB is far from being a global bank: only three countries so far have joined. Current NDB President Dilma Rousseff has only two years to turn it around.

    Batista remarked how the common currency idea first came from Russia, and was instantly embraced by Lula when he was Brazil’s President in the 2000s. The R5 concept – the currencies of all current five BRICS members start with a “R” – may endure; but now that will have to expand to R11.

    The first substantial step ahead, after revamping the NDB, should be a currency from an issuing bank backed by bonds guaranteed by member countries, freely convertible, with currency swaps denominated in R5.

    A healthy prospect is that Russia will appoint the next bank President starting in 2025. So the way forward substantially depends on Russia and Brazil, Batista emphasized. At the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in south-west Russia next year, “a key decision should be made”. And during the Brazilian BRICS presidency in 2025, “the first practical steps should be announced”.

    Looking For a New Universality

    Almost all panels at Valdai focused on how to develop an alternative system, but the two main themes were inevitably the lack of democracy in current international institutions and the weaponization of the US dollar. Batista correctly observed how the US itself is the main enemy of the US dollar when using it as a weapon.

    At the Q&A, Putin addressed the key issue of economic corridors. He noted how BRI and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) might have different interests: “Not true. They are harmonious and complement each other”. This is reflected in how they are geared to “ensure new logistic routes and industrial chains”, and all that “complemented by the real productive sector”.

    Going forward, there’s a pressing need to coin a new terminology for this emerging new “universality” – even as nations continue to behave most often by following national interests.

    What’s clear is that the collective West’s “universality” is not valid anymore. A remarkable panel on ‘Russian Civilization Through the Centuries’ showed how the notion of “universality” actually entered Western civilization through St Paul – after his Damascus moment – whereas the Indian notion of equilibrium inbuilt in the Upanishads would be way more appropriate.

    Still, we are now in hot debate over the notion of the “civilization-state”, as configured mostly by India and China, Russia and Iran.

    Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the iconic General, expanded on the French notion of universality, embodied in the much-quoted slogan “liberté, egalité, fraternité” – not exactly upheld by Macronism. He made a point to stress he was the “sole representative of France” at Valdai (only a handful of European academics came to Sochi, and no diplomats).

    De Gaulle reminded everyone how Saint Simon was a Russophile and how Voltaire corresponded with Catherine the Great. He alluded to the deep Franco-Russian cultural ties; a “shared community of interests”; and “the bond of Christianity”.

    In contrast, crucially, “the US never accepted that Russia could develop under a different model”. And now that is illustrated by “how little today’s intellectual elites in the West know about Eurasia.”

    De Gaulle emphasized the “tragic mistake is to see Russia through Western eyes”. He invoked Dostoevsky as he lamented the current “destruction of family values” and “existential void” inbuilt in the process of manufacturing consent. He pledged to “fight for independence”, just like his grandfather, under the seal of “faith, family and honor”, and stressed “we must rethink Europe”, inviting “war profiteers to come to Russia”.

    Top of The Hill: a Cathedral or a Fortress?

    Beyond Valdai, and especially throughout the crucial year of 2024 – while Russia holds the presidency of BRICS – there will be much further discussion about “poles” of ancient civilizations. A broad coalition of states that support multipolarity actually do not support the “civilization” concept; instead, they support the notion of people sovereignty.

    It was up to Dayan Jayatilleka, former Sri Lankan plenipotentiary ambassador to Russia, to come up with a brilliant formulation.

    He showed how Vietnam faced a proxy war against the hegemon successfully – “using 5,000 years of Vietnamese civilization”. That was “an internationalist phenomenon”. Ho Chi Minh took his ideas from Lenin – while enjoying full support from students in the US and Europe.

    Russia might therefore learn from the Vietnamese experience how to conquer young hearts and minds across the West for its quest towards multipolarity.

    It was clear to the overwhelming majority of analysts at Valdai that the concept of Russian civilization is an “existential challenge” to the collective West. Especially because it includes, historically, the radical universality of the Soviet Union. Now is time for Russian thinkers to work hard on refining the internationalist aspect.

    Alexander Prokhanov came up with another startling formulation. He compared the Russian dream with a cathedral on the top of a hill, whereas the Anglo-Saxon dream is a fortress on the top of the hill, engaged in constant surveillance. And if you misbehave, you “will receive some Tomahawks”.

    The conclusion: “We will always be in conflict with the West”. So what? The future, as I discussed off the record with Grandmaster Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of Valdai, is in the East.

    And it was Karaganov who arguably posed the most challenging question to Putin. He stressed how nuclear deterrence does not work anymore. So should we lower the nuclear threshold?”

    Putin replied, “I am well aware of your position. Let me remind you the Russian military doctrine has two reasons for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The first is if nuclear weapons are used against us – as retaliation. The response is absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor. Because from the moment a missile launch is detected, no matter where it comes from – anywhere in the world’s oceans or from any territory – in a retaliatory strike, so many, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air that no enemy will have a chance of survival, and in several directions at once.”

    The second reason is “a threat to the existence of the Russian state even if only conventional weapons are used.”

    And then came the clincher – actually a veiled message to the characters whose dream is “victory” via a first strike: “Do we need to change that? Why? I see no point. There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 23:40

  • Biden Admin Returns To Supreme Court In Ongoing 'Ghost Gun' Battle
    Biden Admin Returns To Supreme Court In Ongoing ‘Ghost Gun’ Battle

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    The ongoing legal battle over “ghost guns” has returned to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Biden administration aims to regain authority over these “untraceable firearms,” following a recent victory for Second Amendment advocates.

    A “ghost gun” is displayed before the start of an event about violence involving firearms in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    On Thursday, roughly two months after it last brought this case to the Supreme Court, the Biden administration once again asked the justices to reinstate Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulations on “ghost guns.”

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that on Sept. 14 a lower court, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, effectively undermined an Aug. 28 order by the nation’s highest court.

    “This is the rare application where this Court has already applied the relevant legal standard in the very same case and determined the government should obtain emergency relief,” wrote Mr. Prelogar in her petition.

    “The Court’s answer should be the same as it was two months ago,” she added, having argued that without the Supreme Court’s relief, “untraceable ghost guns will remain widely available.”

    The prior Aug. 28 high court order in question was an administrative stay issued by Justice Samuel Alito that allowed the enforcement of an ATF rule designed to regulate “ghost guns” by defining them as firearms.

    “Ghost guns” is a pejorative term for partially completed frames and kits that can be purchased and assembled into functional firearms. The Biden administration wants to impose a rule that makers of these “ghost guns” must obtain licenses, mark their products with serial numbers, maintain transaction records, and conduct background checks.

    This rule was first blocked nationwide by Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, on July 5. This ruling was then challenged in the Supreme Court, where Justice Alito intervened, issuing a temporary administrative stay.

    Demonstrators gather for a Second Amendment rally at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia, Wash., on March 20, 2021. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

    ‘Biden Admin Is Now in the Worst Place They Could Be’

    Following the high court’s stay, two of the plaintiffs, a pair of firearm frame and receiver makers, returned to the Texas district court, asking it to enjoin the ATF from enforcing the rule specifically against them pending appeal.

    Judge O’Connor granted this extraordinary relief on Sept. 14. Furthermore, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently partially upheld the district court’s ruling.

    “[C]ourts should be able to review ATF’s 98-page rule, and the decades of precedent it attempts to change, without the Government putting people in jail or shutting down businesses,” the Firth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling stated.

    This ruling effectively allowed the two plaintiff companies, Defense Distributed and 80 Percent Arms, to hold a monopoly as the only businesses allowed to sell firearm frames and kits to make “ghost guns” while appeals proceedings play out—a fact they touted in gloating statements following the ruling.

    “The Biden admin is now in the worst place they could be: The true believer fanatics in this industry have achieved [a] commercial monopoly. Oops,” Defense Distributed stated in a blog post on Sept. 14.

    “Ghost guns” seized in federal law enforcement actions are displayed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) field office in Glendale, Calif., on April 18, 2022. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

    In an Oct. 2 statement, 80 Percent Arms said they remain unwaveringly dedicated to “champion[ing] the right of every law-abiding citizen to privately craft firearms.”

    In appealing the district court’s decision, Ms. Prelogar told the justices in her filing that Judge O’Connor relied on the same facts that had been considered by the Supreme Court, “yet reached diametrically opposing conclusions.”

    “The district court insisted that the government is unlikely to succeed in reversing the court’s vacatur, that barring the government from enforcing the Rule would impose no irreparable harm, and that the balance of the equities favors respondents,” she wrote in her filing.

    “The Fifth Circuit then relied on substantially similar reasoning to deny the government’s motion to vacate the injunction, dismissing the argument that the injunction violates principles of vertical stare decisis,” Ms. Prelogar continued.

    The solicitor general acknowledged that the district court’s injunction “is narrower” than the prior July 5 ruling. However, she argued that it should be vacated because it “imposes essentially the same harms on the government and public” because the two companies continue to sell their products online “without background checks.”

    President Joe Biden holds up a ghost gun kit during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    The ATF’s updated rules, which went into effect in August 2022, redefined terms like “firearm,” “frame,” and “receiver” under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to address the proliferation of “ghost guns” assembled from kits.

    The government argues that having no requirements for background checks, serial numbers, and other factors makes them attractive to criminals. On April 11, 2022, President Joe Biden vowed to crack down on “ghost guns.”

    “These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” he said in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 11, 2022. “We’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 23:05

  • FBI Denies Targeting 'MAGA Extremists' Ahead Of 2024 Election
    FBI Denies Targeting ‘MAGA Extremists’ Ahead Of 2024 Election

    The FBI has denied a Newsweek report from veteran journalist William Arkin claiming that the agency has created a special category of extremists to target Trump supporters ahead of the 2024 election.

    According to Newsweek, the FBI created a category to evaluate threats for anti-government and/or anti-authority violent extremism for those who don’t fall under an anarchist, militia or sovereign citizen groups. The report cited more than a dozen current and former officials who say that the program targets Trump supporters.

    In a statement to the Epoch Times, however, the FBI denied the allegations.

    “Any allegation that the FBI targets individuals solely for their political beliefs is categorically false,” said the agency.

    ‘Solely,’ eh?

    “The FBI investigates those who commit acts of violence or threaten violence, and we do not take action based on political belief or any First Amendment protected activity,” the statement continues.

    According to the spokesperson, the “threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly,” adding that “The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence, and threats of violence.”

    “Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism [AGAAVE] is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” the statement continues. “This threat includes anarchist violent extremists, militia violent extremists, sovereign citizen violent extremists, and other violent extremists—some of whom are motivated by a desire to harm those with a real or perceived association with a political party or faction.”

    Those so-called extremists “have targeted both Republican and Democratic members of Congress,” the spokesperson said, without elaborating. “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations,” the statement said.

    In the Newsweek report, neither President Trump nor his Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan were assigned to the aforementioned threat category. The article, however, claimed that unnamed “insiders” said that it applies to alleged “political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.” -Epoch Times

    That said, one anonymous FBI official told Arkin that Trump supporters are the “greatest threat of violence domestically …politically … that’s the reality and the problem set.”

    “But whether Trump and his supporters are a threat to national security, to the country, whether they represent a threat of civil war? That’s a trickier question. And that’s for the country to deal with, not the FBI,” the official continued.

    According to the FBI’s data leaked to Arkin, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan 6, but that “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.”

    So – while the threat that the FBI has encouraged agents to inflate may have fallen, they’re on the lookout!

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 22:30

  • Support For A New Third Party Gains Ground
    Support For A New Third Party Gains Ground

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

    The 2024 election cycle is likely to be the most chaotic election cycle that we have ever seen. 

    So will this create an opportunity for a new third party to try to pull off a historic upset? 

    Unless something really dramatic happens, Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee and Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee in 2024.  But I don’t think that they will be the only two choices. 

    There are rumors that one or two prominent third party candidates could soon enter the race, and it appears that large numbers of Americans may be willing to embrace such a candidate.  In fact, a Gallup survey that was just released discovered that a whopping 63 percent of U.S. adults believe that “a third major party is needed”…

    Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.” This represents a seven-percentage-point increase from a year ago and is the highest since Gallup first asked the question in 2003.

    This certainly does not mean that 63 percent of U.S. adults would actually vote for a third party candidate.

    But what this does mean is that conditions have never been more favorable for such a candidate to emerge.

    If you go back 20 years ago, only 40 percent of U.S. adults felt that a third party was needed…

    In 2003, a record-low 40% called for a third party when 56% thought the parties were doing “an adequate job of representing the American people.”

    Times have clearly changed.

    And it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that independents are more interested in a “third major party” than anyone else…

    Typically, political independents are most likely to favor a third party, and that is the case this year, with 75% expressing this view. No less than 70% of independents have said a third U.S. party is needed since 2013.

    But who could run as a third party candidate and actually win?

    In recent days, there have been rumors that RFK Jr. is considering launching an independent bid as a third party candidate.

    And if he did go that direction, polls show that he would have quite a bit of support…

    An American Values Poll conducted Zogby Strategies of likely general election voters shows that in a three-way race between Kennedy, Trump, and Biden, RFK Jr. enters the contest at 19% with Biden and Trump at 38% each. Kennedy would be the highest-polling independent or 3rd party candidate to enter a presidential election in the modern era, starting off where Ross Perot finished—after spending an enormous amount of money.

    “If this Poll shows anything,” said Tony Lyons, Co-Chairman of American Values 2024, “it’s that Kennedy can win as an independent candidate in 2024.”

    In a three-way race, RFK Jr. would probably take more votes away from Trump than he would from Biden.

    There are also rumors that No Labels is preparing to “mount a third party bid for the White House”…

    Political organization No Labels, which has been pushing for a bipartisan ticket to mount a third party bid for the White House, is urging state Democratic Party officials not to interfere with its efforts after President Biden said its leaders had a “democratic right” to do what they’re doing.

    Following Biden’s remarks, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (I), former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) and former head of the NAACP Benjamin Chavis Jr. called for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to end what they characterized as an “anti-democracy” campaign against the group.

    I think that No Labels does intend to make such a move, and it is likely that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia will be their candidate.

    If that is the case, Manchin would definitely take more votes away from Biden than he would from Trump.

    We shall see what happens.

    In my opinion, I think that this will be the first election cycle in ages when there is at least one viable third party alternative.

    And that will almost certainly greatly impact the outcome of the election.

    Of course we don’t have to wait until next year for high stakes political drama.

    Kevin McCarthy just lost his spot as Speaker of the House in a stunning turn of events, and some Republicans are suggesting that Donald Trump should replace him.

    When asked about this, Trump didn’t completely dismiss the idea…

    “Lot of people have been calling me about speaker, all I can say is we’ll do whatever is best for the country and for the Republican Party,” Trump said Wednesday while at a Manhattan courthouse for the third day of his civil fraud trial. Trump, his adult sons and his businesses are being sued for up to $250 million in penalties stemming from what New York authorities describe as persistent business fraud.

    Despite the trial, Trump took a minute to answer reporters’ questions about the possibility of a speakership bid.

    “My focus is totally on [the presidency]. If I can help them during the process, I’ll do it. But we have some great people in the Republican Party that could do a great job as speaker,” Trump said.

    But it is not likely to happen.

    Instead, either Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan will almost certainly get the job.

    For the moment, Patrick McHenry temporarily has the gavel, and one of his first acts was to order Nancy Pelosi “to vacate her Capitol hideaway office”…

    Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to vacate her Capitol hideaway office so he could take it over, just hours after becoming acting Speaker, Pelosi’s office said Tuesday.

    McHenry became acting Speaker after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted from the role Tuesday, the first time a Speaker has been voted out of the job.

    McHenry’s office requested that Pelosi vacate her Capitol hideaway office by Wednesday because it was being reallocated “for speaker office use,” the message, first reported by Politico, reads. A small number of senior representatives have “hideaway offices” inside the Capitol Building.

    Needless to say, Nancy Pelosi did not like this at all.

    I expect animosity between the two major parties to continue to rise throughout the next year.

    And adding a prominent third party candidate or two to the mix will certainly make things more interesting.

    Our nation is more divided today than ever before, and the coming election will only deepen those divisions.

    If you are concerned about where all of this is ultimately heading, you are definitely not alone.

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 21:55

  • Hunter Biden Raided Daughter's College Fund For $20,000 To Buy Hookers And Drugs: Report
    Hunter Biden Raided Daughter’s College Fund For $20,000 To Buy Hookers And Drugs: Report

    Hunter Biden raided his daughter’s college fund to the tune of $20,000 after his bankers said he had just 44 cents left in his account amid a months-long drug and hooker binge.

    On Dec. 17, 2018, Hunter’s money managers warned of his extremely low balance, according to records obtained by the Daily Mail. That’s exactly when, according to Hunter’s Memoir, he was in his “penultimate odyssey through full blown addiction,” when he was dropping thousands of dollars on prostitutes and crack cocaine.

    In response to the warning, Hunter ordered the bankers to transfer $20,000 from his daughter Maisy’s educational savings account, early withdrawal  consequences be damned.

    “liquidate what you can’ and ‘Live [love] you both,” Hunter wrote.

    At the time, Maisy, now 22, was in her final year of high school. She and her two older sisters, along with Joe Biden and First Lady Jill, had tried to stage an intervention just weeks earlier at the President’s Delaware home to get Hunter to go back to rehab.

    He promised to go, but instead ended up smoking crack in a hotel, he confessed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things.

    Emails and messages from his laptop show money he took from Maisy’s educational savings account went in part to paying various suspected prostitutes who visited him at hotels in the following days, his Porsche 911 car loan, sex webcam subscription fees, and other personal expenses. 

    Hunter’s assistant Katie Dodge plaintively emailed him on December 28 that year that he had University of Pennsylvania tuition bills of $27,945 due (likely for his eldest daughter, Naomi), a $1,700 payment for his Porsche, $4,244.70 for Maisy’s high school Sidwell Friends, her $3,000 paycheck and $1,000 for another employee.

    Hunter tersely told Dodge to pay for the Porsche and his health insurance, but that she would only be getting half her paycheck – and that he would ‘deal with tuitions when time comes.’ -Daily Mail

    “If you haven’t noticed Katie my business partner is now a prisoner on death row in China,” Hunter barked at Dodge, referring to CEFC chairman Ye Jinanmang, his Chinese partner who had been arrested on corruption charges in Beijing that year.

    Hunter’s private bankers at Wells Fargo sent him an email on December 17, 2018 warning that he had just 44 cents left in his account, according to records obtained by DailyMail.com from his abandoned laptop

    Hunter responded with a jumbled reply, ordering them to transfer $20,000 from his daughter Maisy’s educational savings account

    Hunter told his wealth managers: ‘liquidate what you can’ and ‘Live [love] you both’

    According to IRS Criminal Investigation agent Joseph Ziegler, an investigation into Hunter’s financial dealings was stonewalled before he blew the whistle to Congress – where he revealed that Hunter ended up looting Maisy’s entire college savings account – and never paid taxes on it.

    Ziegler testified that Hunter “failed to report the income related to a distribution he had taken from one his children’s 529 [educational savings] Plan in 2019, additional income of approximately $39,820,” adding “He also had personal distributions he had claimed as business deductions totaling approximately $12,791.

    “As of today’s date, this alleged additional income of approximately $52,611 has not been reported to the IRS and the alleged additional taxes of approximately $22,860 has not been paid to the IRS,” Ziegler said in an August 2, 2023 affidavit.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 21:20

  • San Francisco's Newly Approved Homeless Plan 'Most Expensive' Ever: Legislative Analysts
    San Francisco’s Newly Approved Homeless Plan ‘Most Expensive’ Ever: Legislative Analysts

    Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The San Francisco City Council voted Oct. 3 to approve a plan extending the lease on a safe parking site at Candlestick Point, south of downtown, for 35 vehicles and those living in them at a cost of nearly $13 million over two years, with residents receiving access to meals, wi-fi, and laundry services.

    A homeless man in San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    Legislative analysts, in a report, recommended the extension, but suggested the council explore cheaper options next year.

    “We have a responsibility to keep communities clean and safe,” and this provides us an opportunity to do both,” Shamann Walton, San Francisco supervisor said Sept. 29 in the Homelessness and Behavioral Health Select Committee meeting, which voted unanimously to approve the proposal. “This is an expensive endeavor, but we cannot afford the alternative.”

    At issue is the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center, established in January 2022 to provide a safe parking space with amenities for some homeless individuals living in their vehicles.

    Officials say they hope, in time, up to 69 vehicles and their owners can use the space, once fire suppression methods and power—only diesel generators, thus far, have been available for limited use—are installed.

    Space at the triage center is assigned by invitation only, with the city’s Healthy Streets Operation Center and the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team managing the process.

    Statistics from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing—the city agency overseeing the site—indicate that 96 individuals from 73 households stayed at the site in the fiscal year 2022–23, with an average stay of 218 days.

    The department contracts services with two San Francisco-based nonprofits, the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation—focused on homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health services—and Urban Alchemy, founded to address homeless and transform distressed communities, and is the recipient of several multi-million dollar city contracts for a variety of projects. The groups operate the facility, coordinate referrals, and support groups and activities to facilitate exit strategies for those living there.

    Homeless people in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    The former provides two daily meals—prepared fresh and delivered to the site because the lack of power prevents people from cooking—and offers case management, engagement, and exit planning.

    Also noted in the analyst’s report were several findings last year that brought into question the role of the foundation. It is one of two contracted nonprofits in the city listed as a cause for “elevated concern” by the city controller, though the report concluded that steps are being taken to address issues raised—including high turnover, lack of compliance with grant agreements, and invoicing for costs not yet incurred.

    Urban Alchemy receives the bulk of the funding, with nearly $8 million slated between January 2024 and January 2026. The group is responsible for site maintenance, laundry services, storage, and entry and exit processes.

    A representative of the nonprofit spoke at the committee hearing of the need to keep the facility operating, for the benefit of those living and working there.

    “This program really, really works. They need this. We need this. Because we all bond together,” Otis Hughes said. “I could be homeless in a situation just like them, but fortunately, I’m not. They help me be a better human being.”

    The agreement with the San Francisco-based organization, which was founded in 2018, includes $312,000 in annual rent and approximately $12.2 million in operating costs. Another $900,000 is anticipated for law and parking enforcement costs.

    Funding is provided by Proposition C, a gross receipts tax on businesses with revenues of more than $50 million in annual revenue passed by San Francisco voters in 2018.

    $400 per Car per Night

    Calling the proposal “by far the most expensive homeless response intervention,” the analysts’ report described the cost per vehicle as approximately $140,000 per year, or $400 per night.

    Analysts noted the city paid $105 a night in 2021 for a similar site in a different location on San Jose Avenue. However, they said the site—which is now closed—did not have on-site case management, which they estimate at an additional $117 per night.

    Critics point out the disparity between paying nearly $12,000 per space as compared to market rent prices in San Francisco—with a median cost of less than $3,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to online real estate listing company Zillow.

    While the report recommended supervisors explore options to lower costs next year, analysts ultimately decided to recommend the proposed resolution because it supported established city guidelines.

    The triage center in question was developed from a 2019 ordinance passed by supervisors directing the homelessness department to establish what they called a Safe Overnight Parking Pilot Program.

    Following through, the city identified the parking lot at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. Approximately $4.6 million in grant funds were spent to prepare the site, including installing perimeter fencing, solar lighting, potable water, portable toilets, and a guard shack, among other things.

    “There’s a lot that goes into making it a safe, dignified location,” said Emily Cohen, deputy director for the homelessness department, at the committee meeting.

    San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

    More than a dozen individuals spoke in support of extending the lease, in person and on the phone, with several telling supervisors that the site has been life-changing for them.

    “It makes me feel safe,” one man said. “For me, it works, and we need more of these.”

    Several supporters talked of reducing costs when capacity is expanded to allow more vehicles, though one caller questioned the logic of such an assumption.

    “It’s not working, folks. When has that ever happened in San Francisco?” Bay Area native Russel Marine said. “It costs more per site than my mortgage in San Francisco. The cost is going to go up.”

    He also said the spot the city chose is detrimental to public safety, as it is near a park where children play.

    Of concern to some opposing the extension of the safe site is the lack of an environmental review for it. The California Environmental Quality Act requires that all projects that could impact the environment undertake a rigorous review process, and none was ever conducted for the site before it was developed—though no comment was made during the committee meeting about such.

    One Bayview resident said that things are no better now than before the triage center opened, with inhabited vehicles still parked, though no longer in the same locations.

    “All of the things we experienced before are still there,” she said. “They’re just spread across the Bayview.”

    Point-in-time count statistics from 2022 revealed 4,400 unsheltered homeless in the city, with 24 percent sleeping in vehicles. A July 2023 count found 1,058 inhabited vehicles.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 20:45

  • Airlines Cancel Flights To Tel Aviv As War Erupts 
    Airlines Cancel Flights To Tel Aviv As War Erupts 

    It’s very puzzling that the Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, also known as Mossad, one of the world’s most advanced intelligence agencies, had no advance warning about the biggest Hamas assault on Israel in decades.

    Hamas’ attack unleashed thousands of rockets on Israel. Then, Palestinian terrorists demolished parts of the Gaza-Israel border fence and flooded the country. Terrorists were seen seizing military outposts, tanks, and settlements while killing anyone in their path. 

    “We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared earlier on Saturday. He said, “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” adding Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

    Typically, in the event of a conflict, airlines reroute or entirely halt flights to the affected region to prevent the potential downing of a passenger aircraft. This is currently the situation, as reported by CNN:

    US airlines are diverting and canceling flights bound for Israel’s main international airport as fighting rages between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.

    United Airlines Flight 954 left San Francisco International Airport Friday night and diverted over Greenland about seven hours into the more than 13-hour-long journey, according to data from flight tracking site FlightAware. The flight is due to land back in San Francisco around 2 p.m. ET.

    FlightAware shows that United has canceled a flight on the same original schedule for Saturday.

    Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have canceled Saturday and Sunday Israel-bound flights scheduled to depart from New York’s JFK, according to FlightAware. -CNN 

    According to FlightAware data, about 14% of flights inbound for Tel Aviv have been canceled Saturday. X users are reporting airlines worldwide are beginning to cancel Tel Aviv flights: 

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    “Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza: We continue to closely monitor the security situation. Ben Gurion Airport remains open, but the security situation and staff availability could affect flights. Check with the airlines on the availability of flights and flight status,” the US State Department wrote in a post on X. 

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    Current scenes at Tel Aviv Airport:

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    *Developing… 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 20:10

  • Appeals Court Rules For Trump Amid NY Fraud Trial
    Appeals Court Rules For Trump Amid NY Fraud Trial

    Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    After a hearing on Friday, an appeals court granted a stay, or pause, on a judge’s order that former President Donald Trump’s businesses be dissolved.

    Former President Donald Trump (C) sits inside the courtroom for the third day of his civil fraud trial in New York on Oct. 4, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    This was only a partial victory for President Trump, as the appeals court said the trial that began this week could continue.

    The prosecutors had opposed the request for a delay, accusing the defense attorneys of attempting “to sow chaos” and disruption.

    The Trump Organization issued a statement after the pause, calling the judge’s order to cancel the Trumps’ business certificates “overzealous.”

    “Judge Engoron’s order erroneously sought to adjudicate the rights of non-party business entities that employ nearly 1,000 hard-working New Yorkers, have never been accused of any wrongdoing and, were never given their day in court – in clear violation of their fundamental Constitutional rights and Due Process.  We will continue to vigorously defend our company and our incredible employees from this politically-motivated persecution,” the statement reads.

    Appeal

    President Trump’s attorneys appealed the civil fraud case against him on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, filing a 1,154-page document in a bid to pause the currently ongoing trial.

    “[New York] Supreme Court’s Sept. 26 and Oct. 5, 2023 decision impose unauthorized, undemanded, overbroad relief without proper factual or legal predicate, which will result in significant, irreparable harm,” states the reason for requesting a stay on the case.

    President Trump had already previously sought to delay the trial, and the appeal had been denied just days before the trial began.

    New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s Sept. 26 decision not only found President Trump liable for fraud, but ordered the dissolution of the Trump Organization and related LLCs, which means the 45th president will lose his entire real estate empire in a matter of days unless the appeal is granted. Furthermore, attorneys argue, hundreds of employees will be affected.

    “Supreme Court clearly does not comprehend the scope of the chaos its decision has wrought,” the filing reads, describing the summary judgment as a “miscarriage of justice.”

    Judge Arthur Engoron

    Case and Penalties

    President Trump’s business certificates have already been canceled, and the judge’s Oct. 5 order requires him to notify the court before applying for a new one, even outside New York. His sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., executive vice presidents in the Trump Organization, face similar penalties.

    The buildings they stand to lose include Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, the Seven Springs family estate upstate, and private residences belonging to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

    The case began when President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made claims that his boss inflated his net worth. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who declared that she would sue the former president for fraud when she was campaigning for her position, brought forth a civil lawsuit in September 2022 accusing him of defrauding the state by artificially inflating his net worth to get more favorable terms from insurers and banks.

    The lawsuit included seven claims, one of which Justice Engoron ruled on about a week before trial, finding President Trump liable for fraud.

    The trial began on Oct. 2, during which President Trump made a surprise appearance and spoke with the press at length. He attended again the second day, and stayed part way through the third. The trial will deal with the amount in penalties President Trump owes, as well as proving out the remaining six claims of fraud in the prosecutor’s lawsuit.

    The appeal itself runs over 30 pages, the remaining 1,000-plus pages being case precedents cited.

    Hundreds of Employees Face Job Loss

    The latest appeal argues that the court exceeded its jurisdiction and “abused its discretion” in the penalties ordered, pointing out that the prosecutors never sought the dissolution of Trump Organization in its petition.

    Ms. James had instead asked for $250 million in penalties, and to bar President Trump and his sons from holding executive business posts in the state for five years. She also did not cite the law that would have enabled the judge to order dissolution as relief, the attorneys argue.

    “The consequences of enforcing the MSJ Decision [summary judgment on Sept. 26] are dire, and once done, cannot be undone,” the attorneys wrote.

    They pointed out that “innocent nonparties and employees who depend on the affected entities for their livelihoods” are being swept up in the “overbroad” ruling. The decision was without process, statutory authority, or trial, and “renders impossible the lawful operation of multiple businesses and threatens termination of hundreds of New York employees without any jurisdiction or due process.”

    “These non-parties are impacted without finding of any wrongdoing on the part of businesses,” they wrote. “Perhaps worst of all, it seeks to impose the corporate death penalty with no statutory authority for such remedy.”

    When Justice Engoron made the decision, he admitted he did not know what the scope of repercussions would be when attorneys asked what it meant for certain properties like Trump Tower, or Eric Trump’s home.

    But the Sept. 26 order will take place imminently, the attorneys argue, and the judge’s Oct. 5 order did not address any of the questions attorneys had raised. The attorneys also argue they had no opportunity to present their case before the Sept. 26 order.

    Statute of Limitations

    The attorneys also made additional arguments about the judge extending the statute of limitations during the trial.

    A June appeals court decision had defined the statute of limitations to allegations from 2014 onwards. The prosecutors’ original lawsuit covered the decade from 2011 to 2021.

    During the trial, the judge acknowledged the statute of limitations, but said he would allow evidence from before 2014 if the prosecutors could connect it to later crimes. The prosecutors had argued for bringing in this evidence under the “continuing wrongs doctrine.”

    In the appeal, President Trump’s attorneys argue that the doctrine does not delay or extend the period allowed, citing other court rulings. Furthermore, the court is now treating the individual financial statements as “separately actionable claims,” rather than “continuing wrongs,” they argued.

    If the statute of limitations is applied correctly, the majority of the prosecutor’s claims are “subject to dismissal as untimely,” the

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 19:35

  • CME Head Duffy Says Chicago Needs To Get Its Act Together
    CME Head Duffy Says Chicago Needs To Get Its Act Together

    Last month Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly warned that if Chicago slaps the financial industry with transaction taxes, amid a crime wave that has employees afraid to come in to work.

    Chicago Board of Trade building

    “We don’t want to leave… But we cannot be disadvantaged in the world’s most competitive markets,” Tilly said in light of an $800 million tax proposal from Mayor Brandon Johnson aimed at plugging a $538 million budget deficit projected for next year, and increasing costs driven by a cocktail of inflation and rising numbers of destitute asylum seekers.

    Now, CME Group, Inc. – which has over a century of history rooted in Chicago, is warning much the same. According to CEO Terry Duffy, they’ll cut bait and drop Chicago like a hot stone – and in fact, have begun the process of uncoupling from the dysfunctional city.

    CME CEO Terry Duffy

    “I liquidated every piece of real estate in the state,” Duffy said in an interview last week, according to Bloomberg. “I have leases where I am in an advantageous position, because now I can renegotiate. They’re all coming due. We like Chicago. There’s no reason for us to want to leave. But at the same time, if the atmosphere gets to the point where it’s intolerable, we have no choice.“

    His commitment to Chicago is being tested as stubbornly high crime rates and a slew of taxes — including a financial-transaction levy proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson — have him considering his options. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has already said he opposes the tax proposal, but he won’t be at the helm forever, Duffy said.

    As for the mayor, Duffy said he’s met with Johnson once since he was elected in April and is willing to throw his arms around him to help him succeed. But “we don’t agree on anything,” Duffy said.

    Below is a summary of an interview Duffy gave on the subject:

    Challenges in Chicago:

    • Duffy underscores the difficulties in Chicago, highlighting the absence of commerce and the potential financial pitfalls of vacant buildings.
    • He emphasizes the crucial need to strategize bringing people back into cities and reviving societal norms and operations.

    “You can’t walk outside and not have commerce in one of the largest cities in the world. Who’s going to pay the taxes on these large buildings that are now vacant? You need to figure out ways to get people back into the cities.“

    Tax Perspective:

    • Duffy expresses his inclination to alter tax approaches, proposing the elimination of sales tax in physical stores to better compete with online platforms.

    “Let people not pay a sales tax and compete with online. If you want to sell it online then you pay a tax, and in the store where you’re employing people, you don’t pay a tax.”

    Potential Move to Texas?

    • Despite Texas Governor Greg Abbott extolling the benefits of firms moving to Texas, Duffy remains non-committal, acknowledging the pros without indicating any solid intent to relocate.

    “I have a lot of clients in Texas. I like working with my clients that come out of Texas. That was the end of my conversation. He didn’t offer me anything. I didn’t ask for anything either.”

    Acquisition Strategies:

    • Duffy sheds light on CME’s sound financial standing and its strategic approach to acquisitions, emphasizing safeguarding shareholders’ interests.

    “I am a triple A-rated institution with very little debt. I get shopped a lot of deals. We have the capacity if we thought it was right to do it. We run the firm for the benefit of the long-term. So when it comes to acquisitions, I would never do anything that I didn’t think was in the best interest of my shareholders.“

    Dismay over FTX’s Collapse:

    • Contrary to feeling vindicated by FTX’s collapse, Duffy expresses disappointment, acknowledging the potential of cryptocurrencies to eliminate or reduce friction in the financial system.

    “I feel depressed by it. We’ve got to evolve and change, and crypto could be a vehicle to help eliminate friction. Whether it will or not, I don’t know. I don’t want to see anything be eliminated from the possibilities of making the world a better place tomorrow.”

    FTX’s Proposals and Regulatory Vision:

    • He maintains that FTX’s proposals held merit and insists on the establishment of comprehensive regulatory frameworks around such innovative concepts.

    “I never said any of the proposals did not have merit. I just said let’s write some rules around it. And I believe that today.

    “I still see potential that it could be another way to eliminate friction. Right now, I think the best system is the Futures Commission Merchants, but I don’t know if that’s going to be there forever.”

    Cautious Technological Deployment:

    • Adopting a cautious perspective on technological implementations, Duffy is particularly reserved about deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) in market operations.

    “You don’t want to be last and you don’t want to be first. You’ve got to be really careful how you roll this stuff out.”

    Duffy’s Future at CME:

    • With a contract that expires in a year and a half, Duffy’s future at CME is yet to be decided, with deliberations with the board planned for the upcoming year.

    “I have another year and a half left in my contract. I will discuss with my board what they want to do sometime early next year and go from there.”

    Let’s see where CME is a year from now…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 19:00

  • Netanyahu Tells Gaza Residents To Clear Out, Says IDF "Will Use All Its Strength" To "Destroy" Hamas
    Netanyahu Tells Gaza Residents To Clear Out, Says IDF “Will Use All Its Strength” To “Destroy” Hamas

    Update (1835ET): Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned residents of Gaza to “leave now, because we will operate forcefully everywhere.”

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    Continued…

    Hamas wants to murder us all. This is an enemy that murders children and mothers in their homes, in their beds, an enemy that abducts the elderly, children and young women, that slaughters and massacres our citizens, including children, who simply went out to enjoy the holiday.

    What happened today is unprecedented in Israel – and I will see to it that it does not happen again. The entire government is behind this decision.

    The IDF will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. We will destroy them and will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on Israel and its citizens. As Bialik wrote: ‘Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan’.

    All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.

    I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.

    At this hour, the IDF is clearing the terrorists out of the last communities. They are going community by community, house by house, and are restoring our control.

    I embrace and send heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families whose loved ones were murdered today in cold blood and endless brutality.

    We are all praying for the well-being of the wounded and all those who are being held hostage. I say to Hamas: You are responsible for their well-being. Israel will settle accounts with anyone who harms one hair on their heads.

    I appeal to the residents of the south: We all stand alongside you. We are all proud of your heroism and your fighting.

    To our beloved IDF soldiers, police officers and security forces personnel, remember that you are the continuation of the heroes of the Jewish people, of Joshua, Judah Maccabee and the heroes of 1948 and of all of Israel’s wars.

    You are now fighting for the home and future of us all. We are all with you. We all love you. We all salute you.

    To the medical and rescue teams, and the many volunteers in a long list of places, the people of Israel salute you. With your spirit, we will overcome our enemies.

    *  *  *

    Update(1430ET): Former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) international spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has summed up what this day means for Israel, calling in the country’s “Pearl Harbor” moment.

    “The entire system failed. It’s not just one component. It’s the entire defense architecture that evidently failed to provide the necessary defense for Israeli civilians,” he told CNN of the surprise invasion from Gaza militants. “This is a Pearl Harbor type of moment for Israel, where there was reality up until today, and then there will be reality after today.”

    Via AP: “Palestinians terrorists transport an abducted Israeli civilian [covered in a sheet] from Kibbutz Kfar Azza into the Gaza Strip.”

    Town-by-town and farm-by-farm fighting is still underway given Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reportedly control swathes of southern territory and even military outposts in Israel.

    Netanyahu and his cabinet now must be contemplating what will surely be a high-risk rescue operation and potential ground incursion.

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    Every hour results in even more incredible, shocking footage being released of dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Times of Israel is reporting that over 200 Israelis have been killed, and at least 1,000 injured. The death toll is also mounting into the hundreds on the Gaza side as Israel retaliates.

    In some instances, there are what look like Israeli soccer moms and their families being escorted barefoot across the border.

    Video footage suggests at least dozens of Israelis have been taken captive, possibly even hundreds.

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    Grandmothers, men, women, children – the young and old – are being paraded in front of Hamas and PIJ cameras…

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    At the same time, the expected Israeli aerial assault has begun. In some instances entire apartment housing blocks have been leveled. 

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    There are reports saying that the IDF has taken back some of the bases seized by small teams of Palestinian militants earlier in the day.

    …all of this after what was clearly a well-coordinated attack long in planning:

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    But what the world woke up to at the start of Saturday were unprecedented scenes of Israelis in retreat…

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    Rockets have continued to reach Tel Aviv from Gaza, and air raid sirens are active across many parts of the country.

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    Gaza apartments flattened by Israeli strikes…

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    * * * 

    Palestinian militants on Saturday morning launched an “unprecedented” infultration attack on Israel, the biggest in years, sending fighters over the border from Gaza, firing thousands of rockets and killing dozens of Israelis. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a call-up of reservists and said “we are at war.” 

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    Here are the latest highlights from the rapidly changing situation:

    • Militant group Hamas launched a sustained barrage of more than 5,000 rockets in a coordinated attack by land, sea and air. According to the NYT, the Hamas assault from Gaza on southern Israel has had few precedents in its complexity and scale, invading several Israeli towns and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.
    • The Israeli military said that at least 2,200 rockets had been fired into Israel by 11 a.m. on Saturday and that armed gunmen had crossed the border fence in several locations along Israel’s perimeter with Gaza, a poor coastal enclave that has been under blockade by Israel and neighboring Egypt for 16 years.
    • In addition to land, the militants also crossed into Israel by sea and air, according to the Israeli military. By late morning, at least 22 Israelis had been killed in the surprise attacks from Gaza and hundred more injured according to Israel’s main ambulance service, and Israel had retaliated with massive strikes on Gazan cities, killing at least one Palestinian, according to local reports.
    • Palestinian militants infiltrated at least seven Israeli communities and army bases this morning, according to the Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht. He said militants had reached the city of Sderot; the small towns of Kfar Azza, Nahal Oz, Magen, Beeri; the military bases of Reim and Zikim, which are close to towns of the same name; and the militarized border checkpoint at Erez. Fighting was ongoing at or near the at least three of those places, he said.
    • Israel’s emergency services said 22 people have been killed in the surprise attacks from Gaza and hundred more injured.
    • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was now “at war” and that he had convened the heads of the security forces and instructed them to first clear all Israeli villages of Palestinian militants who had entered from Gaza.
    • Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that there was a military operation “in defense of the Aqsa mosque,” the hotly contested holy site in Jerusalem that thousands of Jews have visited in recent weeks, and against the Israeli blockade.
    • Israeli hospitals said they had received hundreds of wounded. Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba had admitted more than 80 people, with some “in very difficult condition,” a hospital spokeswoman said. The ambulance service, Magen David Adom, issued an urgent call for blood.
    • Israel Defense Forces said they were carrying out strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza in response to the attacks on Israel.
    • Air-raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem, while explosions were heard in Tel Aviv

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    More details:

    The ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea, catching the country off guard on a major holiday.

    Several hours after the invasion began, Hamas militants were still fighting gunbattles inside several Israeli communities in a surprising show of strength that shook the country. Israel’s national rescue service said at least 22 people have been killed, dozens of Israelis taken hostage, and hundreds wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in years. 

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    At least 561 wounded people were being treated in Israeli hospitals, including at least 77 who were in critical condition, according to an Associated Press count based on public statements and calls to hospitals.

    There was no official comment on casualties in Gaza, but Associated Press reporters said they witnessed the funerals of 15 people who were killed and saw another eight bodies arrive at a local hospital. It was not immediately clear if they were fighters or civilians.

    As the AP also reports, social media was replete with videos of Hamas fighters parading what appeared to be stolen Israeli military vehicles through the streets and at least one dead Israeli soldier within Gaza being dragged and trampled by an angry crowd of Palestinians shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

    Hamas has invaded towns in southern Israel and is shooting people (warning: disturbing)…

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    Videos released by Hamas appeared to show at least three Israelis captured alive. The military declined to give details about casualties or kidnappings as it continued to battle the infiltrators.

    “We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address, declaring a mass army mobilization. “Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war.” “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” he added, promising that Israel would “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

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    At a meeting of top security officials later on Saturday, Netanyahu said the first priority was to “cleanse the area” of enemy infiltrators, then to “exact a huge price from the enemy,” and to fortify other areas so that no other militant groups join the war.

    The serious invasion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Israel’s enemies launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

    Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.

    The Israeli military struck targets in Gaza in response for some 2,500 rockets that sent air raid sirens wailing constantly as far north as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. It said its forces were engaged in gunfights with Hamas militants who had infiltrated Israel in at least seven locations. The fighters had sneaked across the separation fence and even invaded Israel through the air with paragliders, the army said.

    Israeli TV broadcast footage of explosions tearing through the Gaza-Israel border fence, followed by what appeared to be Palestinian gunmen riding into Israel on motorcycles. Gunmen also reportedly entered on pickup trucks.

    It was not immediately clear what prompted Hamas to launch the attacks, which would have likely required months of planning. But over the past year Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

    The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, announced the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” The Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam, and is located on the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

    “Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message, as he called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”

    In a televised address, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas had made “a grave mistake” and promised that “the state of Israel will win this war.”

    The infiltration of fighters into southern Israel marked a major escalation by Hamas that forced millions of Israelis to hunker down in safe rooms. Cities and towns emptied as the military closed roads near Gaza. Israel’s rescue service and the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza appealed to the public to donate blood.

    “We understand that this is something big,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, told reporters. He said the Israeli military had called up the army reserves.

    Hecht declined to comment on how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard. “That’s a good question,” he said.

    Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled leader of Hamas, said that Palestinian fighters were “engaged in these historic moments in a heroic operation” to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

    Israel has built a massive fence along the Gaza border meant to prevent infiltrations. It goes deep underground and is equipped with cameras, high-tech sensors and sensitive listening technology. Israel has maintained a blockade over Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. The bitter enemies have fought four wars since then. There have also been numerous rounds of smaller fighting between Israel and Hamas and other smaller militant groups based in Gaza.

    The blockade, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, has devastated the territory’s economy. Israel says the blockade is needed to keep militant groups from building up their arsenals. The Palestinians say the closure amounts to collective punishment.

    The escalation comes after weeks of heightened tensions along Israel’s volatile border with Gaza, and heavy fighting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Saturday’s wide-ranging assault threatened to undermine Netanyahu’s reputation as a security expert who would do anything to protect Israel. It also raised questions about the cohesion of a security apparatus crucial to the stability of a country locked in low-intensity conflicts on multiple fronts and facing threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

    Meanwhile, Hezbollah congratulated Hamas on Friday, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes” and saying the militants had “divine backing.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.

     

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    * * *

    The timing of the assault was striking, hitting Israel at one of the lowest moments in its history. It followed months of profound anxiety about the cohesion of Israeli society and the readiness of its military, a crisis set off by the government’s efforts to reduce the power of the judiciary. And the violence came 50 years and a day after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel was also surprised by a complex Arab attack, leading to huge Israeli losses and soul-searching about the state of the country.

    Muhammad Deif, the leader of the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic militant organization that controls Gaza, said in a recorded message that the group had decided to launch an “operation” so that “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.”

    In response to the Hamas attack, the Israeli military said it launched strikes against 17 military compounds and locations connected to Hamas’s leadership in Gaza. The army released videos of strikes on cars, Palestinian militants and other targets. Dozens of air force jet fighters launched the attacks, the Israeli military said.

    The Israel Defense Force has 169,000 active-duty troops and 465,000 reservists and remains the Middle East’s most formidable force, supplied with some of the most advanced drones and other weapons from Israel’s technology sector and from the U.S., which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military assistance.

    The Israeli military has conducted frequent raids in Palestinian cities and refugee camps, with bloody confrontations ensuing with well-armed militants. The army also flooded southern Israel with ground troops to manage the incursion, it said.

    The IDF said it had named the counter offensive against Hamas operation swords of iron.

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    Meanwhile, as the WSJ details, the declaration of war by Israel against Hamas comes at a time of turmoil in Israeli politics.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced a backlash against legislation introduced to limit the power of the Supreme Court. His coalition passed the first part of the law in July, prompting mass protests and raising fears about Israel’s national security.

    Thousands of military reservists said at the time they would quit as a result of the change to the law, and union leaders and medical professionals threatened mass work stoppages. Military officials have warned that the legislation was undermining unity within the military.

    The law takes away the Supreme Court’s ability to nullify government decisions it finds “unreasonable in the extreme”—a concept that lawmakers in Netanyahu’s coalition said was nebulous and allowed liberal judges to overturn the will of an increasingly right-wing electorate.

    The effort to overhaul the judiciary has been the governing coalition’s priority since Netanyahu was re-elected last year. Coalition members have said the government plans to move ahead with the next part of the overhaul, which would aim to change the way judges are appointed, after the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, reconvenes in mid-October. The law is being challenged in Israel’s Supreme Court.

    * * *

    Western nations condemned the incursion and reiterated their support for Israel, while others called for restraint on both sides.

    “The U.S. unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council. “We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”

    Watson said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has spoken with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi.

    Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, released a statement calling on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about “ the dangers of the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”

    * * *

    Finally, there is some speculation that Iran may get dragged into what is rapidly emerging as the worst Middle-Eastern crisis in years, with various pro-Israeli hawks claiming that the Hamas attack would have only occurred with explicit Iranian backing. If Israel does indeed attack Iran, as it has hinted it would do for years, may we suggest you fill up your gas tank.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 18:35

  • Johnstone: The Top Ten Dumbest Things Empire Propagandists Ask Us To Believe
    Johnstone: The Top Ten Dumbest Things Empire Propagandists Ask Us To Believe

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    When you live under an empire that’s held together by lies, you’ll be asked to believe a lot of intensely stupid bullshit.

    Here are the top ten dumbest things the propagandists of the US-centralized empire try to get us to swallow.

    1. That the US war machine has been surrounding its top two rivals China and Russia with war machinery as an act of defense, rather than an extremely provocative act of aggression.

    2. That the war in Ukraine simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked, and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance US strategic interests and therefore should be funded as much as possible.

    3. That, okay, all those other wars were based on lies and resulted in disaster, but that couldn’t possibly be the case for this current war.

    4. That your country’s foreign policy is determined by your official elected government, even though the foreign policy remains the same regardless of who is in office.

    5. That it is only by pure coincidence that your nation’s population remains in a perpetual 50–50 deadlock which prevents anyone’s votes from changing the status quo, and the status quo just happens to be perpetually frozen along lines that hugely advantage the rich and powerful.

    6. That the only reason anyone could possibly be critical of the most dangerous impulses of the world’s most powerful and destructive government is if they are a secret agent working for the enemies of that government.

    7. That the western empire which spent the last two decades murdering Muslims in the Middle East suddenly cares very deeply about the Muslims in China.

    8. That Putin invaded Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom, and that the empire is pouring weapons into Ukraine because it loves Ukrainians and wants to protect their freedom and democracy.

    9. That foreign propaganda and influence operations are significantly manipulating the way westerners think and vote, but the plutocrats who fully control all the most influential platforms in the western world are not.

    10. That we need to be worrying about tyrannical enemies in Beijing and Moscow, instead of tyrannical enemies a lot closer to home.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 18:25

  • Another Problem? iPhone 15 Users Report "Rattle Or Crackle" In Audio
    Another Problem? iPhone 15 Users Report “Rattle Or Crackle” In Audio

    Apple rolled out a software update on Wednesday to fix the overheating issue in the new iPhone 15. Yet, even as one problem is addressed, another emerges: Some iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max users report that their built-in speakers emit crackly and rattly sounds.

    “My iPhone 15 Pro Max arrived launch day, and from out of the box, full volume speaker calls rattle the speaker and sound like liquid inside, and same for music above like 80%, below 80% you can notice the rattle with the phone up to your ear. Software bug maybe? I think I should get the phone swapped out…… It literally sounds like a liquid-damaged blown speaker at high volumes,” one Redditor said. 

    After a replacement phone from the Apple Store, the Redditor said, “Replaced phone through Apple, and the replacement has the same issue, this time worse!”

    Another Apple user, TikToker Milesabovetech, said his iPhone 15 Pro Max had been replaced three times because of speaker issues. He said: “The iPhone 15 launch has me feeling like we were beta testers.” 

    @milesabovetech The iPhone 15 launch has me feeling like were beta testers #iphone #android #iphone15promax #techtok #tech #techgagets #apple #milesabovetech ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound

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    He shared a video of the second iPhone replacement on X, indicating, “So I got my 2nd replacement for my iPhone 15 Pro Max from Apple and it still has the same top speaker issue?!?! When the volume is above 80% with some songs and videos the speaker rattles and cracks like it has water in it. I tried this at BestBuy too and they had the same issue.” 

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    It’s unclear how widespread the problem is. Others have reported similar issues:

    “If it’s a hardware issue and speaker components are to blame, Apple will likely fix the problem at the manufacturing level,” said tech blog BGR, adding, “Considering that Apple has already confirmed the overheating issues for the iPhone 15 Pro models, I’d expect the company to also address the sound problems in the near future. That’s if the speaker issue is as widespread.” 

    Seems like iPhone 15 users are beta testers…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 17:50

  • Victor Davis Hanson: A 50th Anniversary War?
    Victor Davis Hanson: A 50th Anniversary War?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

    A 50th Anniversary War?

    Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians – one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?

    And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?

    a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies – the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.

    b)  Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).

    c) Hamas may have reckoned that recent Israeli turmoil and mass leftist street protests over proposed reforms of the Israeli Supreme Court had led to permanent internal divisions and thus a climate of domestic distraction if not an erosion of deterrence.

    But, more importantly, in a larger sense the Biden administration has contributed both to the notion that Hamas was a legitimate Middle East player, and to the perception that the U.S. was backing away from its traditional support for Israel – to the delight of Hamas – based on the following inexplicable policies:

    1) In February Secretary of State Blinken had bragged that not only had the Biden administration resumed massive aid to the PLA cancelled by Trump, but cumulatively had transferred $1 billion – even as Palestinian authorities bragged that they would continue to pay bounties to the families of “martyrs” (i.e., those killed while conducting terrorists attacks against Israel).

    And millions of American dollars also went into Gaza, run by Hamas – despite the Biden administration’s efforts to keep mostly quiet the resumption of such inexplicable support. In this regard, note the current shameful State-Department (“U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs”) website news release that was posted after today’s attack. It ended with this quite embarrassing, morally equivalent admonition:

    “We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

    “All sides?” “Refrain from retaliatory attacks?”

    So Israel is the moral equivalent of terrorists executing civilians and brutalizing their corpses? And the IDF then is not supposed to retaliate against these killers?

    This Biden State Department insanity cannot stand. So expect some apparatchik to take down this Munich-like posting as soon as possible.

    2) The Biden administration had recently released some $6 billion to Iran through a prison swap deal that saw South Korea hand over embargoed Iranian money to Qatar – despite Tehran’s  increased anti-Israeli rhetoric and its loud brag about the escalation. We should assume money for rockets (Hamas claims they have launched 5,000, and have received 100,000 of them via the Damascus airport) and weapons in general for Hamas were supplied by Iran, which again is likely the chief catalyst for this surprise attack.

    3) Almost immediately, after his inauguration Biden mobilized to resume the bankrupt Iran deal. And in unhinged fashion he appointed the anti-Israeli bigot, pro-Iranian journalist Robert Malley as America’s chief negotiator. Note that Malley is now under FBI investigation for security breaches, involving disclosing classified U.S. documents and also for allegedly helping pro-Iranian activists and propagandists land influential billets inside the U.S. government.

    In short, there was a general Hamas and Iranian perception that the Biden administration had resumed the discredited Obama madness of empowering Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. This discredited agenda was to “balance” the power of Israel and the moderate Arab Gulf governments to achieve “creative tension”, exacerbated by Biden’s loathing of the government of Benjamín Netanyahu (who has been snubbed by Biden and never invited for an official visit).

    Note as well that the Biden administration has siphoned off key weapons and munitions from stockpiles inside Israel to transfer them to Ukraine. The so-called “War Reserve Ammunition—Israel” is all but depleted of just the sorts of weapons needed in the present crisis.

    In this regard is there not a pattern here?

    Upon the ascension of Biden and his woke military agendas, we saw the following:

    • the complete humiliation of the U.S. in Kabul in its most shameful flight in 50 years and greatest abandonment of equipment in its history;

    • followed by Vladimir Putin’s opportunistic invasion of Ukraine;

    • followed by China’s new belligerence and escalating threats to Taiwan;

    • followed by Turkey’s new de facto alliance with Russia and recent drone encounter with the U.S. air force in Syria;

    • followed by the Hamas/Iranian inspired attack on Israel – with more to come unfortunately.

    And will Biden finally get the message from the attacks on the Ukraine and Israeli borders, that borders matter and we too are being invaded, with the encouragement of the Mexican government and to the advantage of the cartels whose fentanyl exports kills 100,000 Americans a year?

    What to expect in Israel?

    Expect the following:

    • the usual Hamas/terrorist selling and/or execution of Israeli hostages,

    • the use of Israeli hostages as “human shields” in Gaza, 

    • the bargaining/sale of the remains of Israeli dead,

    • occasional killings of Jews inside Israel by Arabs who falsely believe there will be a winning Middle East-wide existential war against Israel.

    • And finally, a devastating Israeli counter-response that will eventually earn a U.S. rebuke.

    What should the U.S. instead do?

    It should quit talking to Iran and restore full sanctions against it.

    It should cut off all aid immediately to all the Palestinians.

    It should undertake a 1973-like massive arms lift of key munitions to Israel and warn Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East not to intervene or else, given that Israel will need several weeks to deal with Hamas and Gaza.

    And if it shows any hesitation or weakness, other terrorist groups will opportunistically jump in.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 17:15

  • Will The Electric Car Mandates Battle Decide The 2024 Election?
    Will The Electric Car Mandates Battle Decide The 2024 Election?

    Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClear Wire,

    Let’s see just how long this auto workers’ strike lasts. It’s not really about the 46% pay raise, but the 2009 Obama deal that took away cost-of-living adjustments. It’s not really about the short run, either.

    But let’s see what the auto workers get in the face of President Biden’s unrealistic demand that would force us to buy Chinese-battery-powered vehicles.

    The sheep will remain loyal – just as they are to every other radical idea – because to resist is to be uncool or, worse, deplatformed from woke society.

    But the “irredeemable deplorables” (who buck the system) are getting restless about an all-out plunge into the uncharted waters of EV world – a world dominated by China and its forced laborers in Xinjiang and Congolese child laborers.

    Funny how bedfellows make strange politics. The UAW bosses are all in with the EV mandate, but the rank and file just cheered an Orange man in a red elephant jacket. But if you think this is merely an American phenomenon, you’d be wrong.

    This – this is the battle of the century, between those seeking to control all thought and action and those who only seek to control some (controversial) thought and action – a real-world game of thrones. Power, not progress, or even prosperity, is the goal. And, of course, big money.

    Every day the dangers of total reliance on electricity generation and transmission at a level twice that of today are exposed. And every day these warnings are ignored by the media and lampooned by the Karines of the world.

    In Pakistan, lightning hits a warehouse full of electric vehicles and batteries causing a fire and explosions that killed a 15-year-old boy and injured 163 others. Five electric vehicles were destroyed at Sydney’s airport when a detached EV battery from a luxury vehicle burst into flames.

    Taxpayer-subsidized Proterra’s bankruptcy has left the entire eight-vehicle Jackson (Wyoming) bus fleet grounded for months. Parts are not available. Naturally, Jackson’s bureaucrats plan to buy more electric buses. Greenie points!

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a five-year delay on banning new gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles (till 2035), citing “unacceptable costs” on ordinary people. All across Europe the battle is raging over the “transition.” Unless “net zero” is modified, predictions are that “the base car market will either vanish or will not be done by European manufacturers.”

    Those “ordinary people” are speaking with their pocketbooks. Prices for used EVs have been slashed by nearly 25% “as drivers lose confidence.” Over half of British drivers deem EVs too expensive, and nearly half fear shortages of charging stations.

    No wonder American auto workers are striking!

    But that’s not the worst!

    British auto insurer John Lewis Financial Services has “temporarily” paused issuing polices on battery-powered vehicles until its underwriter analyses risks and costs (and raises rates). Another insurer, Aviva, reportedly is refusing to insure Teslas, while other EV owners saw premiums go up 1,000% in just one year (up to £4,000 more).

    Costs for EV repairs have risen sharply, and there is a shortage of technicians with the skills to carry out repairs – meaning EV owners may wait weeks with their toy in the shop. No wonder a J.D. Power survey reports 76% of new EV sales come from the luxury market – mainstream buyers cannot afford them.

    Nonetheless, the Association of British Insurers reassured the elites and deplatformers that, “Our members fully support the roll-out of electric vehicles and efforts to transition to Net Zero.” With the caveat that, “Whether to offer insurance, and at what price, is a commercial decision for insurers based on their risk appetite.”

    The “rosy scenario” (if tomorrow’s EV sales match today’s non-EV sales) predicts a loss of 117,000 automotive jobs to “the transition.” Thousands of jobs are already lost as automakers gear up to meet political demands – despite public resistance.

    These numbers, however, do not factor in the 75% reduction in private vehicle ownership demanded by Klaus Schwab and his fellow gazillionaire would-be gods.

    Nor do they factor in massive losses in petrochemical industry and other manufacturing jobs – at least 6,000 products use byproducts of gasoline and diesel production. Those industries, too, will be devastated by an end to fossil fuel production – and nobody in the power structure cares.

    Yes, horse-related jobs disappeared as automobiles replaced saddled animals on American roads. But such comparisons are political spin. American auto workers – like former American appliance and electronics workers — watch production move to Mexico and China as our auto industry is crippled by regulations and mandates that make no economic or geopolitical sense.

    Despite the acquiescence by automakers to Biden’s diktat (do any mainstream reporters still drive ICE vehicles?), there are signs of a burgeoning revolt, and not just from Trump-loving auto workers.

    The House just sent to the Senate the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, crafted by Rep. John Joyce (R, PA) to prevent governments from bans on ICE vehicle sales. Says Joyce, “The last thing my constituents want is another oppressive Biden administration mandate that puts a radical environmental agenda and far-left special interests above their individual freedoms.”

    (Meanwhile, in France, 41% (and 59% from ages 18 to 24) approved the idea of limiting people to four airplane flights over their entire lifetime.)

    Analyzing the British marketplace, Telegraph city editor Ben Marlow suggests that “the time has come to accept that the economics of net zero are more fantasy than reality.”

    Despite London mayor Sadiq Khan’s infamous Ultra-Low Emissions Zone scheme that forced ICE vehicle drivers to pay £12.50 per day just to enter downtown London, an initial spike in EV sales petered out quickly, leading to layoffs at EV assembly plants, carlots full of unsold EVs, and a price war by frustrated dealerships.

    In the U.S., Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley addressed the United Auto Workers’ demands, acknowledging that, “we want everyone to participate in our success, but if it prevents us from investing in this transition to EVs … then everyone’s job is at risk if we don’t invest.”

    Really? Ford is losing $4.5 billion in its EV division this year despite President Biden’s welfare-for-the-rich scheme of massive subsidies for EV purchases, $12 billion for retrofitting auto plants for EV production, and $7.5 billion for charging stations. If Schwab has his way, Ford may soon find itself out of business or relegated to manufacturing nameplates for Chinese “Fords.”

    Will Americans understand that the auto workers (who just want a big paycheck before their forced retirement) are the canary in this nation’s coal mine – that if their industry dies, the nation’s economy dies with it?

    It will take great courage to stand up to teacher unions, indoctrinated children, the deplatforming media, the Justice Department, and hate speech from on high to demand an end to the climate hysteria that elitists use to scare people into accepting a massive decline in their prosperity.

    But that is the battle – more than immigration, funding foreign wars, or even “structural racism” – that ought to be the dividing line in 2024. Like 2020’s vaccine mandates, EV mandates force tremendous losses of personal freedom. And our children are being taught that freedom – speaking out against government and the ruling class – is a bad thing.

    But so is darkness.

    Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a frequent writer on public policy issues.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 16:05

  • Watch: Netanyahu Delivers Remarks After Hamas Attack
    Watch: Netanyahu Delivers Remarks After Hamas Attack

    Update (1525ET): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers remarks following the Hamas attack:

    Watch live:

    *  *  *

    President Biden delivered a boilerplate series of remarks on the attack in Israel, including that the US commitment to them is “rock solid,” and leaving before answering any questions (the first one of which was whether there was an intelligence failure leading up to it).

    Watch:

    The US says it ‘stands firmly’ by its partner Israel after it came under large-scale attack by Palestinian fighters from Gaza, happening nearly 50 years to the day of the historic 1973 Yom Kippur war.

    “The U.S. unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, said in a statement. “We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”

    President Biden held a phone call with Netanyahu Saturday:

    “This morning, I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the horrific and ongoing attacks in Israel,” Biden said in a statement. “The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel.” 

    “Terrorism is never justified. Israel has a right to defend itself and its people. The United States warns against any other party hostile to Israel seeking advantage in this situation,” he continued. “My Administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

    Additionally, the Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu earlier declared war.

    “Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “Over the coming days the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”

    Gaza militants have not only taken control of multiple Israeli military outposts near the southern border, but have launched more than 2,000 missiles in an attack by “air, land, and sea”. Gaza media is meanwhile warning “hell’ is coming to Tel Aviv. 

    Israel’s national rescue service has confirmed at least 40 Israeli deaths due to the attack. Regional reports are saying this death toll could be over 100. A large-scale Israeli air campaign has ensued over Gaza City, with entire apartment blocks and buildings being leveled. 

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    Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Jerusalem has issued a “shelter in place” order for all US diplomatic personnel and their families. 

    “The U.S. Embassy is closely monitoring the security situation as a result of rockets fired from Gaza across southern and central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the infiltration of Hamas militants,” the statement reads.

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    The embassy says it’s “aware that there have been casualties as a result of these incidents” and cautions US citizens to “remain vigilant and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness.”

    Israeli leaders look rattled as they attended an emergency security cabinet meeting today:

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    Some observers are asking how such a clearly well-coordinated attack could have happened. At the very least, this is a monumential failure on the part of Israeli intelligence…

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 15:29

  • Hezbollah Next To Attack? War Could Spiral Into Biggest In Decades
    Hezbollah Next To Attack? War Could Spiral Into Biggest In Decades

    By Saturday afternoon (local time), some 200 Palestinians have been killed, with over 1600 wounded as the Israeli military begins its response to the ‘invasion’ of southern Israel launched by Hamas.

    After about ten hours of fighting, over 40 Israelis have been reported killed, and over 800 wounded. Hamas also has captured possibly scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians, including what it says are IDF military commanders.

    What’s becoming clear given the shocking scenes currently coming out of southern Israel, is that this is set to be the biggest, most devastating Israeli-Palestinian in decades.

    It appears at the very least, we are in the midst of a third intifada. But one big question will linger in the coming days and weeks as Israel is sure to escalate its response into a ground invasion Gaza: will the war escalate beyond Gaza and southern Israel?

    Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, via Tehran Times

    Already both Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran have sent “congratulations” messages to Hamas and the Palestinians. Hezbollah’s statement in particular condemned Arab states who have normalized relations with the Jewish state. 

    The Wall Street Journal reports on Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s statement as follows:

    Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which like Palestinian militant groups also vows Israel’s destruction, praised the operation by Hamas inside Israel, according to Arab media.

    Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said it served as a warning against recognizing Israel.

    “It sends a message to the Arab and Islamic world, and the international community as a whole, especially those seeking normalization with this enemy, that the Palestinian cause is an everlasting one, alive until victory and liberation,” Nasrallah said in a statement.

    At the moment Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah remains quiet, but if a shooting war starts out of southern Lebanon, Israel will find itself in a war on two fronts.

    Already there are allegations from Western pundits that Iran is financing this expanded Hamas operation…

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    Below: while we couldn’t make out any Farsi in the audio of the below disturbing footage, allegations like IRGC operatives being involved will only grow…

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    A potential broader war could also draw in Syria, given already Israeli jets have struck the country almost on a weekly basis. Israel has long said it is attacking Iranian targets and assets inside Syria. 

    If Hezbollah and Israel enter a war, this would increase the likelihood of it expanding into already war-torn Syria.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 14:35

  • Moms Shine Spotlight On Harms Caused By Youth Transgender Movement
    Moms Shine Spotlight On Harms Caused By Youth Transgender Movement

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

    The transgender movement has recently gained significant national attention for a number of reasons, including the controversy surrounding big corporations like Budweiser and Target’s support for the movement as well as widespread public opposition to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.

    A girl undergoes a transgender surgery in a still from the documentary “Gender Transformation.” (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

    To raise awareness about the harms caused by the movement, Moms For America, an advocacy group for family rights, hosted a virtual screening and panel discussion of the Epoch Original docudrama “Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities” on Oct. 5 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

    The event explored the complex issues surrounding gender confusion, transgenderism, and their effect on young people. It also informed parents about growing extremist behavior in schools across the country.

    After watching the movie for the first time, Moms For America founder and president Kimberly Fletcher felt moved and decided to host a screening.

    “I think when people see this, they will realize that this is really a billion-dollar business that’s set up to mutilate our children,” she said in an interview with NTD TV, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.

    By following the journeys of several former transgender youths, The Epoch Times film unpacks the complexities behind the rise of the transgender movement and the role played by institutions, from schools to medical and pharmaceutical companies.

    As the documentary highlights, parents are often confronted with a challenging dilemma during their children’s gender identity crises: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?”

    Parents, however, recognize that the answer to this heartbreaking question is far from simple.

    Jan Jekielek, senior editor with The Epoch Times and host of the EpochTV show “American Thought Leaders,” stated that the film and the panel discussion “serve as a valuable resource, even offering possible solutions for parents and their children when they are faced with gender confusion.”

    The live panel discussion following the film screening featured Ms. Fletcher, Mercedes Schlapp, senior fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation, January Littlejohn, licensed mental health councilor, Mark Trammell, executive director and general counsel of the Center for American Liberty, Katherine Welch, physician and collaborating clinician for the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, and Laura Perry Smalts, author of “Transgendered to Transformed.”

    The live panel discussion focused on some of the stories of what families have experienced and what they can do to protect their children.

    “This issue of gender ideology, I think, has been so toxic for American culture. And it’s spreading,” Ms. Schlapp told NTD TV during the event.

    “If we lose our children, if we become a genderless society, if we continue to create confusion here in America, it will be the fall of this great country,” she added.

    Mercedes Schlapp, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation, speaks during a live panel discussion after The Epoch Times “Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities” documentary screening in Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Moms for America provides various resources for parents to tackle this issue, including a book called “Gender Confusion.” The book explains what parents need to know to protect their children from the transgender movement.

    “We want everyone to know this is not normal,” Ms. Fletcher said of the transgender movement during the panel.

    “What’s happening is that they’re creating the problem, because then they get paid for the solution. So, it’s really important that we help everyone understand where this is coming from.”

    Emotional Trauma

    Former transgender Laura Perry Smalts was one of the panelists at the event. Ms. Smalts decided to transition at the age of 25 and endured years of cross-sex hormone therapy as well as two significant “gender-affirming” surgeries. However, she regrets going through it and wishes to warn others.

    “Nobody ever told me that this wasn’t real, that this was all just an aesthetic appearance. I had no idea the profound effect it would have on my body,” she said.

    “I was so depressed and became suicidal. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a woman, but I knew I’d never be a man. I was caught somewhere in between.”

    She eventually realized that an emotional trauma she experienced as a child was the driving force behind her decision to transition to a male.

    “But thankfully, by the grace of God, the Lord began to rescue me. I had so many people praying for me. I know it’s only by God’s grace that I’m here.”

    January Littlejohn was one of the panelists at the event. Ms. Littlejohn drew national attention after suing a Florida school for secretly assisting her daughter in changing her gender.

    Ms. Littlejohn’s fight against the school prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to approve legislation prohibiting schools from making decisions regarding a student’s health and well-being without consulting parents.

    “The one thing I tell parents is that you are the expert on your child, not the school, not the therapist,” she said during the panel discussion.

    “It is critically important to maintain an attached and healthy relationship with your child through the teen years.”

    The Center for American Liberty is an organization that represents parents who oppose school secrecy policies.

    “We never charge our clients a penny,” Mark Trammell, executive director and general counsel for the Center for American Liberty, said during the panel.

    “We’re able to exist because we have donors across the country who support our organization and make it possible to file these public interest lawsuits.”

    About the Docudrama

    The Epoch Times film examines the complex issues surrounding transgenderism and explains the roles played by the education system, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, the financial interests behind the transgender movement, and the societal and political mechanisms at work.

    The docudrama tells the real-life stories of several former transgender youth who started the gender transitioning process and their experiences at various stages of the journey through interviews and re-enactments.

    Experts interviewed in the film reveal the life-altering medical and psychological impacts of the experimental medication used, including the irreversible side effects of puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries that are often ignored by the media.

    In the docudrama, award-winning director Tobias Elvhage brings to light the untold realities and implications of the transgender movement on American children and youth. His most recent awards include Best Short Film at the 2023 LA Documentary Film Festival and Winner of the 2023 European Cinematography Awards.

    “This is a big night and a very important movie about gender confusion,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said in a video message during the panel discussion. “I’m so thankful to the people that created this movie to spread awareness of this unbelievable evil that has come all across America, and it’s targeting our children.”

    The congresswoman introduced a bill that makes gender-affirming care for any child under the age of 18 a felony.

    “This is not a battle against any adult’s rights to self-identify or change their sexuality. This is not an us against them situation,” Vanessa Faura, executive director of Moms For America, said during a press briefing ahead of the event.

    “My message today is simple: all children are sacred. And there should be no room for any agenda that harms them in any way, shape, or form. They will not be indoctrinated. They will not be groomed.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 14:00

  • Bill Maher: "Democrats Look Like Sanctuary City Hypocrites" 
    Bill Maher: “Democrats Look Like Sanctuary City Hypocrites” 

    “Real Time” host Bill Maher blasted President Biden and ultra-radical progressives for their massive policy U-turn on the southern border this week. He said border state Republicans who bused migrants to sanctuary metro areas (mainly in the Northeast) “called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities,” and the Democrats “look like sanctuary city hypocrites.” 

    “Here’s how serious the situation is: You know, they’ve been busing the migrants to the cities now. They kind of called the Democrats’ bluff about sanctuary cities, and they said oh, you love them so much? Here you go. And the cities don’t like it so much. NYC Mayor Eric Adams said this is going to destroy our city … Eric Adams … went to Mexico today. He’s going to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia, I think door-to-door, no, really, just to tell people personally, we don’t have room, I’m not kidding, don’t come. That’s pretty amazing. No, he’s telling these people, we don’t have room. This is New York City. Don’t you know our catchphrase? We’re the Little Apple. And our theme song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, so go anywhere, don’t come here,” Maher said in his opening opening monologue on Friday evening. 

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    Maher continued, “The border crisis has become a national crisis. It was always something like oh, it’s down there, and yes, it’s bad. But it’s – and now it’s all over the country because they’ve been busing the migrants and so forth.”

    He said this all “feels like a disaster for the Democrats.” 

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    The Biden administration’s reversal to now support former President Trump’s southern border wall comes as radical progressives, for years, called anyone who praised Trump’s wall ‘racist’ and other terrible names. The policy U-turn by the president and radical leftists comes as it appears polling data is not moving in their favor ahead of the election cycle, as disastrous open border policies have transformed many metro areas into chaotic areas that resemble third-word-like conditions. 

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    … and you know it’s bad for Democrats when Bill Clinton has to come out and oppose NYC’s sanctuary city. 

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    or this… 

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    Maher said, “Trump today said he wants Biden to apologize because it looks like Biden was adopting his policy. This does not look good for the Democrats.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 13:25

  • EU Says It Can't Support Ukraine Without The United States
    EU Says It Can’t Support Ukraine Without The United States

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The EU’s top diplomat on Thursday said the European bloc could not provide Ukraine with enough support without the US amid uncertainty about when Congress might authorize the next tranche of spending on the proxy war.

    “Europe cannot fill the gap of the US,” Josep Borrell said after arriving in Spain for a gathering of European leaders, according to POLITICO.

    AFP via Getty Images

    The EU is close to approving a new economic aid package for Ukraine worth 50 billion euros that would cover 2024-2027, although Hungary could further delay the package. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the massive aid package should be approved within the next few months but said US support still remains crucial.

    Von der Leyen also said she was “confident” that the US would continue supporting Ukraine but acknowledged she wasn’t sure when new spending would be authorized.

    According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US has another tranche of economic aid worth over $1 billion to fund the Ukrainian government through the month of October. If a new aid package isn’t authorized by Congress in the next month, the funds will dry up.

    The Pentagon has said it still has $5.4 billion in funds to send weapons to Ukraine but has warned it’s running out of money to replace weapons sent to Ukraine. Because of the uncertainty, the Pentagon has said it’s restricted the flow of some arms to the US’s own forces.

    The majority of Congress still supports the proxy war, but it’s not clear when they will pass a new Ukraine aid bill after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House speaker.

    President Biden is looking for an additional $24 billion in spending and has acknowledged he’s worried about the situation, although he also hinted there are other ways to get the money.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 12:50

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Oct 07

Today’s News 7th October 2023

  • Some Embalmers Say White, Fibrous Clots Showing Up; Others Say It's A Conspiracy Theory
    Some Embalmers Say White, Fibrous Clots Showing Up; Others Say It’s A Conspiracy Theory

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Embalming a body involves replacing the blood with chemical solutions to preserve it and slow decomposition.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    Some embalmers say that starting in 2021, they suddenly began seeing an “anomaly” during that process—a phenomenon of long, rubbery, white masses inside the blood vessels.

    Others say they have seen nothing new.

    The Epoch Times contacted embalmers and funeral directors from around the world to understand the disparity.

    An Oklahoma mortician responded, saying, “Yes, the embalmers at this funeral location have all encountered this phenomenon, each multiple times during embalming in the last two years.” A funeral director in Pennsylvania told The Epoch Times: “We’ve seen this stuff—absolutely. We’ve seen it enough to discuss it within the company.”

    The mortician said his company thought the white, fibrous clots were just an anomaly.

    “What do I attribute it to? I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it previously,” he said.

    “As far as numbers, it’s hard to say. When we first started noticing it in 2021, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, I wonder if their cholesterol was off the charts.’

    On the other hand, many of the respondents to The Epoch Times’ survey said that not only had they not seen the fibrous masses in the bodies they embalmed, but they considered the reports from other embalmers and funeral directors to be “nonsense.”

    An embalmer wears personal protective equipment while preparing a deceased person in Shipley, England, on May 21, 2020. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

    “It’s all nonsense, COVID vaccine conspiracy-theory [expletive],” a Canadian embalmer told The Epoch Times in an email. “We embalm over 400 bodies yearly and have never seen [this].“

    Several respondents from Canada, Australia, and the UK said they haven’t seen any of the white, fibrous clots, with one calling it “ridiculous claptrap.”

    However, responses from 11 embalmers in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand tell a similar story of white fibrin masses clogging the circulatory systems of the newly deceased since 2021.

    Some speculate that the obstructions have something to do with COVID-19 or the COVID-19 vaccines, although no research exists to substantiate such a connection.

    Dr. Ryan Cole, an Idaho pathologist who said he’s conducted “a lot” of autopsies in his career, said normal post-mortem blood clots are red and jelly-like.

    “They’re not white and rubbery,” he said in a 2022 interview on “American Thought Leaders.”

    Dr. Cole attributes the absence of public dialogue within the medical community regarding the clots to “institutional fear.”

    Grassroots Survey

    When retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Thomas Haviland began hearing about the strange phenomenon in various media, he conducted his own international email survey this year of funeral homes.

    Mr. Haviland sent questionnaires via Survey Monkey to funeral homes in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Of the 179 active embalmers who responded to the survey, 119 confirmed having seen the clots.

    Mr. Haviland said that he designed the survey to be as unbiased as possible. Nowhere in the survey instructions nor in the survey questions are the words “Covid” or “Covid vaccines” ever mentioned.

    Mr. Haviland said he only asked the embalmers if they saw the white fibrous clots, when they saw them, where on the body, and in what percentage of the bodies they embalmed.

    Despite the fact that the survey never mentions the COVID vaccines, many of the 42 U.S. embalmers and 12 Canadian embalmers who responded to an optional “Comments” box at the end of the survey either implicated the COVID vaccines as the cause of the white fibrous clots, or they defended the vaccines while denying the existence of these unusual clots.

    “The main consensus of embalmers is that these white, fibrous clots first appeared in the year 2021 and continue still to date. Embalmers see these clots in a significant percentage of corpses—up to 50 percent or more in some cases,” Mr. Haviland said.

    The Epoch Times independently contacted the 1,700 embalmers and funeral directors surveyed by Mr. Haviland to corroborate the findings. Nine responded, saying they’ve encountered the white, fibrous masses, and five responded saying they haven’t.

    Embalmers Responses

    Canadian embalmer Laura Jeffrey thought it bizarre to be pulling long, rubbery, white masses from the veins and arteries of the deceased at the beginning of 2021.

    “I knew from the get-go something was wrong,” Mrs. Jeffrey said.

    In one case, she found a white, stringy mass literally “hanging out” of a deceased woman’s artery—”like eight inches long—all branched,” she told The Epoch Times.

    “You could see the pathologist’s cut in it. So you can’t tell me it wasn’t there when they did the autopsy. I had to pull it out as the embalmer.”

    Mrs. Jeffrey said her job became increasingly tricky trying to work around the obstructions. She decided to consult with her colleagues, but came up against an inexplicable “code of silence.”

    A morgue in Madrid, Spain, on March 30, 2020. (Comunidad de Madrid – Handout/Getty Images)

    More than 8,000 miles away from Mrs. Jeffrey’s home in Ontario, a New Zealand embalmer confirmed similar findings.

    “For obvious reasons, I am most reluctant for my colleagues to know I am responding,” the embalmer said, on condition of anonymity, in an email to The Epoch Times.

    “My workplace feels this is a conspiracy theory and is unwilling to engage in conversation. To say I was shut down when I tried to bring it up is an understatement.“

    A funeral director in Colorado told The Epoch Times: “We are finding these white, fibrous blood clots in decedents of all ages.

    “For example, one case was autopsied in their late 20s. The death was not related to clots (no family history), and this person was healthy and took care of themselves. I found two large white clumps in their lower arteries. These should not have been there, especially with the manner of death.”

    The funeral director said before the embalming process, they’ve begun asking if the person had been vaccinated and boosted.

    An embalmer prepares embalming instruments before operating on a body, inside the morgue of Veronica Memorial Chapel in Manila, Philippines, on Oct. 30, 2016. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

    “Depending on the case, we are not finding these clots in non-vaccinated decedents, just normal blood clots and good drainage,” the director said.

    “For the vaccinated ones, we are finding larger clots that are changing the consistency of the blood itself. We have never seen so much stringy blood before that really disrupts the drainage.”

    The embalmer at New Zealand funeral home who was among the survey recipients and who reached out to The Epoch Times described how six months into his training, he saw his first “fibrin clot.”

    The supervisor he had at the time said she “didn’t know what it was.”

    “She has been an embalmer for about 20 years. I then asked my manager, who is also an embalmer, and he said he had seen them prior to COVID, and there was no link,” the embalmer said. Since the first discovery, he says he still sees the strange white masses “fairly regularly—in various sizes, with and without the fatty clots, and normal red blood clots.”

    Body bags in the morgue at the Pima County medical examiner’s office in Tucson, Ariz., on Oct. 13, 2016. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    “I am not privy to the vaccination status of the deceased or their recent health issues beyond [the] cause of death, so I cannot say if there is a link between a recent COVID infection or vaccination,” the embalmer said.

    He said he tried to discuss his findings with other colleagues—not to “stir up trouble,” but to learn what they were looking at.

    However, “just like with any other unusual presentation on my table … there is a definable ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ feeling around the topic,” he said.

    A funeral director at a high-volume mortuary in Texas said she has seen the clots in several embalming cases but needs to know more about them before commenting further.

    Reads more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 10/07/2023 – 00:00

  • "They Took My Sushi": Lawmakers Sleeping In US Capitol Due To 'Very Dangerous' Crime Wave
    “They Took My Sushi”: Lawmakers Sleeping In US Capitol Due To ‘Very Dangerous’ Crime Wave

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

    A Republican House lawmaker on Wednesday said that some lawmakers have been sleeping inside the U.S. Capitol due to fears of crime in the District of Columbia.

    The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on July 4, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said that he and other unnamed lawmakers have slept in their offices at the Capitol because Washington, D.C., is “very dangerous” at night. He did not elaborate.

    “I don’t want to walk back and forth from an apartment in D.C. at night or in the morning—early morning—to get to work,” Mr. Burlison told Todd Starnes on his radio program. “It’s not a safe environment.”

    He made reference to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) having recently been carjacked in the district just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The Democratic lawmaker was unharmed but his car was stolen by three armed assailants, police said.

    “It’s insane to even own a car in D.C. because wherever you park, it is going to cost you a fortune and it’s likely to get broken into and you’re likely to get carjacked,” Mr. Burlison said.

    As for Mr. Cuellar, he was back at work in the Capitol on Tuesday morning. Recalling the incident on Sunday night, he said that the assailants appeared from “out of nowhere” and “pointed guns at me.”

    “I looked at one with a gun, another with a gun, and I felt one behind me,” Mr. Cuellar said. “They said they wanted my car, and I said, ‘Sure.’ You got to keep calm under those situations, and they took off.”

    The congressman was approached by three young black males in black clothing and black masks, according to a statement Mr. Cuellar gave to Capitol officials.

    “According to the victim’s statements, the suspects ‘swarmed [the victim’s] vehicle, pointed firearms in his face and demanded the keys to the car.’ Thankfully there were not any injuries,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. “A witness told investigators three males in knit caps and ski masks were involved. The witness reported that the suspects were 5’10” black males who may have been around the age of 16 due to their build.”

    Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri arrives at the Hyatt Regency in Washington in a file photo. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

    Mr. Cuellar’s chief of staff Jacob Hochberg released a statement Monday night saying: “As Congressman Cuellar was parking his car this evening, 3 armed assailants approached the Congressman and stole his vehicle. Luckily, he was not harmed and is working with local law enforcement.”

    Monday’s carjacking was the second assault on a member of Congress in the District of Columbia this year. In February, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) was assaulted in her apartment building, suffering bruises while escaping serious injury. Her chief of staff said the attack did not appear to be politically motivated.

    Mr. Cuellar thanked the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department for their work, saying the “message is very simple: You’ve got to support law enforcement.”

    He said the attackers were masked, but he could still see that they were young. “They recovered the car, they recovered everything, but what really got me upset is they took my sushi,” he joked.

    White House press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre called the carjacking “unacceptable” and said President Joe Biden spoke to the congressman today.

    “We will always continue to speak out against any sort of violence. We’ve been consistent here in this administration,” she said. “We are certainly grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed, and we are thankful to law enforcement for having reacted so quickly.”

    The 68-year-old Texas Democrat’s car was recovered about two miles away in the Anacostia neighborhood, according to a report from a local NBC affiliate station.

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) speaks to reporters on Capital Hill on Oct. 3, 2023. (CNN/Screenshot via NTD)

    Crime on the Rise

    Homicides in Washington, D.C., are likely going to reach highs not seen in decades, with officials reporting 215 murders so far this year. In comparison, there were 157 homicides in all of 2022, police data show.

    In late September, the capital city hit the 200 murder mark, according to officials, which drew a response from the D.C. Police Union on social media.

    “We are still short 100s of cops and the responsible policing that used to address this has been prohibited by misguided legislation,” the union wrote on X, formerly Twitter, more than a week ago.

    Earlier this year, Republicans criticized the leaders of Washington, D.C., during a House hearing, portraying the capital as a Democrat-run city that has long been mismanaged and fallen into a state of disarray due to left-wing bail reform rules. In May, they passed a measure that would overturn a so-called police reform package that was passed by the D.C. Council amid the nationwide riots and protests in 2020.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 23:30

  • US Cellphone Radiation Tests Are 'Rigged,' Ignoring Long-Term Health Effects: Expert
    US Cellphone Radiation Tests Are ‘Rigged,’ Ignoring Long-Term Health Effects: Expert

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

    France’s recent ban on sales of the iPhone 12 due to radiation concerns has sparked apprehension throughout Europe about the health risks of cellphone radiation exposure. While U.S. tests focus narrowly on whether phones heat tissue, some experts argue they fail to show the whole picture.

    “The way they’re tested is to see whether or not they heat you up, and not for the chronic long-term effects that have been demonstrated,” Devra Davis, a cancer epidemiologist who holds a doctorate in science studies and a master’s in public health in epidemiology, told The Epoch Times. “Particularly the effects on sperm and lower testosterone, among others.”

    (Chikena/Shutterstock)

    Cellphone Radiation Tests Are ‘Rigged’: Expert

    According to Ms. Davis, the biggest problem with U.S. testing is that it’s not conducted with the phone against the body. She compared it to the “Dieselgate” scandal involving Volkswagen, where the company rigged its tests to show lower exhaust emissions than the vehicle actually produced.

    “The same thing is happening here,” she added, noting that the tests were initially set up with spacers, as if phones were in holsters or holders.

    When the French government tests cellphones as they are actually used, “like in your hand [or] next to your body,” Ms. Davis said, the phones exceed European Union (EU) radiation limits. France has pulled or required software updates for 42 other cellphone models that emit excessive radiation since 2017, The Telegraph reported.

    The United States lacks this oversight, according to Ms. Davis.

    The telecommunications industry has almost complete control of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), according to a report published by Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (pdf). A telecom lobbying group executive boasted its lobbyists meet FCC officials 500 times annually, the report stated.

    “We don’t have any programs to test phones after they’ve been approved,” Ms. Davis said. “And the approval process is self-regulated because of this revolving door that takes place between the FCC and the telecom industry.”

    Ms. Davis said if phones underwent drug testing, they’d be illegal. She warned of the danger cellphones pose, similar to certain drugs found to cause cancer and other health problems, in her 2010 book, “Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family,” and still stands by it today.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to comment on this story, but they have not yet replied.

    17 Minutes of Daily Cellphone Use Increased Cancer Risk

    Heavy cellphone use has a “possible” association with increased brain cancer incidence, especially in research not funded by telecoms, according to a review of 23 case-control studies in 2009 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

    “Our government, however, stopped funding research on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation in the 1990s,” study author Joel Moskowitz, the director of the Center for Family and Community Health and Community Health at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, said in a press statement in July 2021. “Our main takeaway from the current review is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60% increase in brain cancer,” Mr. Moskowitz wrote.

    The 2009 review was updated in 2020 to include 46 studies with similar findings.

    Cancer Linked to Living Near Cell Towers

    The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields warned in 2022 (pdf) that radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure limits established in the 1990s don’t adequately protect the public, especially from novel 5G technology lacking health studies.

    Several bills pending in Congress give the telecom industry “free range” to put their towers wherever they want them, including “right by your bedroom window” if you’re living in an apartment building, according to Ms. Davis.

    A review of scientific studies published in 2022 found that most of the research found increased rates of cancer and radiofrequency sickness in people living within close proximity to mobile phone base stations. A recent study from Brazil found cancer mortality rose with population exposure to radio base station frequencies.

    “I think 5G belongs in the medical and military places, wired in [Ethernet], but not in homes,” Ms. Davis said. “The real problem is that in order for 5G to work, we need one million new antennas.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 23:00

  • Syria, Russia Pound Idlib After Terror Attack Killed 80 People At Homs Military College
    Syria, Russia Pound Idlib After Terror Attack Killed 80 People At Homs Military College

    Overnight and into Friday the Syrian Army pummeled Idlib province with artillery and missiles, in retaliation for a Thursday drone attack conducted by the region’s al-Qaeda groups which scored a direct hit on a crowded military graduation ceremony at Homs military college.

    Syria’s health ministry in the immediate aftermath said the drone attack killed 80 people and wounded 240 more. Al Jazeera and other regional sources have cited over 100 dead, which included military officers and their family members. At least six children were among the deceased, in what may be the single deadliest terror attack inside Syria in years.

    Scene of the crowded military grounds just before the drone attack.

    Multiple videos later circulated of major counterattacks by Syrian forces on al-Qaeda occupied Idlib, in a rare large assault.

    Various hardline jihadist groups have held Idlib since 2015, at which time they were helped in the takeover by the United States and its allies, in an operation directed out of southern Turkey.

    A Syrian military statement alluded to insurgents having received help from “international forces” in the past:

    Syria’s military said in an earlier statement that drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony packed with young officers and their families as it was wrapping up. Without naming any particular group, the military accused insurgents “backed by known international forces” of the attack and said “it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations, wherever they exist.”

    NATO member Turkey continues to be a main backer of the jihadist insurgents who hold Idlib province. 

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    Regional sources have said Syrian had help from Russia allied forces in pounding Idlib, which is ongoing into Friday. “Airstrikes pounded the positions of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and the Emigrants Brigade, foreign extremist militias consisting of Chinese Uyghur and Chechen militants,” wrote The Cradle.

    “Syrian fighter jets, in coordination with the Russian air force, targeted the Al-Ghab plain and the town of Areeha in the Idlib governorate, as well as the city of Jisr al-Shughour – which fell to US-backed extremist groups in 2015,” the publication added.

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    It is believed that the TIP and Emigrants Brigade “are the two armed groups that have the technological capabilities to conduct drone attacks”; however, Damascus didn’t name a specific group as being behind the devastating drone attack. In prior years whenever Syrian and Russian forces prepared to retake Idlib province from the armed insurgents, the the United States and its allies have threatened military intervention.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 22:30

  • DC's Revolving Door Is Swinging Briskly For The Eco-Green Eyeshade People
    DC’s Revolving Door Is Swinging Briskly For The Eco-Green Eyeshade People

    Authored by Kevin Mooney via RealClear Wire,

    Washington’s revolving door is getting a fresh green paint job: Federal architects of a controversial new rule requiring businesses to measure their carbon footprints throughout their supply chains have joined a start-up company poised to reap millions by performing those calculations.

    At least three ranking Securities and Exchange Commission officials have joined Persefoni, a company formed in 2020 for the purpose of measuring such footprints of large business enterprises. 

    Documents show that the SEC relied on input from the for-profit company to draft the proposed rule. Some critics argue that the estimates from Persefoni low-balled the price tags unrealistically for such accounting to make them more politically palatable.

    Persefoni, billing itself as “The Platform for Carbon Accounting – Built For Climate Disclosure,” and similar outfits are emerging as their own service industry as they stand to profit from the new rule, since most companies do not have the staff or expertise to calculate their carbon footprints.

    While environmentalists have hailed the rule as an important step in forcing companies to grapple with their impact on the climate by exposing it to the public, critics argue that it goes far beyond the SEC’s core mission of protecting investors. In voting against a draft of the proposal, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, a Trump appointee, said it “forces investors to view companies through the eyes of a vocal set of stakeholders” – as opposed to traditional shareholders – “for whom a company’s climate reputation is of equal or greater importance than a company’s financial performance.”

    The SEC and Persefoni each declined to comment for this article.

    Persefoni appears to have had great influence over the proposed rule. Public records from the SEC show the commission held six meetings with representatives from Persefoni and Ceres – a prominent investor advocacy group that supports such climate disclosure – from September 2021 to June 2022. These include:

    • Meetings on Sept. 14, Nov. 23, and Nov. 30 between Persefoni and the SEC office of the chair, Gary Gensler;
    • Meetings on March 28 and April 5 between Ceres and the Office of Commissioner Allison Herren Lee;
    • And one joint meeting involving Persefoni, Ceres, and ERM with the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, the Division of Corporation Finance, and the Office of the Chief Accountant.

    Lee, a Democrat who joined the SEC as a staff attorney in 2005, was appointed by President Trump as one of the SEC’s five commissioners in 2019 – filling a Democratic vacancy on the commission, which was structured to be nonpartisan. President Biden named her as acting chair in 2021, and she took charge of the public comment period for the proposed rule.

    Lee stepped down on March 15, 2022, just six days before the commission unveiled its proposed climate rule. In May 2023, she joined Persefoni as a member of the firm’s “sustainability advisory board.”

    At Persefoni, she reunited with Kristina Wyatt, who joined the company’s board in March 2022. Previously, Wyatt had served the SEC as senior counsel for climate and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). In this capacity, she worked directly on developing the proposed rule. Wyatt was also listed as the direct contact when the commission circulated a request for information from the public regarding climate-change disclosures.

    In December 2022, Persefoni hired another SEC alum, Emily Pierce, to serve as associate general counsel and vice president of global regulatory climate disclosure.

    By all accounts, the SEC leaned heavily on Persefoni’s cost-benefit analysis of the pending rule, which essentially establishes a parallel disclosure regime for the SEC – all in the name of mitigating climate change.

    The SEC proposal has many parts, but the most controversial and cumbersome involves the requirement that larger companies must provide soup-to-nuts calculations of their carbon emissions, including those from thousands of their suppliers operating across hundreds of countries.

    As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, to come up with numbers for Cocoa Puffs cereal, General Mills might have to calculate the emissions from “cocoa farms in Africa, corn fields in the U.S., or sugar plantations in Latin America. Then thousands of processors, transporters, packagers, distributors, office workers, and retailers join the supply chain before a kid in Minnesota, where General Mills is based, pours the cereal into a bowl.”

    Since most of the emissions that must be measured are not directly generated by the companies, the calculations amount to a herculean task. This is where an outfit like Persefoni comes in.

    When the commission first published its proposal in March 2022, it provided corporate compliance cost estimates that ranged from $460,000 to $640,000 during the first year. Accurate estimates are crucial for companies to determine if they are equipped to comply. But there is considerable doubt on that front.

    Persefoni stands out as the only source that provides any estimate anywhere close to the SEC’s $640,000 figure, for which the commission does not provide any citations or methodologies to show how it arrived at its estimates. Persefoni is cited within the proposal nine times, but the firm is not cited in connection with the SEC’s stated ranges for compliance costs on page 373. In fact, no source is cited or linked as a resource for the SEC’s figures.

    Rupert Darwall, an author and energy policy analyst affiliated with the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the RealClearFoundation, has been critical of what he views as a lack of transparency and accountability on the part of the SEC, which gives cover to outside partners that stand to gain once the rule takes effect.

    “Persefoni has a glaring conflict of interest in low-balling cost of compliance estimates to the SEC, which the SEC should have disclosed and been mindful of. Instead, the SEC put undue weight on these implausibly low estimates,” Darwall said. Estimates of indirect emissions across supply chains “are especially risky for filers as there’s no limiting principle and, contrary to longstanding accounting principles, multiple companies account for the same emission.” Darwall also makes the point that Persefoni’s low-cost estimates are “at odds of what it’s been telling investors about the revenues it projects from the rule.”

    In early 2022, the carbon accounting firm partnered with the environmental activist group Ceres to commission from consulting firm ERM a compliance cost study, which was published in May 2022. This is where Persefoni produced estimates in line with the SEC’s $640,000 figure. That same month, Persefoni submitted a comment letter in response to the SEC proposal, which included its joint study with Ceres.

    Although the letter is dated May 20, 2022, the SEC did not publish it until the final week of the comment period ending June 17, 2022, curtailing the period for public scrutiny of the Persefoni estimates.

    With Persefoni’s letter intermixed with roughly 1,140 other comments, some saw this as an effort to bury the firm’s relationship with the SEC.

    One critic is Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

    “The collusion between the SEC and a select group of outside parties gives new meaning to the term climate cartel,” Cohen said in an interview. “Not only is there a hand-in-glove relationship between the SEC and outfits like Persefoni, Ceres, and ERM that stand to benefit financially from the climate disclosure rule the agency is set to release. They also appear to have had a hand in drafting that rule. The SEC and its cronies are so closely entangled that they are effectively acting as one.”

    Knowing Which Way the Windfall Blows

    While the SEC and Persefoni would not comment for this article, Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, told RCI that there is not any conflict of interest at work. He pointed out that Ceres has been advocating for a climate disclosure rule with the SEC for the past two decades.

    “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received 15,000 public comments around this rule,” Rothstein said in an email. “Among the most comments than any in the SEC’s 90-year history. Everyone has a vested interest in the future of their investments and retirement savings. The comments will make the final rule stronger and more robust. The investment community is overwhelmingly supportive of more climate information as a way to reduce material financial risk.”

    Persefoni executives have not been reticent to discuss the windfall they expect to experience if the rule is finalized. Speaking to CNBC in March 2022, Kentaro Kawamori, the firm’s CEO, discussed the advantages that would likely accrue from having a software platform that enables companies to analyze, manage, and account for their carbon footprint. Kawamori draws a comparison with Salesforce, the cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco.

    “You’re going to have a Salesforce-type of success,” he said. “Just like Salesforce created the system of record for the customer record, companies like us – you will have one or two big winners – will create a system of record for the carbon accounting piece.”

    Persefoni’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Tim Mohin, went even further, telling Politico that larger companies will almost certainly need outside help to comply. “Really they have a very short runway to get their act together,” he said. “We’ve gotten lots of calls from these large companies saying, ‘Tell us about what you do and how we can work with you.’”

    Mohin went on to describe Persefoni as the “TurboTax of greenhouse gas reporting.”

    As it stands, Persefoni is already doing pretty well. On Oct. 28, 2021, Persefoni announced a $101 million raise in its Series B financing round with its long-time investor, NGP Energy Technology Partners, returning to participate. But the oversized influence Persefoni apparently has been exerting within the SEC is beginning to attract congressional interest.

    In June, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-K.Y.) and Senate Banking Committee ranking member Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) sent a joint letter to the SEC requesting documents and information, including “all nonpublic records referring or relating to the climate consultancy, climate accounting, or sustainability-related organizations Persefoni, Ceres, ERM, or South Pole since January 20, 2021.”

    As for the rule itself, Cohen, the policy analyst with the National Center, sees “an effort by the SEC and its climate-cartel cronies to fashion a climate accounting standard to fit the inherently amorphous notion of a carbon footprint.”

    He continued: “Companies will have to disclose their ‘climate impacts’ in accordance with the SEC’s purely arbitrary requirements. The arrangement will put more power into the hands of the SEC, enrich the likes of Persefoni, and condemn regulated businesses to climate serfdom.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 22:00

  • Alan Dershowitz & Elon Musk On Free Speech & Anti-Semitism
    Alan Dershowitz & Elon Musk On Free Speech & Anti-Semitism

    Via The Gatestone Institute,

    • No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. — Alan Dershowitz.

    • You [Elon] are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. — Dershowitz

    • What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is permitted for one idea or “-ism,” it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side. — Dershowitz.

    • People will always want to censor but not be censored. — Dershowitz.

    • I am in favor of no prior censorship except things that are overtly illegal. Let the marketplace decide and make sure that there is an opportunity for everyone to answer. One cannot draw a line on hate speech. One person’s hate speech is another person’s love speech. It is important to open up the marketplace of ideas. — Dershowitz.

    • [Y]ou can post anything on the platform [“X”] even if it is hateful, provided that it is lawful. But then there is a separate question of what is promoted or not promoted…. Our current approach is to say, okay, you can say things that are hateful but legal on the platform, but we are not going to recommend them to others. — Elon Musk.

    • Advertisers, certainly, have a right to say what content they will appear next to because that’s their right too, but not to dictate what can be said on the platform. — Musk.

    • Today the greatest danger to free speech comes from the left…. At the moment, it is the left that is educating our future leaders, so the left poses a far greater danger of censoring free speech and of skewing the marketplace of ideas. “X” has to be perceived as equally open to both sides. — Dershowitz.

    • That is our aspiration, that is our goal. Now the reality of it for anyone who is paying attention — and I’m sure you saw this — was that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was very left and getting even more left. They had a massive thumb on the scale on elections. Frankly, worldwide on the side of left, and would suppress Republican voices at a rate, sometimes perhaps an order of magnitude greater than Democrats. There was a tremendous amount of bias. Now we are moving from a system where there was a massive electoring bias to a system that is now more inclusive, where at least, say, 80% of America — perhaps the world — could be on the platform and feel that it is finally a level playing field, fair to people with a wide range of views. That is our goal and that is what we are doing now. — Musk.

    • If you start on the left and you move to the center, you are necessarily moving right. Our goal is not to move to the right; it is that we are moving right in order to get to the center. — Musk.

    • [Y]our historic neutrality might be destroyed if “X” is not perceived as being from the center. So everything you do needs to be designed to create a neutral space… where the only answer to false speech is true speech, and where the marketplace determines how many people listen to it… We have to have more confidence in our ability to answer bad speech. I do not want to censor my enemies. — Dershowitz.

    • [W]e actually have massively broadened what can be said on the platform… but we have tried to guide our or algorithm to promote things that are positive more than things that are negative; frankly, to have a love bias, if you will. This is not in terms of what can be said, but in terms of what is promoted to others. If somebody wants to accuse me of saying it is wrong to have a slight bias towards love and positivity, then I am rightly accused of that. — Musk.

    • As I have said, I think the overarching goal is how do how do we make this platform serve as a positive force for humanity. I think the free exchange of ideas does result in a positive force for humanity — if somebody feels that even if their ideas are wrong, they are not being squashed or censored. I think being squashed and censored breeds hatred and resentment and simply sends people to “hate echo chambers” that are outside of the mainstream. I think where you get the sort of people who go kill and do mass shooting, is because they are in some sort of “hate echo chamber.” — Musk.

    • I believe one is always wrong to some degree; we simply aspire to be a little less wrong over time and eventually we can get to a really good place. The idea is how do we make “X” a positive force for humanity where we can increase the sum of human knowledge. It’s a place where I hope people would know that if their ideas are based on false premises, especially hateful ideas, that perhaps we can point out that the reason that they have this hatred is because of things that are not true. It is like actually you are hating this or that group for things that are not true, or perhaps, in some cases, things that happened a long time ago for which it was a great-great-grandfather or something, that that did the bad thing. — Musk.

    • I think there is a lot of wisdom in forgiveness and turning the other cheek… I think it is actually a sign of strength. By the same token if you turn the other cheek and you’re just getting slapped all day, at a certain point you stop turning the cheek, but the general notion of forgiveness is incredibly important. Do not hold some grudge for you know a long time, in some cases centuries. Let it go and, to take another take a quote from the New Testament, the truth shall set you free, as John said. — Musk.

    Elon Musk and Alan Dershowitz. (Photos by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images and Mario Tama/Getty Images)

    Alan Dershowitz: Let me start with a statement that many will disagree with. No country in history has ever really tested free speech: has seen whether the marketplace of ideas works or whether we can really have a society without censorship; where every idea is tested only on its merits, rather than for political benefit. This cannot be a right-left issue. Elon, you may be the first person who has really tried. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln all compromised. You are trying, for the first time, a great experiment to see whether we can survive with a marketplace of ideas, without censorship, where all thoughts and all ideas are treated equally. For instance, where there are judgments on the basis of whether something is pro-right, pro-life, anti-Jewish, pro-Christian, anti-Christian. What we need is to create a circle in which things that are illegal, such as abusing children, are outside the circle, but anything else has to be inside the circle. So if something is permitted for one idea or “-ism,” it has to be permitted for the others. This is exactly what universities are failing to do. They are creating a line on which favored groups fall on one side and disfavored groups fall on the other side.

    Can one define the kind of speech that must be permitted — the legal kind — without focusing on the content of the speech itself? Can one do that without focusing on whether it is right or left or politically correct or anything of that kind? One has to create a framework that is absolutely neutral. Then maybe fewer people will want to censor because they will realize that they will not be able to have “free speech for me but not for thee.” People will always want to censor but not be censored.

    No idea should be censored. Oliver Wendell Holmes put it well. He said every idea is an incitement. There should be no lines between advocacy and incitement. We fail every time we have tried to do that — most recently, with former President Trump’s ill-advised, but in my view, but constitutionally protected “January 6 speech”. We also failed during McCarthyism as well as in trying to distinguish between lawful advocacy of revolution and unlawful incitement of violence.

    Do not listen to special pleaders on behalf of minorities. Do not listen to the people who are self-serving and want, say, to serve the Jewish community, or serve Israel or the Palestinians. I am in favor of no prior censorship except things that are overtly illegal. Let the marketplace decide and make sure that there is an opportunity for everyone to answer. One cannot draw a line on hate speech. One person’s hate speech is another person’s love speech. It is important to open up the marketplace of ideas. If everyone is allowed to express ideas openly, no one is going to censor the “enemy” when they know that next, he or she will be the one being censored.

    Elon Musk: We are experimenting with this idea of freedom of speech, but not reach. Meaning that you can post anything on the platform even if it is hateful, provided that it is lawful. But then there is a separate question of what is promoted or not promoted, what enters into our recommendation engine, and if so, with what promise? Our current approach is to say, okay, you can say things that are hateful but legal on the platform, but we are not going to recommend them to others. This is the current approach that we have.

    Alan Dershowitz: That can be abused and become a form of censorship too.

    Elon Musk: I agree. Advertisers, certainly, have a right to say what content they will appear next to because that’s their right too, but not to dictate what can be said on the platform.

    Alan Dershowitz: I would agree with that. There is one other danger: of “X” being perceived as a right-wing reaction to left-wing censorship. I am — and identify — more with the left than the right, but I oppose strongly efforts by both the left and the right to censor. It would be a very serious mistake if “X” or you were perceived as some way implicitly favoring the right over the left. Perhaps you might have a small group of advisors, who represent different perspectives. Today the greatest danger to free speech comes from the left.

    Elon Musk: Yes, agree.

    Alan Dershowitz: Violence comes from both sides. The right-wing attack abortion clinics and kill Jews in synagogues. The 2020 “summer of love” came from the left: they burned down parts of cities, tore down statues, vandalized buildings; according to reports, numerous Americans were killed, including retired police Captain Daniel Dorn; thousands of police officers were assaulted, many sustaining injuries.

    At the moment, it is the left that is educating our future leaders, so the left poses a far greater danger of censoring free speech and of skewing the marketplace of ideas. “X” has to be perceived as equally open to both sides.

    Elon Musk: That is our aspiration, that is our goal. Now the reality of it for anyone who is paying attention — and I’m sure you saw this — was that prior to the acquisition, Twitter was very left and getting even more left. They had a massive thumb on the scale on elections. Frankly, worldwide on the side of left, and would suppress Republican voices at a rate, sometimes perhaps an order of magnitude greater than Democrats. There was a tremendous amount of bias. Now we are moving from a system where there was a massive electoring bias to a system that is now more inclusive, where at least, say, 80% of America — perhaps the world — could be on the platform and feel that it is finally a level playing field, fair to people with a wide range of views. That is our goal and that is what we are doing now.

    Given that it started so far off the left, it is accurate to say that it is moving right because it is moving to the center. So technically it is true that it is moving right. Not that it is suddenly popped over and instantaneously became, you know, from a left-wing propaganda arm to a right-wing propaganda arm but necessarily if it was pretty damn far on the left, it is going to have to move to the right in order to get to the center, and that is that is our goal.

    As Einstein would say, all motion is relative. If you start on the left and you move to the center, you are necessarily moving right. Our goal is not to move to the right; it is that we are moving right in order to get to the center.

    Alan Dershowitz: But some people perceive this as a movement to right. You might want to make it absolutely clear that you are the only platform in the world that does not take a “left -right” position — that yours is the platform that is pro-free speech, and that you are the first person in history ever to try to create a true marketplace of ideas. John Stuart Mill advocated it, Jefferson advocated it. But nobody ever achieved it. You are in a position where you can achieve it. I am just concerned that your historic neutrality might be destroyed if “X” is not perceived as being from the center. So everything you do needs to be designed to create a neutral space — a marketplace of ideas where the only answer to false speech is true speech, and where the marketplace determines how many people listen to it.

    We have to have more confidence in our ability to answer bad speech. I do not want to censor my enemies.

    Elon Musk: Absolutely, and to be clear we actually have massively broadened what can be said on the platform. But we have — and perhaps you disagree with this — but we have tried to guide our or algorithm to promote things that are positive more than things that are negative; frankly, to have a love bias, if you will. This is not in terms of what can be said, but in terms of what is promoted to others. If somebody wants to accuse me of saying it is wrong to have a slight bias towards love and positivity, then I am rightly accused of that.

    I think our overlap in agreement is very high so I would certainly value your opinion in the future because this is something that we should debate frequently. As I have said, I think the overarching goal is how do how do we make this platform serve as a positive force for humanity. I think the free exchange of ideas does result in a positive force for humanity — if somebody feels that even if their ideas are wrong, they are not being squashed or censored. I think being squashed and censored breeds hatred and resentment and simply sends people to “hate echo chambers” that are outside of the mainstream. I think where you get the sort of people who go kill and do mass shooting, is because they are in some sort of “hate echo chamber.”

    Alan Dershowitz: I think we all should sacrifice our own parochial interests, even on issues like anti-Semitism, to a far greater humanitarian interest in promoting open and complete dialogue. Complete free speech in the marketplace of ideas: only you can do that.

    Elon Musk: Well, thank you. I’ll do my best here and your sort of advice would certainly be very much appreciated. I believe one is always wrong to some degree; we simply aspire to be a little less wrong over time and eventually we can get to a really good place. The idea is how do we make “X” a positive force for humanity where we can increase the sum of human knowledge. It’s a place where I hope people would know that if their ideas are based on false premises, especially hateful ideas, that perhaps we can point out that the reason that they have this hatred is because of things that are not true. It is like actually you are hating this or that group for things that are not true, or perhaps, in some cases, things that happened a long time ago for which it was a great-great-grandfather or something, that that did the bad thing.

    I think there is a lot of wisdom in forgiveness and turning the other cheek. When I was younger, I actually thought turning the other cheek was not a sign of weakness. Now, I think it is actually a sign of strength. By the same token if you turn the other cheek and you’re just getting slapped all day, at a certain point you stop turning the cheek, but the general notion of forgiveness is incredibly important. Do not hold some grudge for you know a long time, in some cases centuries. Let it go and, to take another take a quote from the New Testament, the truth shall set you free, as John said. I am a big believer in that the road to morality is truth and curiosity. And if you care about truth and you are curious, I think this is a natural outflowing from that.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 21:30

  • The Problem Isn't Book "Banners", It's Public Schools…
    The Problem Isn’t Book “Banners”, It’s Public Schools…

    Authored by Neal McCluskey via RealClear Wire,

    This week is Banned Books Week. Supported by several groups, including the American Library Association and the National Book Foundation, the week is intended to alert the public to threats to what Americans read, especially in public schools. Long a rather quiet affair, over the last few years “banning” has become a major issue, with one group often portrayed as the culprit: conservatives.

    But it is not conservatives, or “banners” of any political stripe, that are the problem. It is public schooling itself.

    You are probably familiar with the typical battle: parents at school board meetings calling for the removal of books from libraries, recommended reading lists, or class assignments. Members of Moms for Liberty, founded by three mothers and former school board members, might be the best known activists fighting to restrict books such as Gender Queer: A Memoir, about author Maia Kobabe’s journey of sexual discovery.

    The many battles that have been fought over Gender Queer, which free expression watchdog PEN America reports was the fifth most challenged book in the last school year, are classic culture war: a clash of irreconcilable values.

    Supporters of stocking the book argue that kids of all genders need to see people like themselves in schools, and other students need to understand that people of all genders are full parts of society. Supporters are driven by values – tolerance and inclusivity.

    Opponents argue that the book, which includes illustrated depictions of sexual activity, is inappropriate for children too young to thoughtfully grapple with it, and pornographic. They too are driven by values – the desire to protect children’s innocence, and a belief that some sexual activity is inherently immoral.

    But why must groups such as Moms for Liberty attack such books in public schools?

    Because conservative families, just like liberal, must pay for public schools – government schools – which are inherently politically controlled. To get what they think is right – schools where children cannot peruse, or be taught from, books with immoral content – they must keep liberals from getting what they think right: inclusive collections.

    Liberals have also sought to sideline books, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird which include the “N-word” and some say promote white saviorism. In 2020, the Burbank school district in heavily blue California told English teachers that they could not teach those books and several others. In 2022, the Mukilteo district in solidly Democratic Snohomish County, Washington, ended required reading of Mockingbird.

    Conflict over literature in public schools is not one-sided. It also is not new.

    Founding-generation luminaries Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster, in promoting the idea of public schooling, disagreed whether reading the Bible in schools should be encouraged because religion was essential, or discouraged because using scripture as a pedagogical tool cheapened it. A few decades later, as public schooling started to grow, Roman Catholics and Protestants got into heated, sometimes even bloody, conflicts over whose version of the Bible would be allowed..

    And books are just one of numerous public schooling culture war battlegrounds.

    Teaching the origins of life is arguably the quintessential conflict, immortalized in the play Inherit the Wind about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. These fights—either an intelligent being created life or not—pit religious conservatives against many liberals., and while they have subsided somewhat, in the mid-2000s the town of Dover, Pennsylvania was wrenched apart by a dispute over whether students should be told that evolution is a “theory,” not a “fact.” In February of this year, a bill was introduced in West Virginia to let teachers discuss Intelligent Design.

    Today we see constant culture war in public schools. The Cato Institute’s Public Schooling Battle Map contains more than 3,700 fights, including recent throwdowns in Florida over Advanced Placement African American Studies and the state’s African American history standards, the latter of which includes an item saying that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” They are fights not just over facts, but whether the country is inherently good or bad.

    Of course, there’s sex education. New Jersey, for instance, created new standards in 2020, including on gender identity, and numerous districts have been embroiled in conflicts over adopting them. Then there are battles over prayer, pitting religious devotion against secularism, which we have seen in districts from North Carolina to California.

    Book “banning” in public schools does not spring from some conservative cabal. As battles fought all over the county attest, such actions are inevitable when people with opposing values – any values – must all pay for government schools.

    Neal McCluskey directs the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and is the author of The Fractured Schoolhouse: Reexamining Education for a Free, Equal, and Harmonious Society

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 21:00

  • Why Do People Start Businesses In Every US State?
    Why Do People Start Businesses In Every US State?

    People have various motivations for starting their businesses.

    Some seek higher income. Others are looking for a balance between family life and career. In some situations, entrepreneurship may be the only way to fight unemployment.

    In this infographic from Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, OnDeck uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Annual Business Survey to highlight the most unique reasons for why people start businesses in each U.S. state.

    Editor’s note: The map tracks the most popular unique reasons to start a business. In this case, “unique” is defined by how much a particular reason stands out from the U.S. average across all states. For example, in Delaware, more respondents said they started businesses because they “couldn’t find jobs” (11.6%) than in any other state (U.S. average: 7.3%). So, even though it’s not numerically the most popular reason overall, it is the unique reason that stands out the most for that state.

    The Most Popular Unique Reasons to Start a Business

    According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurship rates in the U.S. have been trending upward over the past two decades.

    In fact, despite multi-billion dollar companies getting the spotlight, 99.9% of businesses across the U.S. are small businesses, employing over 60 million people.

    Wanting to make more income is the biggest unique factor in starting a business in 14 states, including some of the states with the highest unemployment rates, like New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Alabama.

    In Utah, a higher percentage (65.4%) of entrepreneurs start businesses to achieve a work-life balance than in any other state. Notably, Utah is known for having the largest average family size, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, and has a strong religious presence.

    On the other hand, in Florida, more business founders (69.2%) start their businesses to become their own bosses than anywhere else.

    New York and California are states where entrepreneurs mentioned that they couldn’t find a job as a key unique reason to start a business. In fact, both states lead as the worst for job seekers, as shown in another Visual Capitalist graphic.

    Small Businesses to Remain Vital

    Despite all the different reasons to start a business, the fact is that entrepreneurship is still crucial for the U.S. economy.

    Over the last 25 years, small businesses have added over 12.9 million jobs. For perspective, that’s about two-thirds of the jobs added to the economy.

    In 2021, a record-breaking 5.4 million new business applications were filed in the U.S.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 20:30

  • Biden Defends Use Of Pre-Allocated Funds For Extending Texas Border Wall
    Biden Defends Use Of Pre-Allocated Funds For Extending Texas Border Wall

    Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    President Joe Biden defended his administration’s decision to waive federal statutes in South Texas to allow for the construction of 20 miles of U.S.-Mexico border wall, stating on Oct. 5 he had no choice but to use previously approved federal funds for the project.

    President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the administration’s efforts to cancel student debt at the White House on Oct. 4, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    President Biden said that he had tried to “redirect” the money from the border wall project—allocation under the Trump administration.

    “The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money,” President Biden said in his address. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t. In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that,” he said.

    When the president was asked a follow-up question about whether he thought the border wall was effective, he replied with a firm “no.”

    Similarly, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered a clear answer to reporters about the administration’s stance during an Oct. 5 press briefing, saying: “We believe there are better, effective ways to secure the border.

    “We asked Congress to reappropriate the fund, but they refused to do it. We need better technology, not a wall.”

    When asked repeatedly about the issue, the press secretary seemed frustrated, insisting that the president has been consistent in his approach to border security.

    White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt later said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “The funds for 20 miles of border reinforcements were appropriated in 2019 before [Biden] took office.

    “He called on Congress to reappropriate the funds for smarter, more effective enforcement uses. Congress failed to do so,” LeBolt added.

    “Rule of law requires the project be completed in 2023.”

    Announced Changes

    The Biden administration announced on Oct. 5 that 26 federal laws were waved in South Texas to allow border wall construction, signaling the administration’s first use of broad executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few specifics regarding the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a Border Patrol sector with “high illegal entry.”

    DHS has waived a number of federal rules—including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act—in order to begin construction using 2019 appropriations from Congress to build a wall along the southern border.

    Environmental law violations that could otherwise be reviewed and possibly litigated are waived.

    The announcement did not include any maps, but one that was made public during the comment period showed that the construction might extend the current border barrier system by as much as 20 miles.

    About 450 miles of barriers were constructed along the southwest border between 2017 and January 2021, all under the Trump administration.

    After the Biden administration temporarily halted them at the beginning of his presidency, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revived them as part of his immigration crackdown at the state level.

    The DHS’s decision on Oct. 4 stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric of the administration, which declared a stop to construction on Jan. 20, 2021, arguing that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

    Border Insecurity

    A recent report by El Paso’s Mayor Oscar Leeser indicates that the border city is “at a breaking point” amid a massive increase in illegal immigration.

    The dramatic increase has brought them to a point where more than 2,000 people a day are seeking asylum, exceeding shelter capacity and straining resources, according to Mr. Leeser’s comments at a news conference in late September.

    The influx of primarily Venezuelan asylum seekers is part of a larger influx of illegal immigrants who traveled perilous bus and freight railroad routes to Mexican border towns near San Diego, California, and the Texas cities of El Paso and Eagle Pass.

    Mr. Lesser stated that El Paso intends to open a new shelter and chartered five buses on Oct. 7 to transport illegal immigrants to New York, Chicago, and Denver.

    Similarly, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration, pointing at President Biden’s policies and ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.

    “I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott wrote in a post on X, on Sept. 20.

    “We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants.”

    The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying the state is “at capacity.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 20:05

  • First Peru, Now Ecuador: US Southern Command Escalates Its "War On Drugs" In South America
    First Peru, Now Ecuador: US Southern Command Escalates Its “War On Drugs” In South America

    Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

    In 2009, Ecuadorians voted in a referendum to remove all US military presence from the country. Now, thanks to an agreement signed in the dying days of Guillermo Lasso’s corruption-tainted government, US troops are coming back. 

    Just ten days ago, I reported in my post, “Back to Business As Usual: The US Is Once Again Vigorously Stirring the Pot in Its Own ‘Backyard‘”, that the US is seeking to escalate its war on drugs in Latin America, as a pretext for trying to regain strategic dominance of the region. It is doing so one country at a time, with the apparent ultimate endgame being direct, overt military  intervention against Mexico’s drug cartels — on Mexican soil.

    In mid-September, the head of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Army Gen. Laura Richardson, visited Peru, a country that is in the grip of arguably its worst political crisis of this still-fledgling century. A few days later, the Peruvian government, which has virtually zero democratic legitimacy and is under investigation for human rights violations, signed an agreement with US Homeland Security Investigations to collaborate in transnational criminal investigations through the establishment of a Transnational Criminal Investigation Unit (TCIU).

    Now, less than a month later, Peru’s Andean neighbour, Ecuador, is on exactly the same path. Last Friday (Sept 29), the country’s outgoing President (and former senior banker) Guillermo Lasso held a closed-door meeting with senior officials of the US Coast Guard and Department of Defense in Washington. The outcome of that meeting was two status agreements, one that will allow the deployment of US naval forces along Ecuador’s coastline while the other will permit the disembarking of US land forces on Ecuador’ soil, albeit only at the request of Ecuador’s government.

    All with the ostensible aim of combatting drug trafficking organizations.

    Obviously, that is not what this is really about. If Washington were serious about tackling the violence generated by the drug cartels, the first thing it could do is pass legislation to stem the southward flow of US-produced guns and other weapons. But that would hurt the profits of arms manufacturers. And if it were remotely serious about tackling the major cause of the drug problem — the rampant consumption of narcotics within its own borders — it would never have let Big Pharma unleash the opium epidemic. And once it had, it would never have let the perps walk free with the daintiest of financial slaps on the wrists.

    The primary goal of this latest escalation in the US’ decades-old war on drugs, as with all previous escalations, is to achieve or maintain geostrategic dominance in key, normally resource-rich regions of the world while keeping the restive populace at home in line — or in prison, generating big bucks for the prison industrial complex.

    Radio Silence

    From what I can tell, this latest escalation has so far received little media coverage in Ecuador and almost zero coverage in the English-language press, apart from one solitary article in the Washington Examiner:

    The State Department has not publicized the agreements in any of the more than 30 press releases issued since Wednesday, but a State spokesperson confirmed to the Washington Examiner on Friday that it had signed status of forces agreements and maritime law enforcement agreements. Senior representatives from the Department of Homeland Security’s military branch, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Defense Department attended the signing.

    The maritime agreement allows U.S. military vessels to be present in the waters off the northwestern coast of South America, which Colombian drug cartels use to move cocaine. The ability to move military vessels into the area will “strengthen cooperative law enforcement activities and build mutual capacity to prevent and combat illicit transnational maritime activity,” according to State.

    The second agreement was a less common one, according to Adam Isacson, who heads defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America and has worked on Latin American issues since 1994.

    Status of forces agreements outline the terms by which members of a foreign military, in this case the Defense Department, can operate or are expected to conduct themselves while in another country.

    “That doesn’t mean we’re doing it, but it means we can and it means that they’re making a very clear signal to us that they want us more involved,” Crenshaw said.

    History Repeating

    Presumably, the reason why this story is getting such little attention, not even affording a press release by the State Department, has a lot to do with recent Ecuadorian history. You see, Ecuador is one of the few countries in the world to actually successfully close down all US military bases on its territory and force all US soldiers to withdraw. In 2009, when the US Air Force’s 10-year lease on the Manta base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast came up for renewal, Rafael Correa’s government held a referendum on the issue. The people overwhelmingly voted for the base to be closed.

    According to article in the Washington Examiner, the US withdrew all of its forces from Ecuador. In reality, they were evicted. From Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus:

    The last personnel left the base on 18 September, and the facilities used for a decade by the American military were all returned to Ecuador.

    At a ceremony marking the American withdrawal, Foreign Minister Fander Falconí made the following strong statement: “The withdrawal of the American military is a victory for sovereignty and peace. Never again foreign bases on Ecuadorian territory, never again a sale of the flag.”1

    Meanwhile, a relieved Defense Minister Javier Ponce commented: “I am glad that President Correa has fulfilled his election pledge and preserved the constitution.”

    On the same day in the capital Quito, the citizens’ group Anti-Bases Coalition Ecuador held a concert of celebration. In exuberant Latin style about 200 people celebrated the American military withdrawal with singing and salsa dancing at an amphitheater. Messages of congratulation were read out from anti-base movements across the globe, starting with Japan, and each was greeted by loud applause.

    At the closing ceremony, Martha Youth, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Quito, announced that together with other Forward Operating Locations in Central and South America, a total of 700 tons of drugs with a value of 35.1 billion USD had been seized. “We’ve done good work in cooperation with the Ecuadorian authorities”, she said.

    However, Pablo Lucio Paredes, head of CONADE (Comisión Nacional de Control Antidopaje del Ecuador) begged to differ.

    “Our country has received no benefits from American operations out of the Manta base these ten years. From the outset, the base’s real purpose was linked to the American geopolitical strategy to involve our country in the civil war in neighboring Colombia.”

    “Plan Ecuador”

    Ecuador’s prior eviction of US forces is now being quietly undone. President Lasso has been requesting US help in creating a “Plan Ecuador” to combat the rising lawlessness in the country for over a year. The plan, he said, would be modelled on Plan Colombia, the disastrous drug-eradication program that burnt through $15 billion of US “aid” funds during more than two decades, worsened the violence in Colombia, bathed more than a million hectares of farmland in a rich brew of toxic chemicals, including Monsanto’s “probably” carcinogenic weedkiller glyphosate, exacerbated illegal mining while overseeing a significant upsurge in coca production.

    From the first moment it was unveiled, at the 2022 Summit for the Americas in Los Angeles, the plan was hugely controversial, as I reported in May:

    Plan Colombia was such a costly debacle that it become effectively unexportable to other parts of Latin America and beyond, says Adam Isacson, lead investigator of the Washington Office on Latin America’s Defense Oversight program, which monitors U.S. cooperation with Latin America’s security forces: “The US looked at the Plan Colombia experience and hoped that it had found something it could apply in Afghanistan, or in Mexico, or Central America, and found out that it didn’t work there.”

    But nobody seems to have told this to Lassa, who said in LA last summer:

    The background is the same. We could probably call it something else, but in effect, Ecuador wants to present a Plan Ecuador to the United States.

    Even Voice of America reported that Lasso’s comments had stoked controversy at the Summit as well as among many lawmakers back home. Ecuador’s former Foreign Minister María Isabel Salvador said the proposal “betrayed a lack of understanding and comprehension of what Plan Colombia meant in practice for that country.”

    If the idea was controversial last year, it is far more so today given that Lasso is in the process of withdrawing from political life following a raft of corruption, tax evasion and money laundering allegations that almost led to his impeachment. To ward off that threat, he dissolved parliament in May and called new elections in which neither he nor his party would participate. Lasso’s popularity, like that of Peru’s current President Dina Boluarte, had already hit rock (16% in April) and he has effectively been ruling Peru by decree since May.

    One of the allegations Lasso faces is that his presidential campaign was partly financed by the Albanian mafia, which controls the cocaine routes between South America and Europe. As revealed in the “Gran Padrino” (Great Godfather) investigation by independent news outlet La Posta, Lasso’s brother-in-law, Danilo Carrera, a well-connected banker, was not only running key government departments but was also doing business with Ruben Cherres, a notorious businessman with ties to the Albanian mafia who had been caught on tape boasting about removing and replacing members of the government at will in exchange for money and favours.

    In March, Cherres was found dead alongside the bodies of his girlfriend, a friend and his security guard at a house on the Punta Blanca coast, just a few hundred yards from Lasso’s holiday home. Days later, a number of international intelligence agencies alerted journalists at La Posta that members of the Albanian mafia had entered Ecuador with the intention of taking revenge for the dismantling of the corruption network installed within the Lasso’s government. One of the organisation’s co-founders and a senior journalist left the country after receiving death threats.

    In other words, the US has just signed an agreement to wage war on the drug cartels with a government that appears to be in league with at least one of those cartels. Luis Eduardo Vivanco, another co-founder of La Posta, recently told El Economista: “the line dividing the mafia from the government has become increasingly blurred” during the Lasso government. Following La Posta’s revelations of rampant corruption in the Lasso government, five US congressmen wrote a letter urging the Biden administration to reconsider the US government’s relationship with Ecuador. A couple of paragraphs (though the letter itself is well worth a full read):

    Ecuador is now in the midst of a political and social crisis that is driven, in large part, by credible allegations of corruption at the highest levels of government. Investigative journalists have uncovered what appears to be a web of corruption that ties key associates of Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso to organized crime figures. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that one of these individuals – Danilo Carrera – as well as President Lasso himself have been using U.S. jurisdictions to hide assets and avoid taxes, in violation of Ecuadorian law…

    Corruption and criminal activity appear to have deeply penetrated Ecuador’s security apparatus, prompting the U.S. ambassador in Quito to denounce the country’s “narco-generals.” The general security situation has plummeted since Lasso took office with the country’s homicide rate nearly doubling.

    Predictably, the Biden administration appears to have taken no notice of the letter. Rather than reconsidering relations with Ecuador, it is intensifying them.

    Lasso himself only has ten days left in government and is currently visiting New York for personal reasons. The second round of Ecuador’s presidential elections will take place on October 15 and most opinion polls are predicting a close race between Lisa González, the leader of former President Rafael Correa’s left-leaning Citizen Revolution Movement party, and Daniel Noboa, the Miami-born 35-year old son of Álvaro Fernando Noboa Pontón, Ecuador’s richest man, banana plantation owner and former presidential candidate.

    Unsurprisingly for a country that saw the number of violent crimes almost double last year and recently witnessed the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, the most important electoral issue is security. But whether Lasso’s “Plan Ecuador” plays any part in the next government’s national security agenda will depend on who wins the election, with González likely to rip it up in her first few days while Noboa will probably do the opposite. But that’s just an educated guess.

    With Ecuador’s national assembly currently dissolved by Lasso, his plan must also be submitted for approval to Ecuador’s Supreme Court. In the meantime, the US will be scoping Latin America for other governments with whom to strike up similar military partnerships, with Uruguay and oil-rich Guyana seemingly high up the list.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 19:40

  • Let's Examine Some Real Crimes Committed By Presidents
    Let’s Examine Some Real Crimes Committed By Presidents

    Authored by Connor O’Keeffe via the Mises Institute,

    Former president Donald Trump is facing ninety-one criminal charges as he seeks to win back the White House in 2024. The indictments are the latest battle in a roughly six-year crusade against Trump that first sought to remove him from power through the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, then with espionage charges and impeachments, and that now aims to block him from becoming president again. The mantra we hear from those in politics and media who support these efforts is that nobody is above the law.

    But there’s an entire class of people above the law. Or who at least act like they’re above the law—the political class. The hypocrisies of their effort to convict Trump and block him from holding office again reveal that the motivations are purely political—not born of some commitment to a higher moral or legal principle.

    Two broad schools of thought make up Western legal philosophy. They are natural law theory and legal positivism. Natural law theory says that law exists regardless of the dictates of states. That justice is derived from nature and common to all humans. Simply put, natural law theorists argue that a crime is a crime regardless of what the state says. That makes killing another human with malice aforethought murder, for example, even when it’s done with the blessings of government officials.

    Many libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard, ground their moral opposition to state power in appeals to natural law. There is no special status that someone can attain that allows them to commit crimes.

    The idea that nobody, not even the president, is above the law is right in line with this view. But, taken to its logical Rothbardian conclusion, equality under the law is a denial of political authority. So, it’s bizarre to hear the political class use this slogan as a rallying cry when all their wealth, power, and status is built on political privilege. And they can’t rightfully go after Trump for how he used his political authority because that’s not unique to Trump.

    The political class prefers legal positivism, which separates law from morality. According to legal positivists, law is what the sovereign political authority says it is. There may be just laws and unjust laws. But they are all valid laws in this view. Legal positivism enshrines the political class’s privileged legal status above the rest of us.

    Therefore, the way to get Trump is not to show he did anything immoral or wrong but to prove he technically broke some rule made up by members of an earlier political class. That way he can be driven out of public life without threatening the regime’s authority. But the problem hasn’t been finding crimes committed by Trump but finding crimes unique to Trump. Because all recent presidents have broken the law.

    President George H. W. Bush launched a war on Iraq without congressional authorization. That is illegal according to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, the set of rules Bush swore an oath to uphold. President Bill Clinton did the same, overseeing illegal military operations in Somalia, Serbia, and Iraq.

    President George W. Bush conducted warrantless surveillance on American citizens, which is illegal according to the Fourth Amendment, and committed torture, which is prohibited by Section 2340A of Title 18 of the United States Code. His administration also launched undeclared, and therefore illegal, wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.

    President Barack Obama conducted more illegal wars in Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Mali, and Yemen. In many of those wars, Obama expanded George W. Bush’s policy of giving support to al-Qaeda, which is treason according to Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution. Obama also ordered the assassination of an American citizen in Yemen who had not been tried or even convicted of a crime. The Sixth Amendment makes that illegal.

    Combined, these illegal wars have killed millions of people. They are appalling crimes of which Trump is also guilty. His administration continued the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen despite his running on a more isolationist foreign policy. Yet he’s not being charged for any of that. The crimes he’s facing charges for are far less serious, but they are more unique to Trump.

    In New York, Trump is charged with mislabeling some business expenses during the 2016 election. In Georgia, he’s charged with conspiring to overturn an election prosecutors claim he knew he’d lost. Federally, he’s charged with claiming to have won an election he allegedly knew he’d lost, which prosecutors say incited the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He’s also charged with keeping classified documents after leaving office and conducting a “scheme to conceal” them from the federal government.

    By refusing to bring charges against Trump that could also be brought against the presidents they like, the political class has shown that its aims are political. If they were committed to the rules that they swore an oath to uphold, they’d have to indict many of their own. And if they genuinely believed that nobody exists above the law, they’d have to give up a whole lot more.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 19:15

  • Watch: Left-Wing College Kids Demand More War Funding Even As Polls Confirm 'Ukraine Fatigue'
    Watch: Left-Wing College Kids Demand More War Funding Even As Polls Confirm ‘Ukraine Fatigue’

    It’s been no secret that support among the American public for funding and arming Ukraine has been steadily slipping, particularly after over the summer it became clear that the counteroffensive was a failure.

    Reuters introduced the latest findings of a new poll this week by calling it a “warning sign for Kyiv”. The publication wrote: “Support is falling among Americans of both major political parties for supplying Ukraine with weapons, a warning sign for Kyiv, which relies heavily on U.S. arms to fight against a Russian invasion, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.”

    Illustrative NPR file image: a prior college campus demonstration

    The new poll found only 41% believe the US government should continue sending arms to Ukraine, at a moment the Biden White House is trying to pass its $24 billion aid package to keep it flowing through next year. 

    Support is fading compared to prior polling from last spring, says Reuters:

    The two-day poll, which closed on Wednesday, showed only 41% of respondents agreed with a statement that Washington “should provide weapons to Ukraine,” compared to 35% who disagreed and the rest unsure.

    Support for U.S. weapon shipments is down from May, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 46% of Americans backed sending arms, while 29% were opposed and the rest unsure.

    We previously cited a member of the Ukrainian Parliament as saying, “We are freaking out. For us it is a disaster.” This is because the shift in public sentiment in the West is clearly translating to more hesitancy for supporting Kiev from political leaders.

    Lately, hawkish Congressional leaders and pundits who want to ‘confront Russia’ in Ukraine have shifted their argument. Increasingly we hear that Washington must support Ukraine as a ‘message’ to China or other autocrats in the world. Another argument has been that it all benefits American companies, particularly the arms industry. Democrats as well as Republican hawks have been making these arguments, but which have nothing to do with America’s actual defense, security, and prosperity. 

    Watch: the antiwar left has all but disappeared, but instead we are left with pathetic scenes of college kids demanding more weapons to be sent to fuel yet another ‘forever war’ – such as in the below encounter with presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy…

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

    One recent ad put out by the “Republicans for Ukraine” has even asserted the “war is good” because it ultimately hurts China and weakens Russia. 

    “The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine,” the ad says.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 18:50

  • Reaping What You Sow: The American Regime In Chaos
    Reaping What You Sow: The American Regime In Chaos

    Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

    The word “chaos” has been the buzzword this week in Washington, largely directed toward Rep. Matt Gaetz’s successful coup against former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and the resulting void in Republican leadership. In an era where most outcomes in Washington are predictable, best illustrated by yet another kick-the-can-down-the-road continuing resolution on spending passed the preceding weekend, the first successful use of a motion to vacate the speakership in American history greatly shocked the system.

    In hindsight, it should not have been. For more than a decade, there has been a constant tension between Republican voters and the priorities of its leadership. McCarthy similarly saw his previous two Republican predecessors resign from their positions after it was clear they lost the support of their conferences. Even Donald Trump, who maintains a strong hold on the Republican electorate, oversaw a government culpable for most of Red America’s frustrations with Washington: runaway spending, the devastation of covid tyranny, systemic corruption, and general impotency from the federal government in acting on conservative concerns from border security to the administrative state and the progressive capture of all levels of education.

    Ironically, it was The CARES Act signed by Trump that provided $400 million in funding to help “fortify” the 2020 election.

    In contrast, the Democratic Party has been the dominant federal force in achieving major policy wins. Obamacare was passed and then found to be unmovable. Enormous subsidies have been created to enrich loyal areas of support, including green energy sectors, Big Pharma companies, teachers’ unions, and a rainbow of various “minority empowerment” initiatives around the country. Even the military-industrial complex, once a reliable source of support for the GOP, has become a patron class of the American Left. A recent analysis of political donations from major sectors of the American economy illustrates the degree to which the most powerful interests in the United States view the Democratic Party as a better bet to forward their self-interests.

    For those familiar with Murray Rothbard’s analysis of the Progressive Era, this would not be a surprise. As he illustrates, the success of progressive ideology resulted in the rise of cartelized trusts that benefited from the protection and support of state privileges. Protections on trade emboldened attempts to monopolize industries like sugar. The push for central banking was driven by large financial interests. The progressive capture of both American political parties led Rothbard to suggest that late nineteenth and early twentieth-century politics could best be understood as a clash between rival oligarch factions led by the Morgans and Rockefellers.

    Yet, given the massive institutional advantages and relative unity enjoyed by the political left, the Democratic Party finds itself engulfed in chaos of its own, largely resulting from the consequences of its own political victories.

    Violent crime is on the rise in deep-blue cities, highlighted this past week by the brutal killing of two left-wing activists in Philadelphia and New York who advocated for “criminal justice” reform that resulted in more criminals with violent records being released on the streets. In response, progressive advocacy groups have sought to further undermine private reactions to this loss of public safety, attacking attempts at private security solutions under their familiar complaints of “racism.”

    Immigration, counted on as a powerful tool to ensure future political dominance for the Democratic Party, has also become a festering issue for Democrat politicians. As Republican state leaders responded to historic waves of border crossings with relocation programs to progressive “sanctuary cities,” areas like Chicago and New York are facing severe strains of public resources and growing hostility from residents. Meanwhile, left-wing cultural crusades have increasingly alienated nonwhite communities, resulting in situations like a Muslim-majority Michigan city council banning the transgender pride flag from government buildings.

    In a remarkable pivot this week, the Biden administration this week expedited the construction of border walls in Texas, but the greatest threat to the regime’s stability, of course, is the economic system that has enriched the progressive political class at the expense of the productive sectors of the economy. The failure of the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement to capture enough political will to alter the trajectory of Washington spending has made a fiscal crisis inevitable, and that moment is quickly approaching. America’s debt clock currently rests at north of $33 trillion dollars and is due to pass the $34 trillion mark by the end of the month without factoring in the additional future costs of unfunded liabilities.

    The greatest short-term threat to the regime’s stability is a threat few in Washington have yet to notice, the consequences of the Federal Reserve’s pivot away from its long role as a dutiful enabler of the Fed’s fiscal hedonism. As the recklessness of DC’s economic response to covid created an inflation shock even the carefully trained government statisticians couldn’t mask, the Fed has been forced to push interest rates well beyond its most aggressive projections. The true impacts of the hikes are just now starting to bear fruit. As the interest rates rise and rates for new debt insurances increase, the value of older bonds is being devastated.

    This week US bond markets are hitting historic losses of over 40 percent. Total losses on the value of bonds are estimated to stand at over $1.6 trillion and growing. Similar dynamics fueled the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this March and threatened more banks in the future. Moody’s recently downgraded 10 regional banks in August, with more expected.

    The meltdown of US bonds threatens systemic insecurity in the financial system, threatening the balance sheets of insurance companies, pensions, and other nonbank institutions that sought security in the form of US bonds. The end of the era of low interest rates means that assumptions that guided the investment strategies of most of the world’s largest financial institutions were made with bad information. The size of the systemic risks to the system is currently unknowable, but the policy response to the great recession has sowed the seeds for the next financial crisis to be far larger.

    Despite these seismic shocks happening in financial markets, the political class seems characteristically clueless. A few weeks ago, a Republican presidential debate featured no mention of the growing credit crisis. The Federal Reserve was not mentioned until the last twenty minutes and only superficially touched on by Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis.

    It would, however, be a mistake for Americans to confuse the cracks in the stability of the regime as a catalyst for its retreat. Weak regimes are particularly dangerous.

    Just this week, it was released that the FBI had made explicit what was long implicit, now categorizing supporters of Donald Trump as a unique category for potential “extremism.”

    The modern regime successfully used the cover of the War on Terror to arm itself with powerful tools and weaponize nominally private client actors. As its own policy victories have planted the seeds of social unrest, it should be expected that it will unveil new tools of harsh power. Already, the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe have escalated attacks on alternative media platforms that give average citizens the ability to out their crimes.

    The political class may be more concerned about delayed Ukraine funding than the financial crisis brewing at home, but the regime is prepared to do what it does best: violently preserve itself at the expense of everyone else.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 18:25

  • The Dangers Of Investigating Big Pharma
    The Dangers Of Investigating Big Pharma

    Commentary by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    My family is from Texas (since 1830), so I have a focused interest in the well-being of that state. But I quickly got lost in the strange thicket of confusion when Attorney General Ken Paxton was impeached by the Texas House.

    (angellodeco/Shutterstock)

    In a series of wild allegations, they accused him of misconduct, including bribery, obstruction of justice, and misappropriation of public resources.

    In an instant and with no warning about what was coming, Paxton had to pack up his things, was blocked from doing his duties, and was forced to step aside from the office that the people had three times elected him to hold.

    Last week, he was exonerated of all charges and his name was fully cleared. Hardly anyone can even explain what the charges were. From a distance, it sure looked like a big political takedown attempt, but why?

    Paxton just sat for an extended interview with Tucker Carlson, who now runs the planet’s most-watched show, which appears on X, formerly Twitter, and has no advertisers at all. In one portion of the interview, Mr. Paxton explained that three weeks before the impeachment, he had initiated an investigation against the COVID-19 vaccine makers for engaging in deceptive trade practices under the laws of Texas.

    I recall being very excited about this at the time as a hugely important step. At the national level, the vaccine manufacturers are completely indemnified against liability from harms, which are plenty and also well-documented. Millions were forced to have this product injected into their bodies, and when something goes wrong, there’s no one to sue. It isn’t the way we are supposed to do business in America.

    Paxton was all over the case and ready to start a serious inquiry.

    “As soon as I did that,” he told Mr. Carlson, “that blew up my world. I became a target of Big Pharma, Big Tech, and obviously the Biden administration.”

    Mr. Carlson then asked him why that would be the case.

    “Big Pharma gives a lot of money. … I was doing it because the federal government has this immunity for them. This is wrong,” Paxton said. “They didn’t test this thing. They didn’t tell us about the side effects. They had an obligation to test it, even if they weren’t liable.

    “They had an obligation to tell my people there are some risks here. You should decide but here are the risks. Instead, they said everything is good, it prevents it, you won’t spread it. None of that was true. That’s a deceptive trade practice. If they did that …”

    Mr. Carlson interrupts and says, “It seems like they did that.”

    Then. Mr. Paxton says he will know more in the coming weeks and months, because he’s picking up the case again. He should watch his back.

    We need to be clear on what might be going on here. A state attorney general merely decided to apply existing law to the vaccine makers who provide most of the revenue to the drug approval side of the Food and Drug Administration. They fund 75 percent of television advertising and have moles embedded at all the commanding heights.

    They are so powerful that they manage to get Congress and the president to grant them full freedom from liability for any of the effects of a vaccine. That only incentivized the firms to call gene therapy a vaccine even though it didn’t work like any vaccine in history.

    How can it be possible that such tax-funded corporate agents, which own the patents to their drugs, and can even force their product on unwilling customers, can unseat a duly elected official in a state? It’s amazing … and terrifying.

    But that might be only the start of it. Mr. Carlson’s show on Fox was canceled just after he started asking hard questions about the vaccine, while Russell Brand was smeared the world over as he started to raise questions. It’s happened to many public figures.

    Look at the unseating of the founder of Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe, which occurred after he exposed a Pfizer employee bragging about how much money the company would make by creating new strains of viruses against which they can vaccinate. It was easily the most spectacular exposé of the institution’s history—and then, boom, he was fired.

    Now, Mr. O’Keefe runs his own outfit that continues to chase down pharma executives.

    As for Project Veritas, it just pulled the plug and fired all but a few employees. It has ceased operations, which isn’t surprising. When you get rid of the highest-performing person, the fumes you are left with don’t last long.

    Think about it: This awesome operation was wrecked because some powerful people got squeamish about exposing the vaccine makers.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the biggest and most learned critic of Big Pharma on the planet, faced what might have been an assassination attempt last week. It didn’t even make the newspapers (The Epoch Times excepted). Meanwhile, he’s still being denied Secret Service protection even though he’s a serious candidate and faces non-stop threats on his life.

    As president of Brownstone Institute, I see examples several times a day of what happens to doctors, professors, statisticians, or anyone who asks questions about this industry, which somehow has emerged as among the most powerful in U.S. politics. The dirty dealings of the industry in canceling critics are legion. Any study that questions the effectiveness, safety, or necessity of their products is nearly always rejected by the mainstream journals. Even letters to the editor that expose statistical errors end up in the dustbin.

    As for Big Tech, they too are fully beholden. We have ironclad proof that Facebook and Twitter blocked any posts critical of vaccines. They went so far as to block “true information” about vaccine side effects that might contribute to an environment of “vaccine hesitancy.”

    We must ask again: How did Big Pharma buy control of so many governments?

    At this point, this problem has become a genuine threat to democracy and freedom. No industry has greater power to extract tax funding of its operations, retain intellectual property control over the results, enjoy indemnity from harms, and then even force its products on consumers. This is indefensible.

    Any warrior who dares stand up to this deserves the support of everyone who believes in what was the American system.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:40

  • McCarthy Denies Plan To Resign Before End Of Term
    McCarthy Denies Plan To Resign Before End Of Term

    Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied a report that he’ll resign before the end of his term, after Politico reported that he would do so after the next Speaker election.

    “No, I’m not resigning. I’m staying, so don’t worry,” McCarthy told reporters on Friday, adding “We’re going to keep the majority, I’m going to help the people I got here and we’re going to expand it.”

    Earlier, Politico reported that McCarthy told GOP members in a closed-door meeting: “I’m going to spend time with my family,” adding “I might have been given a bad break, but I’m still the luckiest man alive.”

    At the same time, some Republicans are reviving his name as a speaker candidate, even as it remains unclear whether he’d accept it.

    They argue no one else could get the 218 Republican votes needed to be speaker, they argue, as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise enter next week’s race as frontrunners that still might not be able to get over the top.

    The “only workable outcome is to restore Kevin McCarthy as Speaker under party rules that respect and enforce the right of the majority party to elect him,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said in a statement on Thursday. “This depends entirely on several of the dissidents to disenthrall themselves from their decision and to repair the damage before it is too late. I appeal to them to act while there is still time.” -Politico

    “I’ll do anything I can to help almost all of you. Don’t worry, I’ve raised a helluva lot of money in the last hour,” McCarthy told his members during a Tuesday closed-door conference meeting.

    Looks like Kevin’s sticking around.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:20

  • Portland Residents Told Not To Call Police For Help
    Portland Residents Told Not To Call Police For Help

    Authored by Michael Letts via American Thinker,

    Portland officials were proud of themselves in 2020 when they defunded the Police Bureau by $15 million instead of increasing it by $3 million as planned. One commissioner was even upset that the council didn’t remove more from the budget.

    “Please take a moment to celebrate this victory, and let it fuel your fire, because we’re not done,” Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said at the time.

    Along with the $15 million, another $12 million was cut because of pandemic-caused economic shortfalls. “As a result, school resource officers, transit police and a gun violence reduction team — which was found to disproportionately target Black Portland residents during traffic stops, according to an audit in March 2018 — were disbanded,” PBS reported.

    A year later, the council was trying to add funding and retain the city’s police officers. “The added police spending is occurring amid a year of a record number of homicides, the city’s greatest police staffing shortage in decades and reform recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice,” PBS reported.

    It was too little, too late. The damage was done, and the city has yet to recover. In fact, the city government is telling residents not to call police unless their lives are at risk. Given how dangerous Portland has become, it might not affect the volume of calls to police because more residents’ lives are at risk from criminal activity than ever before.

    Commissioner Rene Gonzalez told residents that the city’s 911 system is overwhelmed with people calling about addicts on the streets suffering fentanyl overdoses. This is not a Portland-only problem. The state of Oregon decriminalized drug use three years ago. Gonzalez urged people on X (formerly Twitter), “Our 911 system is getting hammered this morning with a multiple person incident — multiple overdoses in northwest park blocks. Please do not call 911 except in event of life/death emergency or crime in progress (or change of apprehending suspect).”

    Over the past year, the city has experienced 104 homicides and 529 arrests were made for drug offenses, according to Portland Police. The city’s homeless population has also grown by 50 percent since 2019, topping more than 5,000 people.

    “Portland’s neighborhoods have been overrun with crime, homelessness, and drugs since the pandemic — and despite pouring funds into relief initiatives, little change is occurring on the streets of the city,” the Daily Mail reported.

    The people of Portland are understandably upset that crime is out of control, leaving their property and lives at risk. I really want to feel sorry for those residents being forced to live under those conditions. However, this is what those people voted for.

    They continue to elect the same types of progressive politicians who believe the same failed policies will somehow work if they try them enough. They are the same people who, even if they didn’t participate in the 2020 riots, supported them.

    If they truly want things to change for the better for the city, they need to vote for change and change their way of thinking. Change will bring change.

    Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 17:00

  • Bank Loan Volumes Tumble Despite Surge In Deposits, Money-Markets Funds Hit New Record High
    Bank Loan Volumes Tumble Despite Surge In Deposits, Money-Markets Funds Hit New Record High

    After two weeks of relatively quiet flows, last week saw a massive $64BN inflow into money-market funds – the biggest inflows since the SVB crisis – to a new record high…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Both retail and institutional funds saw massive inflows last week…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The Fed’s balance sheet continued to contract, down $46BN last week to its lowest since June 2021…

    Source: Bloomberg

    But banks’ usage of The Fed’s emergency funding facility remains at its record high around $108BN…

    Source: Bloomberg

    So with banks balance sheets being plugged – and after last week’s crazy divergence between SA and NSA deposit flows – we wait with baited breath for what The Fed has in store for us this week…

    On a seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits jumped $40BN last week (following the prior week’s $48BN SA inflow), back to its highest since the SVB crisis…

    Source: Bloomberg

    For once, non-seasonally-adjusted deposits went in the same direction, with a $52BN inflow – after last week’s $85BN outflow…

    Source: Bloomberg

    And removing foreign bank flows, domestic banks saw inflows on both an SA and NSA basis…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The gap between SA and NSA deposit outflows since SVB remain high (around $116BN)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    On the other side of the ledger, despite the big deposit inflows, both large and small banks saw loan volumes decline…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The key warning sign continues to trend lower (Small Banks’ reserve constraint), supported above the critical level by The Fed’s emergency funds (for now)…

    After an ugly week (for bonds), following an ugly month and even uglier quarter…

    …we sure hope these banks are making plans to fill the $108BN hole in their balance sheets they are filling with expensive Fed loans.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:40

  • Kunstler: It'll Be Hard To Gaslight The Nation Anymore When This Happens
    Kunstler: It’ll Be Hard To Gaslight The Nation Anymore When This Happens

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

    Comes The Dancing Skeleton

    “We’ve conflated politics and bad mental health until they are indistinguishable.”

    – Scott Adams

    By some hidden working of unseen forces, legions of ghouls and demons are bursting out of the ground in every other front yard of small-town America. Supposedly hard-up working-class people go all-out constructing Halloween shrines to the totem figures of decay and death, as in some depraved cargo cult competition aimed at hastening our country’s descent into chaos. The end can’t come soon enough, seems to be the message. Something in the zeitgeist is prompting us to do this.

    Year to year, these morbid displays of slavering werewolves, hooded skeletons, grinning mummies, pirate corpses, horned devils, giant spiders, flapping crows, and glowing skulls far surpass in scale the once-exuberant displays of Christmas time — as if to say the celebration of horror and terror has way more meaning in America these days than the message of peace-on-earth, angels-on-high, the boundless generosity of Santa Claus, and the humble birth of a loving god. Kind of reminds you of what Mr. Dylan said more than a half-century ago: “…he not busy being born is busy dying.

    This Halloween month, America looks super-busy preparing for the death of something, maybe itself. Surely many now live in terror of the malevolent blob that the US government has become, led by a very paragon of ghouls, “Joe Biden.” This week, the blob declared in a “leak” to Newsweek magazine, that supporters of Donald Trump, the Golden Golem of Greatness, are now officially deemed to be enemies of the state. So, the blob that has lately subsumed the state, explicitly targets Trumpists (the MAGA crowd) for wholesale persecution, cancellation, de-personing, and incarceration. That is, opponents of the blob regime organizing for the coming election will be systematically neutralized and / or liquidated, taken off the game-board one way or another, by any means necessary.

    The blobistas would do well to take heed of those Halloween lawn displays. A stupendous, howling rage is building across this land in revolt against the blob’s monumental insults to a once proud and productive people. Soon, that plastic totem army of stock mythological monsters cavorting in the front yards will be superseded by real flesh-and-blood Americans aiming to shred the blob and scatter its quivering tatters to the four winds — as John F. Kennedy once remarked of the CIA in 1962, before it killed him in retaliation.

    Coincidentally, a scion of the JFK generation now running for president on an as-yet-to-be-specified independent party seeks to do exactly what his uncle promised to do. As you gaze on this developing battlefield, you will now see two sizable armies marshaling against the unholy hosts of blobbery — Mr. Trump’s MAGAs and Bobby Kennedy’s emerging division representing the old stoic virtues betrayed by vicious blob tyrants. The plausible outcomes on this battlefield are in flux thirteen months before the election. But it looks a little like the blob is outflanked; hence, its growing desperation.

    The psychodrama in the House of Representatives this week looked like a possible inflection point in the blob’s war against the American people. Mr. Gaetz evicted the quisling Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rather brave gambit, opening up the possibility of unifying his party against the programmatic wickedness of the post-Covid-19 era — the suicidal spending, the insane and unnecessary Ukraine proxy war, traitorous refusal to control the southern border, the official DOJ lawfare waged against half the citizenry, the disgusting official censorship campaign, and the ongoing criminal conspiracy between the pharma companies, the US public health officialdom, and shadowy globalist forces embedded in the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and scores of sinister multinational organizations ranging from George Soros’s Atlantic Council to the Sinaloa Cartel.

    In the background of all that — a true-life horror — lies the crumbling bond market, the foundation of the money-and-banking system that is supposed to support the on-the-ground economy that produces things of value like food and roofing shingles.

    The bond market is wobbling badly. As rates rise, banks’ collateral melts away and they go bust, liquidation moves to stock markets, derivatives implode, and the vast reservoirs of capital vanish. There’s your stealth true Halloween psychodrama sneaking up on the scene. Gradually, then all at once, the quarreling nation finds itself stone broke, and even the blob shrinks from the scene in horror.

    It will be hard to gaslight the country anymore when that happens. That will be the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton.

    *  *  *

    Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:20

  • Big Squeeze Saves Stocks From Bond Bloodbath
    Big Squeeze Saves Stocks From Bond Bloodbath

    ‘Hard’ data collapsed further this week with ‘soft’ data staying near cycle highs as today’s jobs data offered something for everyone with stalling wage growth (yay, we beat inflation), a jump in job gains (yay, growth and a soft landing), but a scratch or two below the surface of the 6-signa headline beat and things are not so pretty after all…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Financial Conditions continued to tighten aggressively this week, having turned after the July FOMC and now near the tightest it has been during this cycle…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Today saw a hawkish shift in rate-change expectations but on the week, 2023’s curve moved higher (slightly higher chances of more hikes) and 2024’s curve was flat to slightly lower (modest chance of more cuts)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    US stocks were bolstered in morning trading by the largest buy imbalance since mid-July and short cover. Momentum can beget more upside momentum in stocks.

    Around 1140ET a massive buy program hit and smashed stocks higher…

    Source: Bloomberg

    At the same time, the ‘most shorted’ stocks basket also went vertical…

    Source: Bloomberg

    By the end of the week, thanks to today’s meltup, Nasdaq ended significantly higher on the week (along with the S&P). The Dow ended the week marginally lower while Small Caps lagged 2% in the red…

    Tech and Healthcare were the only sectors green on the week with Energy the ugliest horse in the glue factory…

    Healthcare was helped by the GLP-1 Analogs going bid…

    Source: Bloomberg

    VIX didn’t even make it to 20 this morning as payrolls hit and stocks and bonds dumped. And then it just collapsed down to bear 17 the figure….

    One big options trader potentially had a bad day. Chatter was a large VIX Call buyer stepped in early this morning ahead of the payrolls print, betting on a blowout number…

    They got the blowout number, and for a split second things looked good, then everything reversed lower

    And the aggressive positioning and reversal can be seen in SpotGamma’s HIRO indicator as the trader was forced to unwind his calls at a loss…

    Still, at least he wasn’t long bonds this week!

    Bonds were clubbed like a baby seal this week, most notably the long-end, but today’s chaotic reversal put a little lipstick on the bond pig…

    Source: Bloomberg

    It all had a very technical feel with yields spiking on the payrolls print and running stops from earlier in the week before collapsing back lower…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The yield curve (2s30s) bear steepened most of the week, surging back up to a key level… next stop ‘un-inverted’

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar ended higher on the week, even with today’s pump-and-dump…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Bitcoin was its usual chaotic self this week, but ended higher (Friday to Friday), back above 28k…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Gold (spot) ended lower on the week, despite today’s bounce…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Ugly week for the energy complex with WTI puking down to a $81 handle intraday – 6-week lows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, Goldman notes that The 60bp increase in 10-year Treasury yields this year is starting to have an impact on stock valuations as the S&P 500 is now down about 7% from the 2023 high it hit back in late July. But higher rates don’t just impact how much you pay for a company. Higher rates can also weigh on the amount of money a company earns…

    …and as the chart above shows , this year, S&P 500 companies are staring down the biggest increase in borrowing costs since 2006.

    Making 5%-plus lending money to the US government certainly raises the bar for the level of corporate performance needed to attract investors…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …TINA’s not back yet.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 10/06/2023 – 16:00

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Oct 06

Today’s News 6th October 2023

  • Trump To Endorse Jordan For Speaker
    Trump To Endorse Jordan For Speaker

    Update (2320ET): After teasing himself for Speaker of the House following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s extremely short tenure, former President Donald Trump will endorse Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid.

    “Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) posted on X, adding “He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party. I fully support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House.”

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

    Trump posted the following on Truth Social:

    Jordan currently chairs the House Judiciary Committee, as well as the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Federal Government.

    *  *  *

    Former President Donald Trump will attend a GOP closed candidate House forum next Tuesday, where Republicans will discuss potential nominees to replace Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

    So far, Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise have thrown their hats in the ring, however many have floated the prospect of ‘Speaker Trump.’

    On Wednesday, Trump posted the above photo of himself in the Speaker’s chair holding a gavel, however as the NY Post reported the same day, there’s a little-known House GOP rule barring anyone with a felony indictment against serving in the role.

    “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed,” according to the Republican Conference Rules of the 118th Congress.

    That said, the rules could be altered to make way for Trump.

    Despite the gavel post, however, it appears Trump doesn’t actually want the job – and may just be attending to help steer the process. In a Thursday Truth social post, he said:

    I am running for President, have a 62 Point lead over Republicans, and am up on Crooked Joe Biden, despite the Democrat Party’s massive Law-fare, Weaponization, and Election Interference efforts, by 4 to 11 Points, but will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made – A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

    So, Jordan or Scalise?

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 23:17

  • Macleod: Unwinding The Financial System
    Macleod: Unwinding The Financial System

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via SchiffGold.com,

    This article looks at the collateral side of financial transactions and some significant problems which are already emerging.

    At a time when there is a veritable tsunami of dollar credit in foreign hands overhanging markets, it is obvious that continually falling bond prices will ensure bear markets in all financial asset values leading to dollar liquidation. This unwinding corrects an accumulation of foreign-owned dollars and dollar denominated assets since the Second World War both in and outside the US financial system.

    Furthermore, collapsing collateral values, which are increasingly required backing for changing values in over $400 trillion nominal in interest rate swaps are a new driver for the crisis, forcing bond liquidation, driving prices down and yields higher: we are in a doom-loop.

    What action can the authorities take to ensure that counterparty risk from widespread failures won’t take out inadequately capitalised regulated exchanges?

    It seems that they acted some time ago by giving central security depositories (The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Euroclear, and Clearstream) the right to pool securities on their registers and lend them out as collateral. Your investments, which you think you may own can be absorbed into the failing financial system without your knowledge.

    This seems particularly relevant, given the appointment of JPMorgan Chase as custodian of the large gold ETF, SPDR Trust (ticker GLD). In a test case in the New York courts concerning Lehman’s failure, JPMC was given legal protection should it seize its customer’s assets.

    This important erosion of property rights is poorly understood. But as the financial distortions are unwound, leading to unintended consequences such as bank failures and ultimately the collapse of the dollar-based fiat currency regime, the implication is that holders of physical gold ETFs will be left owning an empty shell at a time when they might have expected some protection from the collapse of the value of credit.

    Introduction

    In today’s complex markets it is difficult for the layman to understand their workings. It has always been about the expansion and limitation of bank credit, which must never be confused with money, and which from the dawn of history has been physical metal, particularly gold. But that is the medium of exchange of last resort, hoarded by individuals, and in recent centuries by central banks. And the layman’s understanding is further undermined by state propaganda which has dominated markets particularly since the suspension of the gold standard in America in 1933, which had lasted a century. Subsequent events have intensified monetary disinformation, leading to a global fiat money system based on the US dollar.

    In order to give us all the illusion of price stability the Breton Woods Agreement was designed to promote the dollar as a gold substitute for all other currencies. That aspect of the illusion ended in 1971. Since then, to maintain the dollar’s credibility the US Government increasingly resorted to market manipulation. First, they tried selling gold into the market in the early seventies, which was readily bought and failed to stop the gold price from continuing to rise. The next wheeze was to create artificial demand for dollars in an attempt to support its purchasing power, measured against commodities and other currencies. This led to the expansion of derivative markets, which diverted speculative demand for commodities thereby suppressing their prices below where they would otherwise be. The expansion of the London bullion market which created paper gold, and the general adoption of the dollar not just to settle cross-border trade and commodity pricing but to replace gold in central banks’ reserves was all part of the deception.

    Over the fifty-two years since Bretton Woods was suspended, huge imbalances accumulated. In last week’s article I showed a table of bank and shadow bank dollar balances, onshore and offshore, which I repeat below.

    The offshore element is considerably larger than that registered in the US Treasury’s TIC numbers, which in itself tells us that foreign interest in onshore dollar investments and bank balances exceeds US GDP by a fair margin on its own. The offshore element is based on the Bank for International Settlements analysis of dollar deposits and obligations outside the US financial system which we can equate with the eurodollar market. In the main, they are currency forwards and swaps where one leg is in US dollars.

    Now that the financial bubble inflated by zero and negative interest rates is being lanced, these credit balances are bound to diminish. We can see why this is the case just with onshore long-term securities, comprised of bonds and equities, to which we must add the estimated $10.7 trillion of eurodollar long term bonds. That’s nearly $37 trillion in foreign-owned long-term investments overhanging US financial markets as bond yields start soaring, which is already in process. Including offshore eurodollars, it is a tsunami of dollar debt threatening to break on America’s shores.

    The role of collateral in the LDI crisis

    What is generally not understood by the layman is that it is inflated investments which underpin many over-the-counter derivative positions by acting as collateral. A problem arises when the value of collateral falls, triggering further calls. This attracted public attention in the UK when rising gilt yields threatened liability driven investment schemes, an example that we can use to improve our wider understanding of the role of collateral in derivative contracts, and the dangers presented by a collapse of the entire collateral system.

    Liability driven investment (LDI) was being used by UK pension funds to enhance their returns. Defined benefit schemes faced with expensive final salary commitments to their beneficiaries were unable to meet these commitments from their investments when central banks reduced interest rates to the zero bound and through QE suppressed bond yields to minimal levels. The only solution for these DB schemes was to enhance their returns through leverage.

    Typically, this was being achieved through a LDI scheme. It allowed a pension fund to protect itself from falling interest rates, which increases a pension fund’s future liabilities through net present value calculations. An LDI scheme provided leverage, so that the income on a gilt would be multiplied three of four times, allowing a pension fund to cover its future liabilities.

    The pension fund invested in an LDI scheme has effectively entered into a leveraged interest rate swap with the LDI provider. A rising interest rate imparts a negative value to the swap, fixed income stream becomes worth less than the yield offered in the market. This requires the pension fund to put up collateral to the LDI provider. And leverage multiplies the collateral called. But pension funds tend to be fully invested, and don’t have that liquidity to hand, and were exposed to a radical increase in bond yields.

    The crisis was triggered when markets became spooked by Liz Truss’s proposed budget in September 2022. Yields for the 10-year gilt rapidly rose from 3.88% to 4.5%. And for the 30-year maturity from 2.7% to 4.8%. In the latter case, the value of this gilt fell by 13% in a matter of days.

    This forced pension funds to liquidate assets, including their gilts which is why the Bank of England had to step in to support the gilt market. And only when it was apparent that the authorities were stabilising gilt prices, panic among pension fund managers and LDI providers subsided.

    LDI is going global

    Gilt yields have now risen to even higher levels today, with the ten-year gilt yielding 4.63% and the 30-year 5.07%, so far without the LDI panic returning. Obviously, that episode alerted pension fund managers to the dangers, and they will have addressed their LDI risk accordingly. But the same cannot be said for the wider use of collateral in international markets, for which the 10-year US Treasury note is the “risk-free” yardstick. And in Europe, it is the ten-year German bund against which other euro-area bonds are compared. The chart below shows how these yields have risen recently.

    LDI contracts are essentially interest rate swaps, exchanging a floating rate (in their case volatile gilt yields) for a fixed rate, usually enhanced through leverage. These characteristics are similar to those of the global interest rate swap market, which is enormous. According to the Bank for International Settlements at end-2022 it amounted to a nominal value of $405.5 trillion, of which $145.5 trillion is in dollars and $109.3 trillion equivalent in euros. With a shift in the global inflation and interest rate outlook, this is leading to mounting collateral demand from those who have taken the fixed rate leg. It is developing into a major crisis which probably requires much more than central bank intervention, such as that deployed by the Bank of England in the case of LDIs.

    Furthermore, collateral values backing these derivatives and other leveraged commitments have fallen sharply, adding to enormous and escalating amounts of collateral top-ups being required. And this is occurring at a time when bank credit is tightening, which is bound to lead to higher market rates for bond yields anyway, even without collateral demand from interest rate swaps being unwound.

    This is rapidly turning into a doom-loop, similar to that exposed by the UK’s LDI crisis, but involving the dollar, the euro, and all other major currencies. Additionally, US banks are probably heading towards a trillion dollars in mark to market losses on their bond positions, and as borrowing costs continue to rise the damage to their P&L accounts funding their bond holdings is increasing.

    Perhaps this persuaded the Fed to go easy on interest rate policy, the FOMC having put it on pause last month. If so, it didn’t work, because US Treasury note yields rose sharply in the wake of the last FOMC statement. And then there is the commercial real estate crisis in America, to which regional banks are particularly exposed. This is a situation which is already out of control, with escalating collateral demand forcing liquidation of bonds, driving borrowing costs and bond yields inexorably higher.

    It is becoming rapidly apparent to lenders that collateral values are likely to continue to fall, particularly for longer durations, and that leverage is the road to disaster. One question this raises, is that in their long-term planning have the authorities foreseen a possible collateral crisis of this sort and taken action to deal with it if it becomes reality. This question, but not the motivation is addressed in a new book by David Rogers Webb, The Great Taking.

    The taking of your securities for collateral

    Webb’s analysis initially centres on the dematerialisation of securities from certificate form into book entry on the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. It is the forerunner of Europe’s Clearstream and Euroclear. These are central securities depositories, closely allied to central clearing counterparties. Without the investing public being aware of the implications, certificated property ownership of securities has been replaced with a “security entitlement”.

    The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation also has a securities financing transaction clearing facility. From its website, we see that:

    “The SFT Clearing service introduces central clearing for equity securities financing transactions, including lending, borrowing and Repo to:

    • Support central clearing of institutional clients’ equity SFTs intermediated by sponsoring members.

    • Support central clearing of equity SFTs between full service NSCC members.

    • Maximize capital efficiency and mitigates systemic risks by introducing more membership and cleared transaction opportunities for market participants.”

    This confirms that pools of collateral are made available to institutions, without the knowledge of those who possess securities entitlements that there is another claim on them. They no longer have clear title to their investments.

    Since the US’s Uniform Commercial Code enacting these changes was introduced, other jurisdictions such as the European Union and UK have followed suite. Besides the erosion of property rights for owners of securities, the objective appears to be to give institutions and hedge funds access to everyone’s property for collateral purposes. And where losses occur such as in a systemic failure, instead of the central securities depository taking the losses, it is those with the newly defined securities entitlements: in other words, you and me.

    Undoubtedly, the framers of the Uniform Commercial Code had the protection of thinly capitalised exchanges in regulated markets in mind. We expect our transaction settlements to be guaranteed by regulated exchanges. But in a financial crisis leading to multiple counterparty failures, regulated markets cannot extend this protection. The solution has been to take this risk away from them and centralise it in central securities depositories, giving them the power to use the pools of securities under their control to ensure deliveries can continue under all circumstances. Not only does this allow collateral lending, but it transfers systemic risk from regulated exchanges to pools of securities entitlements.

    It appears that the corruption of security holders’ rights doesn’t stop there, as the Safe Harbour clause in US bankruptcy law legislation can also apply. The relationship between central securities depositories, such as the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, and central clearing counterparties such as a systemically important bank enables this to happen.

    In a test case in New York between Lehman Brothers creditors and JPMorgan Chase which acted as Lehman’s clearing agent, the creditors sought to reclaim $8.6bn from JPMorgan Chase.[ii] This was the amount which was seized by the bank as if it was collateral in the days leading to Lehman’s failure. Prior to the seizure, it was an obligation to Lehman in the form of deposits and securities without a lien. Indeed, in the 92 page ruling, there were many references to the legal status of these obligations.

    It could be argued that without the safe harbour provisions in US bankruptcy law, the seizure of these assets would have been illegal. Indeed, this is the situation demonstrated under UK law, when JPMorgan was fined £33.32m by the Financial Services Authority in June 2010 for failing to ensure that client money, in other words funds which were custodial, was not properly segregated from the bank’s liabilities.

    We learn two things from these different rulings. The first is that following the precedent of the US court in New York, JPMorgan has the power to ignore the distinction between assets held as collateral and assets which the bank has an obligation to discharge to a depositor. And secondly, this US bank, which happens to be the largest and the Fed’s primary conduit into commercial banking has failed to distinguish between that relationship in US law and its legal and regulatory obligations in other jurisdictions, such as the UK.

    JPMorgan’s relationship with gold

    At the outset, it is worth noting that regulatory bodies tend to give large banks the benefit of the doubt, only looking closely at their compliance activities when they can no longer be ignored. Consequently, large banks have been known to act as if regulations don’t exist. The example above, where it was absolutely plain that JPMorgan Chase was in breach of the regulations with respect to custodial client money in London may or may not have been an exception. We are entitled to assume that some of the smartest lawyers and compliance officers are employed by JPMorgan Chase who should have known better.

    This lack of respect for the law was demonstrated in an important case in the gold market, when JPMorgan Chase’s global head of precious metals trading and board member of the London Bullion Market Association was found guilty of attempted price manipulation, commodities fraud, wire fraud and spoofing prices in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures. And it is not as if this was an isolated case: it had been going on for eight years involving thousands of unlawful trading sequences. And another colleague heading up the New York gold desk was also found guilty. That was in July 2019. Finally, in 2020 the bank itself pleaded guilty to unlawful trading in precious metals futures markets and was heavily fined.

    Inexplicably, with this track record JPMorgan Chase Bank was recently appointed joint custodian of SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) alongside HSBC. This ETF is the largest in existence by far and its sponsor is a subsidiary of the World Gold Council. Why the WGC sanctioned the appointment of a bank whose senior dealers in precious metals have been found guilty of manipulating gold prices and jailed is a mystery. It is not as if having one custodian represents more risk than two. Furthermore, HSBC stores all GLD bullion in its London vaults, so that it is subject to English property law and securities regulation in every respect.

    JPMorgan Chase is reported to be considering the transfer of GLD’s bullion to its vaults in New York. It is thought that their vault is linked underground to the Fed’s vault, with the Fed on the north side of Liberty Street and Chase Bank across the road.[iii] It is in this context that we return to David Webb’s analysis of central counterparties, ownership of securities as property being replaced with a “security entitlement”, and the free use of that security entitlement as collateral without the knowledge or agreement of the entitled. And according to the ruling of the New York court effectively extending this facility to JPMorgan Chase as a central clearing counterparty, we may be assembling a picture which will allow JPMorgan Chase to use GLD’s bullion as collateral, or perhaps to lease or swap it, or alternatively to dispose of it in return for a book entry credit.

    Our suspicions will be increased when we think through the implications of the proximity of JPMorgan Chase’s vault to the Fed’s vault across the road and circumstantial evidence of a tunnel between the two. Stored in the Fed’s vault is gold for the New York Fed, earmarked for foreign central banks. And when we remember the difficulty Germany had getting the New York Fed to return a paltry 300 tonnes, doubtless our suspicions will go into overdrive.

    Undoubtedly, GLD’s trustee The Bank of New York Mellon and the World Gold Council have some serious questions to answer as to why JPMorgan Chase was appointed a custodian. Here are just a few suggestions:

    • Did the Trustee of the World Gold Council come under pressure or recommendation from any government organisation or monetary authority to appoint JPMorgan Chase a custodian to the SPDR Trust?

    • Were the Trustee and Council not aware that JPMorgan Chase has a history of market manipulation in gold contracts, and that the bank had pleaded guilty. According to the Office of Public Affairs in the US Department of Justice: “In September 2020, JPMorgan admitted to committing wire fraud in connection with: (1) unlawful trading in the markets for precious metals futures contracts; and (2) unlawful trading in the markets for U.S. Treasury futures contracts and in the secondary (cash) market for U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. JPMorgan entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement through which it paid more than $920 million in a criminal monetary penalty, criminal disgorgement, and victim compensation, with parallel resolutions by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities Exchange Commission announced on the same day.”

    • Furthermore, that two of their senior staff were on trial when JPMorgan Chase was appointed custodian, one of which served on the board of the LBMA and ran JPMorgan’s global precious metals desk, and the other an executive director and trader on the New York precious metal desk? And that both men were subsequently jailed and fined for market manipulation in August?

    Almost certainly, the Trustee and the World Gold Council’s management won’t be called upon to answer these questions. But the legal position of GLD shareholders’ underlying property assets is compromised by these developments.

    Furthermore, authorised participants can borrow their shares from a centralised securities depository and redeem them for physical gold. By hedging their position in futures or London’s forward markets, they are under no pressure to return the gold and close their stock loan. Given this facility, far from GLD being a secure investment in gold bullion, it may already be being used as a source of liquidity for bullion dealers.

    Conclusion

    There can be little doubt that access to GLD’s property would be a partial solution to urgent problems arising from over fifty years of official suppression of the gold price. As I have written before, after extensive and careful research, analyst Frank Veneroso concluded as long ago as 2002 that between 10,000 and 14,000 tonnes of central bank gold were either leased or swapped. And he further concluded that much of that gold “was adorning Asian women” so would not be returned.

    We know that the Bank of England arranges these contracts for its central bank clients. We can only assume that the New York Fed similarly arranges these income generating activities on behalf of earmarked gold in its custody. Worse still is the thought that the New York Fed might have sold off earmarked gold into the markets, which would explain why it refused to let Bundesbank representatives inspect its gold, and initially proved extremely reluctant to return only 300 tonnes out of 1,536 tonnes of Germany’s gold supposedly held in the New York vault. And presumably, it was the Bundesbank’s experience which prompted the Dutch Central Bank to repatriate 122 tonnes of its gold from New York, leaving 190 tonnes behind at the New York Fed.

    With the failing of the fiat currency regime, the chickens of gold leasing and price suppression are now coming home to roost. It is becoming apparent that at a minimum the stagflationary conditions of the 1970s are returning, when gold rose from the official rate of $35 per ounce to over $800. And the Fed funds rate rose from about 6% to nearly 20%. After fifty-two years of currency debasement, the starting point for a new rise in the gold price is somewhere between $1500—$2000. And arguably, the dollar is in a far worse position today than it was when President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods Agreement.

    The legal position in the US is shared with the EU and UK, whereby holders of shares in ETFs could find the property in them plundered through the agency of JPMorgan Chase and other central clearing counterparties, where, it seems, their status permits them to deploy bullion and other private property as they see fit.

    The bullion banks are currently trying to close their paper shorts and to go long, benefiting from the ignorance of speculators, who believe that higher interest rates are bad for gold. That may be true in markets devoid of systemic and inflation risks, but only these fellows below would take this seriously in the developing situation.

    Currently, bond yields are rising strongly, which means that collateral values are falling. It amounts to a credit contraction of up to 30% on longer dated bonds so far. And where collateral backs leveraged interest rate swap positions, calls can be catastrophic.

    Fairly quickly, the gold price can be expected to reflect systemic and currency risks, which will trump any meme the three wise monkeys might come up with. Driving the dollar’s falling value measured in goods will be the funding outlook for the US Government. With interest costs likely to rise to $1.5 trillion in the fiscal year just started and the onset of economic stagnation if not outright recession, the budget deficit could easily top $3.5 trillion, perhaps eight or nine per cent of expenditure. And this is at a time of diminishing foreign appetite for US Treasuries.

    This takes us back to the enormous mountain of dollar credit in foreign hands, quantified in the table at the beginning of the article. Long term investments, totalling $26.113 trillion, plus a further $10.7 trillion in Eurobonds will all fall in value as interest rates continue to rise. There can be no doubt that foreigners will sell these positions down. Their only problem is what to do with cash dollars, which already amount to over $100 trillion. Other currencies are mostly less attractive than the dollar. There is only one thing to be done, and that is to follow the Singaporeans, who have the prescience to accumulate hard real money without counterparty risk, which is physical gold.

    And finally, there are geopolitical considerations. The deteriorating collateral position is surely being observed with concern in Asia and the Global South. The sudden rise in US Treasury bond yields is signalling that a global version of the UK’s liability driven investment debacle is already developing, in which case the collapse of financial market values could escalate rapidly from here.

    It is against this background that Russia and Saudi Arabia are driving up energy prices, leading to rising CPI inflation and expectations of higher interest rates to come. Commercial banks will almost certainly intensify credit restrictions as well. Viewed from outside America, it all amounts to intolerable pressures on the US and Eurozone credit systems. And if Russia, perhaps followed by China decide to deploy their gold reserves in order to secure the value of their currencies, it is bound to be the coup de grace for the fiat currency system.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 23:05

  • Homebuyers Under 25 Are Flocking To The Midwest
    Homebuyers Under 25 Are Flocking To The Midwest

    It’s official: the newest generation of homebuyers are flocking to the midwest. Cities with the most homebuyers under the age of 25 are located in this more affordable part of the country, a new study released by Construction Coverage found. 

    The study used data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and researchers at Construction Coverage “calculated the share of all home purchase loans taken out by applicants under 25 years old.”

    The study says that only “conventional home purchase loans originated in 2022 were considered for this analysis”.

    The key points of the study found:

    • The total number of conventional home loans originated in 2022 was down across all age groups from the year prior. Among all age cohorts, 65–74 year-olds experienced the largest percentage decline, decreasing by 22.3%. Notably, the under-25 age group only experienced a 12.3% decline, the smallest of all cohorts and a sign of persistent housing demand from younger generations despite economic headwinds.
    • Many of the states with the highest shares of home purchase loans from adults under age 25 are found in the more affordable Midwest, led by Iowa at 11.5%. The same trend holds at the local level, with many of the top metropolitan areas for young homeowners also found in that region.
    • In contrast, high-cost coastal states including Hawaii (1.6%) and California (1.9%) have much lower shares of home purchase loans from young adults. In these areas, would-be young homebuyers face more expensive homes and higher living costs, creating a higher barrier to entry in these real estate markets.

    As the study notes, millennials—those born from 1981 to 1996—now representing the largest age group in the United States and entering their prime years for acquiring their first or even second homes. These dynamics contribute to a surge of buyers vying for a diminishing pool of available properties. Freddie Mac reports that even before the pandemic hit, the housing market was facing an all-time low in supply.

    While there are indications that the feverish pace of the residential real estate market may be slowing after its unprecedented surge amid the COVID-19 crisis, the path to homeownership remains steep, the study says. The competitive landscape and escalating home prices pose particular challenges for younger individuals entering the market for the first time.

    The moderation in the housing market is further underscored by a decline in the issuance of conventional home loans in 2022, a trend that spanned all age brackets compared to the previous year. Among the various age groups, individuals aged 65–74 witnessed the most significant reduction, with loan originations plummeting by 22.3%. Conversely, younger buyers exhibited more resilience. Specifically, the cohort under 25 years old saw only a 12.3% drop in home loan volume, the least among all age groups. This suggests a sustained demand for housing from younger generations, even in the face of economic challenges.

    The study notes that before 2022 even came into focus, there had been a rising trend in homeownership interest among younger purchasers. In 2020, the rate of homeownership for those below 25 hit 25.7%, equaling a prior high point set during the 2005 housing bubble. While this percentage experienced a minor decrease in 2021, it rebounded to 25.4% in 2022. This is notably higher than the rates documented in the 1980s and 1990s, indicating a sustained enthusiasm for homeownership among the youngest cohort of adults.

    For those young adults eyeing homeownership, geographic disparities offer both opportunities and challenges. The Midwest states, spearheaded by Iowa at an 11.5% share, are notable hotspots for home purchase loans among individuals under 25. Lower housing prices in this region make it a more feasible option for younger buyers, who often have less equity compared to older home seekers. This pattern also persists at the city level, with numerous Midwestern metropolitan areas ranking high for young homeowners due to affordability.

    On the flip side, coastal states with high living costs, such as Hawaii and California, boasting meager shares of 1.6% and 1.9% respectively, present significant obstacles for young potential homeowners. The steep prices and elevated cost of living in these states construct a formidable barrier to entering their real estate markets.

    You can review the full study’s findings and sort by metro size here. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 22:35

  • Exxon "Days Away" From Buying Shale Giant Pioneer In "Seismic Deal" That Will Reshape US Energy
    Exxon “Days Away” From Buying Shale Giant Pioneer In “Seismic Deal” That Will Reshape US Energy

    In a deal that would be transformational for the US energy sector, and spark another shale revolution, the WSJ writes that US supermajor, the largest US energy E&P and formerly the world’s largest company by market cap, Exxon – the company that according to the Big Guy made more money than God in 2021, is closing in on a deal to shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources, a blockbuster takeover that could be worth roughly $60 billion and reshape the U.S. oil industry.

    The deal, which the WSJ first leaked back in April and has described as “seismic” (metaphorically but also literally, ha ha)  could be sealed in the coming days, though it is still possible there won’t be one, sources told the Journal.

    After posting a record profit in 2022, and flush with cash, Exxon has been exploring options that would push it deeper into West Texas shale. An acquisition of Pioneer, with a market cap of around $50 billion, would be Exxon’s largest deal since its megamerger with Mobil in 1999, and would give Exxon a dominant position in the oil-rich Permian Basin, a region the oil giant has said is integral to its growth plans.

    Such a deal would not only eclipse the U.S. oil industry’s most recent blockbuster, Occidental’s 2019 acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum for about $38 billion, and top Exxon’s 2010 purchase of XTO Energy for more than $30 billion, it would make Exxon the second most important energy company in the world after Saudi Aramco.

    It would also be a legacy-shaping move for Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose tenure at the company has seen its peaks and valleys.

    Woods, an Exxon-lifer who became CEO in 2017, initially promised to dramatically grow Exxon’s oil production only to see his plans felled by the pandemic. An oil-market collapse in 2020 led to Exxon’s first annual loss in decades—more than $22 billion. It lost a historic proxy fight in 2021 to investment firm Engine No. 1, which excoriated Exxon’s finances and argued it had no long-term strategy.

    And yet, without any handouts from the Biden admin unlike so many of its unionized corporate peers, Exxon rebounded to a record profit of $55.7 billion last year, propelled by soaring global demand for oil and gas as economies reopened. Exxon has used its prolific cash flows to reward investors with buybacks and dividends and pledged disciplined spending, though many wondered whether the company would dip into its coffers for a megadeal in the oil patch.

    We now know the answer. The acquisition marks Woods’s second significant acquisition, coming only a few months after Exxon scooped up CO2 pipeline operator Denbury for $4.9 billion. It would add vast swaths of West Texas acreage considered the core of the U.S. shale boom.

    As the WSJ notes, Pioneer’s acreage in the Midland Basin (the eastern portion of the Permian Basin, which straddles West Texas and New Mexico) is one of the largest collections of fertile oil land in the U.S., and the company holds one of the largest numbers of untapped drilling locations of any Permian player, analysts have said. In the wake of the pandemic, Pioneer snapped up two other large Permian operators, Parsley Energy and DoublePoint Energy, for a combined $11 billion in 2021.

    The tie-up will presage a wave of consolidation among shale companies. The industry has shifted from the rapid growth it pursued for more than a decade to a mature business underpinned by fiscal restraint and hefty investor payouts. But producers are contending with dwindling drilling locations. Drilling for new oil discoveries has fallen out of favor with investors, leaving many companies with few options other than to acquire rivals to extend their runway.

    Producers have deep coffers at their disposal to pursue deals after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year sent global prices soaring to more than $127 a barrel. Prices have retreated and been volatile since then. Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer could be the first of a series of deals in the Permian, which contains shale wells that produce rapidly and don’t bind companies to decadeslong megaprojects that have fallen out of favor with some investors who fear a future decline in oil demand.

    The best news, however, is that Exxon just slapped the progressive lobby in its sanctimonious face. While environmentalists, lawmakers and others have hoped oil and gas companies would invest their record profits into green energy, that won’t be happening. And while Woods has pledged Exxon will invest $17 billion through 2027 in cutting the company’s carbon emissions and building a business that would help other companies reduce theirs too, investing in areas including carbon capture, biofuels and lithium mining, all that the shrewd CEO is doing is getting to the front of the line of the government’s green handouts.

    The bottom line: Exxon’s move to purchase Pioneer, even after its acquisition of Denbury, the CO2 pipeline operator, signals the company is still primarily planning to lean on its traditional oil-and-gas business for decades.

    That said, nothing is guaranteed in the energy sector which together with crypto, has emerged as the most hated industry of the so-called Democrats. In 2020, when the price of oil collapsed, and when many were doubting that Exxon would avoid bankruptcy, it subsequently emerged (again via the WSJ) that Exxon was considering a merger with Chevron, the energy sector’s 2nd largest company.  Back then, talks between Exxon and Chevron were preliminary and yielded no result.

    Then again, if Exxon manages to become not only the biggest it has ever been but also a cash flow machine and the world’s 2nd most important energy company under a Democratic administration, one can only imagine what will happen in 13 months time when the senile teleprompter reader is finally kicked out.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 22:07

  • Japan Splits Management Of The Impossible Trilemma: MOF For The Currency, BOJ For The Yields
    Japan Splits Management Of The Impossible Trilemma: MOF For The Currency, BOJ For The Yields

    Observing the cartoonish circus that is Japan’s central bank and ministry of finance, Bloomberg’s Masaki Kondo writes that Japan’s hesitation to let go of the yen means the BOJ is managing monetary policy amid an almost impossible trinity of outcomes. In the end the yen will probably take precedence over bonds with 10-year yields likely to climb toward 1%.

    The Mundell-Fleming trilemma stipulates a nation can’t achieve the free flow of capital, independent monetary policy and a fixed exchange rate simultaneously. The fact that Japan’s apparent reluctance to let JPY weaken despite the nation’s open capital account is putting the BOJ in this trilemma, to a certain degree.

    This difficulty is pronounced by the BOJ’s bond-purchase operation; the central bank may want to buy more bonds to keep yields low, but concern over a further weakness in the yen is preventing the BOJ from doing so. Japan’s way to get around this problem is to split the tasks: the MOF for the currency and the BOJ for yields.

    Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. But the initial rebound higher for USD/JPY after Tuesday’s slide suggests Japan’s authorities need to be even more convincing.

    * * *

    Meanwhile, continued yen weakness means one thing: inflation will keep rising and rising as real wages keep falling and falling… and just hit a record low.

    And there will come a point when even the world’s most compliant and sheepish society says enough.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 21:40

  • COVID-19 Shot May Be Linked To Unexpected Vaginal Bleeding: Study
    COVID-19 Shot May Be Linked To Unexpected Vaginal Bleeding: Study

    Authored by Mary Gillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccine sit on a table at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on April 06, 2022 in San Rafael, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Norwegian scientists have discovered an unusual side effect in COVID-19-vaccinated women who don’t menstruate: atypical vaginal bleeding after injection with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

    Researchers studied close to 22,000 women across different reproductive aging stages over about nine months and found that 3.3 percent of postmenopausal, 14.1 percent of perimenopausal, and 13.1 percent of premenopausal women experienced at least one unexpected bleed after receiving the COVID-19 shot, according to the authors of the study published in Science Advances.

    About half of the bleeds were said to have occurred within the first four weeks of getting the vaccine. Postmenopausal women’s risk of bleeding was two to three times higher during the 28 days after injection than before receiving the shot. The link was stronger in perimenopausal and premenopausal women, with both groups showing a three- to fivefold elevated risk. Perimenopausal women are typically in their 40s and have begun experiencing some menopause symptoms but can still get pregnant, while premenstrual women have no menopause symptoms.

    Researchers also found a difference in women’s susceptibility when given one shot over the other. Premenopausal women were at a 32 percent higher risk of vaginal bleeding after a dose of the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer.

    How Is Vaccination Linked to Bleeding?

    Study author Kristine Blix and her colleagues at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo drew from questionnaire data from an ongoing population health survey to investigate COVID-19 vaccines and unexpected bleeding in the three groups.

    “We had already, from the early pandemic, biweekly questionnaires going out to cohort participants to monitor effects of the pandemic,” Ms. Blix told Nature.

    Responses to the 2021 questionnaire indicated that some women experienced unusually heavy menstrual bleeding after receiving the vaccine. “This urged us to ask for bleeding patterns in a structured manner,” she said.

    Ms. Blix’s team didn’t investigate the reasons for the unexplained bleeding, and no conclusive evidence supports that the shot caused it. However, one theory is that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the vaccines may be a culprit.

    “Increased risk after both Comirnaty (Pfizer) and Spikevax (Moderna) suggest a mechanism related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein and not to other vaccine components,” the authors wrote in the paper. “This is also supported by a higher risk observed after Spikevax in premenopausal women.” Possible pathways to induce the bleeding may stem from a spike protein-related immune response or an endometrial expression of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors that serve as the virus’ entry point, they continued.

    Additional Studies

    A study published in February that examined close to 8,000 women found abnormal bleeding to be a common side effect of the Pfizer vaccine. Most women experienced excessive bleeding between their vaccination date and their next menstrual period, authors wrote in the paper, recommending further investigation into the events and the possible long-term consequences of vaccine-induced vaginal bleeding.

    In 2022, The Lancet published a study where researchers showed that a cohort of nearly 64,000 respondents ages 18 and older experienced menstrual irregularities or vaginal bleeding in the form of altered menstruation timing and severity of menstrual symptoms to menopausal bleeding and resumption of menses.

    In contrast, a 2023 study published in Vaccine showed premenopausal women vaccinated for COVID-19 were no more likely to report irregular menstrual cycles or heavier bleeds after the shot than unvaccinated women. However, the authors acknowledged about a one-day delay or one-day longer cycle in vaccinated versus unvaccinated women.

    Possible Causes of Irregular Vaginal Bleeding

    Irregular bleeding may be caused by several factors ranging from stress to more serious underlying medical conditions, including:

    • Endometriosis.
    • Pelvic inflammatory disease.
    • Polycystic ovary syndrome.
    • Primary ovarian insufficiency.
    • Thyroid or pituitary gland disorders.
    • Uterine or ovarian cancer.

    Medications and pregnancy complications may also cause irregular bleeding. These include:

    • Birth control pills.
    • Medications including steroids or blood thinners.
    • Miscarriages or an ectopic pregnancy.
    • Surgeries, scarring, or blockages in a woman’s uterus, ovaries, or fallopian tubes.

    FDA Still Recommends the Vaccine

    On Sept. 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized an updated COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use—one “formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.”

    “Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 21:20

  • Education Shock: 200 Maryland Public Schools Have <5% Students Proficient In Math 
    Education Shock: 200 Maryland Public Schools Have <5% Students Proficient In Math 

    Investigative journalist Chris Papst of Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore revealed Thursday morning another bombshell report on the massive grade scandal in the progressive state of Maryland:

    FACT: Current state of Maryland public schools. More than 200 schools (according to state data) have 5% or fewer students proficient in math. Meaning, in at least 200 schools, at best 95% of students are NOT math proficient. Seems unbelievable, but true.

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

    Papst wrote in the report, “There are at least 200 schools where, according to the state’s data, the percentage of students proficient in math is five percent or less. More than 77,000 Maryland students took the test in those roughly 200 schools. There’s a chance none are proficient in math. Project Baltimore only has the raw data for Baltimore City schools. So, taxpayers will never know because the state won’t tell you.”

    Papst said for over a decade, the Maryland State Department of Education has redacted test scores in what they say is “enhanced deidentification.” The redactions replace test score data with asterisks so the public will never know students’ progress, while state officials can boast about spending the most ever on education. 

    Sean Kennedy from the Maryland Public Policy Institute told Papst in April: “The State Education Department is instituting a cover-up of what’s going on in public schools; it’s outrageous.” 

    In February, Papst revealed that 23 Baltimore City Schools had zero students proficient in math from an inside source in the school system. And again, last month, he found 13 Baltimore City High Schools had zero students proficient on the state math exam. 

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    State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury is anticipated to step down over the grade scandal on Friday.

    It’s absolutely absurd that education officials appear to be covering up failing test scores across the leftist state while robbing the younger generation blind of an education. Maybe they care more about their paychecks and bonuses than the future. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:55

  • Nancy Pelosi Evicted From Her Private Office By Acting House Speaker
    Nancy Pelosi Evicted From Her Private Office By Acting House Speaker

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

    Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during her final weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Dec. 22, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) ordered Democrats who recently left leadership positions to vacate their private offices in the U.S. Capitol shortly after becoming acting speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Mr. McHenry ordered Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was speaker until January, to vacate her hideaway office, Ms. Pelosi said.

    “One of the first actions taken by the new speaker pro tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol,” she said in a statement.

    “Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.”

    Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) died on Sept. 29 at age 90.

    Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit at the White House in Washington on May 22, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Ms. Pelosi said that the eviction was “a sharp departure from tradition,” referencing that she allowed former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to keep his private office “for as long as he wished.”

    According to reports, an email from Mr. McHenry’s office to Ms. Pelosi states that he was going to reassign the hideaway “for speaker office use.”

    “Please vacate the space tomorrow,” the email reportedly reads.

    Ms. Pelosi said, “Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them. Now that the new Republican leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”

    Democrats Cry Foul

    Ms. Pelosi was one of the members who didn’t vote on the motion earlier on Oct. 3 to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker.

    Mr. McCarthy, who was ousted from the speaker position and apparently allowed Ms. Pelosi to keep her private office, didn’t return an inquiry.

    Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who held a leadership position until January, was also told to vacate his hideaway office by Mr. McHenry, a spokeswoman for Mr. Hoyer told The Epoch Times via email.

    Mr. McHenry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    Democrats decried the move.

    “While Nancy Pelosi is in California mourning the loss of her longtime friend, Patrick McHenry does this. From top to bottom the House GOP are classless and shameful people who are desperate to score cheap political points rather than govern,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

    Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) leaves the House Chamber after being ousted from his position in Washington on Oct. 3, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Mr. McHenry became speaker pro tempore after the House approved a resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy. Eight Republicans, not including Mr. McHenry, sided with Democrats to approve the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

    Mr. McCarthy compiled a list of members who would serve as speaker pro tempore if he were ousted, under rules passed by the House. Mr. McHenry, known as an ally of Mr. McCarthy, was at the top of the list.

    Mr. McHenry, as acting speaker, will exercise authorities such as presiding over proceedings of the House, including a vote for the next speaker. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told reporters that Mr. McHenry’s main task will be to “get us a new speaker.” Anything further would spark a move to oust Mr. McHenry as well, he said.

    What’s Next

    Until a new House speaker is installed, it’s unlikely that further action will be taken on bills to fund the government, with lawmakers facing a Nov. 17 deadline to provide more money or face a partial government shutdown.

    Although the speaker sets the overall legislative agenda in the House, it’s the House majority leader who schedules specific bills to be debated and voted upon in the chamber.

    Republican lawmakers said they would need at least a week to choose a new speaker, which will eat into the time necessary to pass that needed legislation.

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 12, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    Democrats can also put forth a candidate and are expected to offer Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

    Mr. Jeffries lost the race to Mr. McCarthy in January. That race went 15 rounds and took days to resolve.

    To win, a candidate needs the votes of a majority of members present.

    Mr. McCarthy, the first speaker removed by a motion to vacate in U.S. history, said he wouldn’t run again. He remains in the House and can vote in the upcoming speaker election.

    Under the U.S. Constitution, the House speaker doesn’t have to be a member of Congress, so some Republicans have floated the name of former President Donald Trump for the position, even though he’s running for president and has said he doesn’t want the job.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:30

  • Putin Claims Successful Test Of Nuclear-Powered 'Global-Range' Cruise Missile For 1st Time
    Putin Claims Successful Test Of Nuclear-Powered ‘Global-Range’ Cruise Missile For 1st Time

    Each year, Russian President Vladimir Putin uses the occasion of the Valdai Discussion Club hosted in Sochi to present on a wide range of foreign policy issues in an off the cuff manner, which most often comes out in Q&A format. He did the same Thursday at this year’s Valdai event, and one of the statements which is grabbing the attention of Western officials was related to testing nuclear weapons, at a sensitive moment where the last nuclear weapons treaty with Washington is set to fail.

    “I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” Putin began in that segment of a speech before Russian foreign policy officials. That’s when he made a statement being widely perceived as signaling openness to resumption of nuclear testing: 

    “I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” he added. “I am not ready to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not.”

    Illustrative, via BBC

    He also raised eyebrows in immediately touting completed work on the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, with the former being identified as a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

    “We conducted the last successful test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered global-range cruise missile,” he said. This weapon hasn’t been publicly mentioned by Putin since 2018, and suddenly he’s revealed it’s been successfully tested.

    Code-named Skyfall by NATO, the consensus among Western analysts has long been that the technology is likely too hard to achieve given unreliability and volatility of such a nuclear propulsion engine. On the deep significance of the ‘threat’ to possibly put the Burevestnik on combat readiness, Mario Nawfal comments:

    Putin also declined to rule out the possibility it could carry out weapons tests involving nuclear explosions for the first time in more than three decades. Today, Putin warned the West of a ‘response’ to the pressure, and his willingness to ‘end the war’:

    “There is permanently increasing military and political pressure [from the West]. We have to respond. I have said many times that it was not us who started the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it.”

    “The West has lost the sense of reality. Ukrainian conflict is not about territories. The issue is about global order.” Zelensky warned Europe that if Ukraine loses, Russia will attack other counties as well. Is Russia posturing again, as we’ve seen in the past, or is this not a bluff?

    * * *

    Other interesting moments from Putin’s words before Valdai are as follows…

    Putin: Not against Ukraine’s EU aspirations, but categorically against NATO membership.

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    West is now crossing all boundaries in the proxy war:

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    He additionally reiterated that Russia has not only resisted US-Europe led sanctions, but he is optimistic for the future of a thriving Russian economy…

    “In general, the situation is stable. We have overcome all the sanctions-related issues, and have started the next stage of [economic] development on a new basis, which is fundamentally important,” Putin stated.

    The West always needs an enemy, he further stated:

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    He also stressed the usual themes of US unilateralism and “colonialism” – and hegemony at the expense of the rest of the globe:

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    Putin also at one point asserted that he’s not seeking to expand the war to other countries – contrary to what many pundits in the West have claimed.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 20:05

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Our Establishment's Alternate Realities
    Victor Davis Hanson: Our Establishment’s Alternate Realities

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions.

    Something like that is happening in the United States. Eight million illegal immigrants have entered the United States by the deliberate erasure of the southern border.

    Apparently, the Biden administration sees some unstated advantage in destroying U.S. immigration law and welcoming in would-be new constituents.

    Yet, the more the millions arrive, the more Joe Biden and his Homeland Security director Alejandro Mayorkas flat out lie that “the border is secure.”

    They both live in a world of make-believe, passed off to the American people as reality.

    And the more the Americans are lied to that the border is secure, the more they poll—currently 77 percent—that it is not.

    Biden apparently has reversed course and begun using the former pejorative “Bidenomics” as a term of pride.

    He now praises this three-year effort to borrow $6-7 trillion, and spike interest rates threefold to 7% on home mortgages—even as prices on essentials like food and fuel have spiked 25-30% since he entered office.

    The more that Biden brags about what he did to the economy, the more people poll—over 60%—dissatisfaction with his alternate reality of “Bidenomics.”

    Do we remember the humiliation in August 2021 in Afghanistan?

    The more Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Joe Biden assured that the American military presence was stable, the more swiftly it crumbled and descended into the worst mass flight of an American army since Vietnam.

    Consider natural gas and oil. The Biden administration waged war on both by canceling pipelines, drilling on federal lands, and entire oil fields.

    When the price soared and the 2022 midterms neared, Biden suddenly begged formerly shunned illiberal regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela to pump all the hated oil they could to lower the price.

    A desperate Biden drained much of the strategic petroleum reserve—he has yet to refill it—simply to lower the price of gasoline and thus win voters back to the Democratic Party.

    When the midterms passed, Biden resumed his attack on once bad, then good, and now bad again fossil fuels—at least until the 2024 election.

    Stranger still is the denial of the current crime wave in our major cities. Predators and thugs have turned once iconic downtowns into either war zones or ghost towns or both.

    Smash-and-grab swarming of stores and matter-of-fact shoplifting are destroying commerce in our major cities.

    Unsustainable stores either leave or shut down. Communities who vote for politicians who defund the police blame the stores for leaving—but not the criminals whose brazen thefts made it impossible to do business in the inner city.

    Now modern-day pirates with impunity storm, sink, and rob boats of all kinds in the Oakland marina and estuary.

    Leftwing journalists and activists, and even Democratic politicians, who all supported defunding the police, now cannot escape the resulting street violence and unleashed murderous predations.

    Everyone knows the culprit is the post-George Floyd effort—with Biden administration complicity—to defund the police, end cash bail, institutionalize catch-and-release of criminals, and show more sympathy toward victimizers than victims.

    Yet neither state nor local officials nor Joe Biden himself even admits to a crime wave. The more the public is attacked and avoids major downtowns, the more it polls furor over the crime wave.

    The more our officials, in gaslighting style, claim such alarm is all in our collective heads, the more they themselves are attacked by the very criminals their policies empowered.

    Sometimes the fantasies extend to the trivial. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn) for months has dressed like an utter slob while on the Senate floor. As a gesture of approval, Democrats junked the dress code so he could wear his sloppy cut-offs and hoodie.

    Americans were to assume his slovenly costume was normal apparel—and they were hypercritical for thinking otherwise.

    Recently Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a Senate fire alarm to disrupt and delay a vote on continuing the funding of the government. But he got caught on a Capitol surveillance video committing the crime.

    Bowman whined that he got confused. He preposterously claimed by pulling the alarm he thought he was opening a door to go vote.

    All of that was pure fantasy. The alarm was clearly marked. A sign in front of the door warned not to enter. And the door itself was placarded with cautions that any attempt to open it would set off emergency alarms.

    No matter. Bowman assumed by calling his critics “Nazis” and using the race card, he could invent a virtual reality.

    Despite our epidemic of fantasy, there remains reality.

    And we will soon rediscover it all too soon.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:40

  • Mapping The Gerontocracy
    Mapping The Gerontocracy

    The passing of California Senator Dianne Feinstein at the age of 90 is throwing a spotlight on America’s political establishment, not only with the government narrowly escaping shutdown, but on questions of ageism, representation, and fitness for office.

    Feinstein had a noteworthy career. As the longest-running woman in the Senate’s history, she served the nation’s most populous state.

    Yet, as Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld details below, Feinstein’s growing health complications along with two incidents of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell freezing while speaking this year highlight the growing trend of America’s aging leadership.

    The above graphic shows the age of U.S. senators, by state as of October 5, 2023.

    How the Age of U.S. Senators Breaks Down

    Today, 66% of senators are over the age of 60.

    While senators have historically been older than the American population, consider how the median age in the U.S. is 39 according to the 2020 U.S. Census, and the median age of the Senate prior to Feinstein’s passing was 65.

    We can see in the below table how the Senate has become growingly older, influenced by longer lifespans and the increased likelihood of members running for re-election (and winning). In addition, members in the Baby Boomer generation, ages 58 to 77 years old, often have more resources and wealth to help secure their seat.

    Name Senator Age State Party
    Grassley, Chuck 90 Iowa Republican
    Sanders, Bernard 82 Vermont Independent
    McConnell, Mitch 81 Kentucky Republican
    Risch, James E. 80 Idaho Republican
    Cardin, Benjamin L. 80 Maryland Democratic
    King, Angus S., Jr. 79 Maine Independent
    Durbin, Richard J. 78 Illinois Democratic
    Blumenthal, Richard 77 Connecticut Democratic
    Markey, Edward J. 77 Massachusetts Democratic
    Carper, Thomas R. 76 Delaware Democratic
    Shaheen, Jeanne 76 New Hampshire Democratic
    Welch, Peter 76 Vermont Democratic
    Manchin, Joe, III 76 West Virginia Democratic
    Romney, Mitt 76 Utah Republican
    Hirono, Mazie K. 75 Hawaii Democratic
    Warren, Elizabeth 74 Massachusetts Democratic
    Wyden, Ron 74 Oregon Democratic
    Stabenow, Debbie 73 Michigan Democratic
    Reed, Jack 73 Rhode Island Democratic
    Schumer, Charles E. 72 New York Democratic
    Murray, Patty 72 Washington Democratic
    Boozman, John 72 Arkansas Republican
    Crapo, Mike 72 Idaho Republican
    Wicker, Roger F. 72 Mississippi Republican
    Fischer, Deb 72 Nebraska Republican
    Hickenlooper,
    John W.    		 71 Colorado Democratic
    Kennedy, John 71 Louisiana Republican
    Blackburn, Marsha 71 Tennessee Republican
    Cornyn, John 71 Texas Republican
    Barrasso, John 71 Wyoming Republican
    Brown, Sherrod 70 Ohio Democratic
    Scott, Rick 70 Florida Republican
    Collins, Susan M. 70 Maine Republican
    Menendez, Robert 69 New Jersey Democratic
    Tuberville, Tommy 69 Alabama Republican
    Braun, Mike 69 Indiana Republican
    Moran, Jerry 69 Kansas Republican
    Capito,
    Shelley Moore    		 69 West Virginia Republican
    Lummis, Cynthia M. 69 Wyoming Republican
    Warner, Mark R. 68 Virginia Democratic
    Graham, Lindsey 68 South Carolina Republican
    Rounds, Mike 68 South Dakota Republican
    Johnson, Ron 68 Wisconsin Republican
    Tester, Jon 67 Montana Democratic
    Whitehouse, Sheldon 67 Rhode Island Democratic
    Rosen, Jacky 66 Nevada Democratic
    Merkley, Jeff 66 Oregon Democratic
    Murkowski, Lisa 66 Alaska Republican
    Hoeven, John 66 North Dakota Republican
    Cassidy, Bill 66 Louisiana Republican
    Smith, Tina 65 Minnesota Democratic
    Hassan,
    Margaret Wood    		 65 New Hampshire Democratic
    Kaine, Tim 65 Virginia Democratic
    Van Hollen, Chris 64 Maryland Democratic
    Peters, Gary C. 64 Michigan Democratic
    Cantwell, Maria 64 Washington Democratic
    Hyde-Smith, Cindy 64 Mississippi Republican
    Hagerty, Bill 64 Tennessee Republican
    Klobuchar, Amy 63 Minnesota Democratic
    Casey,
    Robert P., Jr.    		 63 Pennsylvania Democratic
    Marshall, Roger 63 Kansas Republican
    Tillis, Thom 63 North Carolina Republican
    Cramer, Kevin 62 North Dakota Republican
    Thune, John 62 South Dakota Republican
    Baldwin, Tammy 61 Wisconsin Democratic
    Daines, Steve 61 Montana Republican
    Coons,
    Christopher A.    		 60 Delaware Democratic
    Paul, Rand 60 Kentucky Republican
    Kelly, Mark 59 Arizona Democratic
    Cortez Masto,
    Catherine    		 59 Nevada Democratic
    Ricketts, Pete 59 Nebraska Republican
    Bennet, Michael F. 58 Colorado Democratic
    Sullivan, Dan 58 Alaska Republican
    Scott, Tim 58 South Carolina Republican
    Gillibrand, Kirsten E. 56 New York Democratic
    Duckworth, Tammy 55 Illinois Democratic
    Lankford, James 55 Oklahoma Republican
    Warnock,
    Raphael G.    		 54 Georgia Democratic
    Booker, Cory A. 54 New Jersey Democratic
    Fetterman, John 54 Pennsylvania Democratic
    Ernst, Joni 53 Iowa Republican
    Rubio, Marco 52 Florida Republican
    Cruz, Ted 52 Texas Republican
    Lee, Mike 52 Utah Republican
    Heinrich, Martin 51 New Mexico Democratic
    Luján, Ben Ray 51 New Mexico Democratic
    Young, Todd 51 Indiana Republican
    Budd, Ted 51 North Carolina Republican
    Padilla, Alex 50 California Democratic
    Murphy, Christopher 50 Connecticut Democratic
    Schatz, Brian 50 Hawaii Democratic
    Schmitt, Eric 48 Missouri Republican
    Sinema, Kyrsten 47 Arizona Independent
    Cotton, Tom 46 Arkansas Republican
    Mullin, Markwayne 46 Oklahoma Republican
    Laphonza Butler 44 California Democratic
    Hawley, Josh 43 Missouri Republican
    Britt, Katie Boyd 41 Alabama Republican
    Vance, J.D. 39 Ohio Republican
    Ossoff, Jon 36 Georgia Democratic

    On the other end of the spectrum are nine senators under the age of 50, including Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia, at 36, and Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, at 39. Laphonza Butler, 44, the newly appointed senator to replace Feinstein, also falls within this camp.

    This trend of an older Senate may have policy ramifications.

    Studies show that lawmakers’ identities can influence legislative behavior. Older members of Congress have been shown to have a higher likelihood of introducing legislation on prescription drugs and long-term care, and other issues affecting seniors.

    Other studies show that racial minorities, women, and veterans are more likely to intervene in Congress in the interest of these groups.

    Top U.S. Senators, by Time in Office

    Along with the trend of an older Congress, the average number of years served has also increased.

    Today, senators in the 118th Congress have served 11.2 years on average as of January 2023. Over the 20th century, turnover has decreased due to more senators seeking re-election, which stands in contrast to the Senate’s early history when turnover happened more frequently.

    Below, we show the currently serving senators that have held office the longest, based on their time in both the Senate and the House:

    Name State Party Number of Years in Office
    Grassley, Chuck Iowa Republican 48 years
    Markey, Ed Massachusetts Democrat 46 years
    Wyden, Ron Oregon Democrat 42 years
    Schumer, Charles E. New York Democrat 42 years
    McConnell, Mitch Kentucky Republican 38 years

    Together, the top five U.S. senators have served a combined 216 years in office.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:20

  • "As I Look Into The Future, I See Anarchy"
    “As I Look Into The Future, I See Anarchy”

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    One of my favorite investors that I love reading and following, Harris Kupperman, has offered up his thoughts on what his next big bet could be.

    Harris is the founder of Praetorian Capital, a hedge fund focused on using macro trends to guide stock selection.

    Harris is one of my favorite follows and I find his opinions – especially on macro and commodities – to be extremely resourceful. I’m certain my readers will find the same. I was excited when he offered up his latest thoughts, published below (slightly edited for grammar, bold emphasis is QTR’s).

    Please be sure to read both my and Harris’ disclaimers, located at the bottom of this post.

    The Great Macro Dreamscape Part 1

    In late March of 2020, one of the greatest wealth transfers of my lifetime began. It remade our world—or at least it remade my world. Those who recognized Covid as a hoax, were there to reap the rewards. Others who cowered in fear, were my victims. While I pressed the accelerator on exposure and risk, others sought safety in rapidly depreciating cash, or worse, shorted risk assets while they hid from benign germs. Our disparate account statements stand witness to the decisions we each made.

    Now, as we enter the great macro dreamscape, I realize that Covid was simply a warm-up for what seems almost inevitable. Rarely has the world’s only superpower undergone a self-immolation of its multi-faceted role in the global order.

    Gone are our desires to be the global hegemon, support the world’s reserve currency, or even be seen as a respected adult. As we’re increasingly banished to the kid’s table of global discourse, the macro landscape is spiraling at an ever-faster pace. Our bond market is drifting off, doomed by our precarious fiscal balances. Our place in the world is questioned after Afghan goat herders and then Russian convicts faced off against our military machine with great success.

    Meanwhile, our institutions, long hailed globally, descend into corruption, nepotism and incompetence. America isn’t dead, but it needs to be totally reinvented. However, that’s all in the future; as macro investors, we only deal in the present. Nothing is carved in stone, but the outcomes, while path-dependent are increasingly becoming unavoidable.

    Empires rise and fall. They follow an arc. The path downward can be graceful, or clumsy—gradual or sudden. This uncertainty is what creates the current opportunity. Meanwhile, the inevitability of this path, sets in action one of those rare wealth transfers that comes along only once or twice in an investor’s career.

    I intend to take more than my fair share. I intend to be a pig at the trough.

    As an inflection trader, with a focus on second-tier macro trends, I suffered through the 2010s. It was a miserable time for investors like me. Sure, I made a bunch of money, I cannot cry too hard, but it was tough to squeeze Alpha from stone. The trends were mere whispers, and the rewards weren’t always discernable.

    I had to hop around, scavenge at opportunities, and suffer through long periods with little to do. It was frustrating—especially as the Globalist Cucks hid out in large cap tech stocks, that seemed to appreciate endlessly, with single-digit realized volatility.

    Then Covid came along, awakening all the dormant imbalances in the global order. The overreaction of governments finally tipped things out of stasis. For a fleeting moment, there was a fissure in the universe. They opened the skies and money rained down upon my portfolio. I grabbed it until my arms grew so tired that I couldn’t reach out and grab any more. I literally had to force myself to stay in the game, to stay engaged, to focus and push the envelope—especially after the boredom of the prior decade. I also knew it wouldn’t last—I had to maximize the opportunity.

    50% OFF ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS: Subscribe and get 50% off and no price hikes for as long as you wish to be a subscriber.

    Then, the mana became scarce. Opportunity disappeared. Tech resumed its dominance and inflections became rare. I’ve spent the past six quarters wondering if we’re back in the narrative of the past decade, or just traipsing through an extended intermission.

    I’m increasingly of the view that we’re in the eye of the storm, a moment to catch one’s bearings and reassess everything that was previously upheld as the truth. The rules are no longer the rules.

    The Globalists have tried to resurrect their eminence following the Peak Globalist cluster-fuckery that was Covid. Yet, in the process, they’ve shattered their own image, while not realizing it. That revelation is still oncoming. Now freed from a need to uphold their aura of magnanimity, they’ll unleash their most insidious and aggressive attacks on the natural order.

    This will be their final undoing, accompanied first by great suffering for those who are not part of their clique. There is no retreat for the Davos Crowd, they will only push forward, their evil will metastasize. Fortunately, it’s impossible to be a diabolical leader when the peasants laugh at your acronyms and meme your propaganda. The world simply will not congeal to their mold. The tussle to win at all costs will consume them and the nations that they represent.

    Today’s malaise in equity markets is simply an echo bubble; peak beneficent Globalism has already passed us by. Soon, it all comes crumbling down. There’s nothing to replace it. Rather, there’s a fight amongst those who’d gladly inherit the world—yet none are particularly ready to bear that mantle.

    Now, as I look into the future, I see anarchy. Said another way, I see opportunity. Covid was the dry run. Now we’re into the main event. Will the US go down in a supernova of stupid? Or will we stand and fight?

    Will we cower from carbon and affix rainbows to every physical structure, defying the laws of progress? Or will we get on with it and try our best to avert the tailspin? I have no answers, but I know storm clouds when I see them; the storm wall is visible and approaching. How our leaders face these demons, or incite them in fury, will set the tone for this decade’s capital markets.

    I’m not here to say what’s right or wrong. I’m merely focused on the mission at hand. I’m an observer of events, a trader of markets. I believe we’re now entering the golden age of global macro.

    Old orders are collapsing, pulled down by the weight of their hubris. New orders aren’t yet ready to take their place. Chaos is the eager ally of traders with an open mind. Great traders have a fluidity that adjusts to new realities, while conjuring visions of tail events. I expect a proper clusterfuck, full of fury, violence and volatility. While I recognize the suffering that this will bring, I also know that my mission is to stretch my arms out wide and grab as much as I can.

    It’s about to rain opportunity for Macro traders. Unfortunately, it won’t be wealth creation, it will be a wealth transfer. This isn’t my choice, I’m simply a creature of the environment thrust upon me. Those who are ill prepared, are about to be victimized by those who not only understand what’s coming but have educated themselves on how to profit from it. This is my moment!

    War, famine, pestilence, and other biblical plagues are mere phenomena when compared to the pernicious nature of inflation. Unless you’ve lived in a country with persistent inflation, you cannot understand how it works, how it infects society, or how it re-orients prior relationships amongst the political class, the economy and capital assets. Books are mere curios; they cannot really explain the social effects of inflation, the lives destroyed by bad decisions, nor those who profited through it. You need to see it yourself; you need to experience it. Inflation is the great leveler.

    My focus in college was late Roman decline. I am a fatalist at heart—Gibbon was the relative optimist. At the same time, I see opportunity everywhere. Many will say, “then why don’t you just buy gold?” That’s the lazy man’s hedge for what’s coming. Hugo Stinnes is the man to study, not the parasites selling you collapsing mining schemes.

    Come along on this journey into the abyss of the socialist nation-state in its death-rattle. New worlds will be formed. New rules invented. A new hope. But first, the walls must tumble around us. We cannot get too many steps ahead in this adventure. The extreme amplitude of opportunities, the binary nature of bad decisions, they all haunt me, as I know what’s coming.

    When you’re treading on the quicksand of a collapsing global order, every trade may be your last. One cannot get distracted—one must stay focused. A better world will come out of the ashes. I want to invest in that world. Investing in chaos has a melancholy to it. However, I’m a trader—I trade the world that I see. That world is shifting and fast. Castles are crumbling. Everything we’ve held sacred in finance is turning upside down. The pace of change will now accelerate, the oddity, the confusion, the old rules vaporizing—they’ll bury speculators who cannot adapt. I plan to prosper.

    The next few years will be when winners simply keep winning, because they’re grounded in history, with a healthy dose of cynicism and libertarian ethos. The many will grab for wealth, yet mostly end up with fistfuls of rapidly depreciating sand. Last generation’s winners will surrender everything. The laws of finance and even nature itself will be re-invented. Open your mind to the possibilities. You are on this phantasmal voyage; even if you try and disembark—the choice isn’t yours. It’s simply part of the cycle. Instead, embrace it. Prepare for it. Love it.

    It’s about to get wild…

    I’ve waited my whole life for this. I’ve studied. I’ve prepared. I’m ready. Bring it on!

    If you enjoy this content, we’d love to have you on our subscription list. 

    QTR’s Disclaimer: I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

    Harris’ Disclaimer: Past performance of Praetorian Capital Fund LLC and its feeder fund Praetorian Capital Offshore Ltd. (collectively, the “Funds”) is not indicative of future results. No representations or warranties of any kind are made or intended, and none should be inferred, with respect to the economic return or the tax consequences from a potential investment in the Funds. Each investor should consult their own counsel and accountant for advice concerning the various legal, tax and economic matters concerning their investment. The information provided herein does not constitute an offer to sell an interest in the Funds. Such offer can only be made to qualified investors pursuant to the Funds’ Confidential Private Placement Memorandum (“Offering Memorandum”), the Subscription Documents relating thereto and the Limited Liability Company Agreement, as applicable, which set forth the complete terms of the offer. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 19:00

  • Starbucks Closing 7 San Francisco Locations Amid Crime Wave (But Swears It's Unrelated)
    Starbucks Closing 7 San Francisco Locations Amid Crime Wave (But Swears It’s Unrelated)

    In July of 2022, Starbucks announced the closure of 16 profitable locations due to dangerous incidents involving drug use and “other disruptions” in cafes. In a leaked video, former interim CEO Howard Schultz said that the US “has become unsafe,” and that Starbucks is a “window to America.”

    Now, the company is closing seven locations in San Francisco. And while they didn’t cite the explosion in crime in the Golden Gate City (and no leaked videos to shed light), the move comes amid a shocking survey that found roughly 97% of San Francisco’s restaurants have experienced some form of graffiti or property crime in the past month.

    “Each year as a standard course of business, we evaluate the store portfolio to determine where we can best meet our community and customers’ needs,” a spokesperson told the NY Post on Wednesday. “This includes opening new locations, identifying stores in need of investment or renovation, exploring locations where an alternative format is needed and, in some instances, re-evaluating our footprint.”

    Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, some 40 retail stores have ditched the once-bustling Union Square section of downtown San Francisco — in addition to the dozens of others that have pulled up stakes from surrounding regions of the city.

    Nordstrom, CB2, Anthropologie, Whole Foods, Old Navy, Saks Off 5th, Office Depot, Athleta, Abercrombie & Fitch, Disney, Marshall’s, H&M, and Gap have either closed stores within San Francisco city limits or announced plans to do so. -NY Post

    In June, a study by personal finance website WalletHub ranked San Francisco as the worst-run city in the country, which is no surprise considering that a commercial real estate crisis is unfolding in the downtown area as building owners are defaulting on properties. Crime is out of control, forcing businesses to flee. And Democrats who control the town appear to have no interest in enforcing law and order. 

    What’s more, SF office space has plummeted in value, while Moody’s has lowered the city’s credit rating outlook to negative amid a $780 million budget shortfall due to shrinking tax revenues.

    And now, the city’s homeless residents have seven fewer places to call home.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:40

  • Johnstone: When Even The Nazis Aren't Nazis
    Johnstone: When Even The Nazis Aren’t Nazis

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    In what Matt Taibbi has described as “the worst op-ed in history”, Politico Europe has published an astonishing article titled “Fighting against the USSR didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi”, which defends the scandal of the Canadian parliament applauding a literal SS Nazi veteran as a “complicated” issue that is being exploited by “propagandists”.

    Last year liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler. This year they’re defending Nazis and saying you can’t hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler.

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    ❖

    I used to think Nazis were bad but then the mainstream press explained to me that many of the Nazis had reasons for wanting to be Nazis.

    ❖

    For generations the US empire has been manufacturing a cultural obsession with the second world war in order to frame all its subsequent wars as “Good Guys vs Hitler Guys”, then the millisecond that framework became inconvenient it’s “Actually the Nazis weren’t all that bad if you think about it.”

    ❖

    So let’s recap.

    Jeremy Corbyn supporters: Nazis.

    Palestinian rights activists: Nazis.

    People who criticize Israel: Nazis.

    People who didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton: Nazis.

    Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi insignia and Nazi ideology: not Nazis.

    Actual SS Nazis: not Nazis.

    ❖

    The war in Ukraine is a giant field demo for war profiteering corporations to show prospective buyers and investors how effective their products can be at ripping apart human bodies. The whole country’s been turned into a giant advertisement for the military industrial complex.

    Ukraine is the Superbowl for arms industry ads, except instead of costing millions of dollars to advertise there, it costs rivers of human blood.

    ❖

    Super excited for a future Republican president to eventually end the US proxy war in Ukraine and get celebrated as an antiwar hero and then immediately take all those military resources and direct them at China.

    ❖

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    Oh no China’s threatening the US-led liberal world order that destroyed Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and Syria and Yemen and Ukraine and keeps ramping up nuclear brinkmanship and working to topple any government who disobeys it and crushing the world to death with an iron fist.

    ❖

    In the last cold war the media talked about the risk of nuclear war all the time, even at points when the risk wasn’t very high. In the new cold war the media barely talk about the risk of nuclear war at all, even at points where the risk is skyrocketing.

    We don’t talk enough or think enough about the fact that the last cold war brought us inches from nuclear annihilation multiple times due to unforeseeable and unpreventable occurrences, yet we’re plunging headlong into a new cold war with two separate nuclear powers.

    The list of nuclear close calls shows that we survived the last cold war by sheer dumb luck. There’s no evidence-based reason to believe we’ll get lucky again. But here we are, spinning the cylinder of the revolver and putting it to our temple once again. The last cold war showed us in no uncertain terms that nuclear brinkmanship entails far too many small moving parts to accurately predict and control what will happen. And now we’re moving into a high-tech multi-front nuclear standoff with far more small moving parts than before.

    ❖

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    It’s just fascinating how everything gets shifted to the right over the decades. Mother Jones is a centrist propaganda rag. Martin Luther King has been historically revised as an innocuous shitlib. George W Bush is just a harmless old painter. Nazis are just brave heroes protecting their homeland.

    ❖

    I doubt I’ll ever care about any US president being investigated for corruption or misconduct or collusion with a foreign nation. All US presidents are corrupt liars, and that will always be the least of their crimes. Get back to me when they’re jailed for war crimes and mass murder.

    You can care about partisan point-scoring over shit like Trump falsifying business records or Biden engaging in corrupt activities with his son all you want if that’s what excites you, but don’t ask me to. It looks like both parties are going to be trying to impeach each other’s presidents back and forth for the foreseeable future; that’s just what US politics looks like now. Meanwhile the US empire marches on completely unhindered amid all the vapid partisan vitriol.

    ❖

    Trying to fix crime without addressing the underlying causes of crime is like treating an infection with nothing but painkillers. The factors which give rise to crime are no mystery: trauma, poverty, inequality and despair. Just throwing people in prison addresses none of these.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:20

  • SEC Sues Elon To Compel Him To Testify; Musk Responds It's Time For Punitive Action Against Regulators Who "Abuse Power For Political Gain"
    SEC Sues Elon To Compel Him To Testify; Musk Responds It’s Time For Punitive Action Against Regulators Who “Abuse Power For Political Gain”

    The SEC, (which stands for either Suck Elon’s C**k or the Securities and Exchange Commission depending on who you ask)…

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    … has sued Elon Musk (again), this time to compel – or at least try – the billionaire CEO of Tesla to testify regarding his purchase of Twitter last year, CNBC reported Thursday. 

    The SEC alleged in a complaint filed in the Northern District of California that Musk didn’t appear for testimony that was required via a subpoena that was served to Musk in May 2023. 

    An official litigation release from the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed on Thursday, said: 

    If a person or entity refuses to comply with a subpoena issued by SEC enforcement staff pursuant to a formal order of investigation, the Commission may file a subpoena enforcement action in federal district court seeking an order compelling compliance. According to the SEC staff’s filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the testimony subpoena to Musk relates to an ongoing investigation by the SEC regarding, among other things, potential violations of various provisions of the federal securities laws in connection with (a) Musk’s 2022 purchases of Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) stock, and (b) Musk’s 2022 statements and SEC filings relating to Twitter.

    The SEC also claimed that Musk skipped out on testimony just days before he was supposed to show up: 

    “According to the filing, Musk failed to appear for testimony as required by the investigative subpoena served by the SEC, despite: (1) agreeing to appear for testimony on a mutually agreed upon date in September 2023; (2) having been served with a subpoena in May 2023 requiring his appearance for testimony in the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office on that mutually agreed upon date; and (3) raising no objection to the subpoena from May 2023 until two days before his scheduled testimony date in September 2023, when Musk notified the SEC that he would not appear.”

    The SEC complaint says: “Musk’s ongoing refusal to comply with the SEC’s administrative subpoena is hindering and delaying the SEC staff’s investigation to determine whether violations of the federal securities laws have occurred. Accordingly, the SEC now asks the Court to compel Musk to appear for investigative testimony.”

    The SEC said it tried to meet Musk in Fort Worth, Texas, “the closest SEC office to Musk’s current personal residence”, and that multiple dates were offered for both October and November of this year. Lawyers for the SEC said Musk refused to comply with the subpoena due to “several spurious objections, including an objection to San Francisco as an appropriate testimony location.”

    “These good faith efforts were met with Musk’s blanket refusal to appear for testimony,” the SEC claims in its suit. It also claimed its “staff is continuing its fact-finding investigation and, to date, has not concluded that any individual or entity has violated the federal securities laws.”

    In response, Musk was – as usual – laconic and to the point, commenting on the same twitter X that he bought, that what is actually needed is “a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 18:00

  • Civil Rights Agency Sues 2 Businesses That Fired Workers Over COVID Vaccine Refusal
    Civil Rights Agency Sues 2 Businesses That Fired Workers Over COVID Vaccine Refusal

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

    COVID-19 vaccines in a file photograph. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has sued two businesses for firing workers who had sought religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

    United Healthcare Services, a Cleveland-based health care provider, and Arkansas-based Hank’s Furniture violated federal law when denying the exemption requests and firing the workers, according to the suits.

    Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination over religion and requires businesses to accommodate a worker’s religious practice unless doing so would cause “undue hardship.”

    “Once an employer is on notice that an employee’s sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance prevents the employee from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, the employer must provide a reasonable accommodation unless it would pose an undue hardship,” Debra Lawrence, a regional attorney for the EEOC, said in a statement. “Neither healthcare providers nor COVID-19 vaccination requirements are excepted from Title VII’s protections against religious discrimination.”

    Marsha Rucker, another EEOC attorney, said the suit against the furniture retailer “should remind employers they must communicate with employees requesting accommodation for religious beliefs and try to accommodate those beliefs whenever reasonably possible.”

    She pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found in favor of a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who sued after the service refused to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays.

    “There is now a higher bar for employers to meet when denying a religious accommodation,” Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, a law firm that brings similar cases, said in a statement. “People should not have to choose between their faith and their job.”

    The EEOC said in 2021 that businesses could impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates but would need to provide religious and medical accommodations.

    United Healthcare told The Epoch Times in an email that it plans to “vigorously defend ourselves” against the suit.

    “Among other things, the EEOC’s contention that the employee in question was a remote worker with no in-person job responsibilities is inaccurate,” the company said. “We continue to respect individual beliefs, while working to ensure the health, well-being, and safety of our colleagues and those we are privileged to serve.”

    Hank’s Furniture didn’t have lawyers listed on the court docket and couldn’t otherwise be reached.

    Remote Worker Fired

    Amanda Stone, who started working for United in 2014, was promoted in 2016 to a supervisory position. She was transitioned to work full time from home in 2018 due to budget cuts. Since then, Ms. Stone’s job hasn’t involved any face-to-face duties or a need to enter United facilities, according to one of the suits.

    Along with many other U.S. companies, United Healthcare in October 2021 announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The vaccination requirement was purportedly only for workers who needed to enter the company’s facilities or meet face-to-face with customers, suppliers, or members. United specified that it didn’t apply to people who worked remotely.

    Ms. Stone, though, received word that she needed to get a shot, the suit said.

    Ms. Stone is a Christian who said she has sincerely held religious beliefs, including an opposition to abortion that prevents her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. The shots were developed with or tested using cell lines derived from aborted fetuses.

    Ms. Stone submitted a religious exemption request on Oct. 6, 2021, outlining her objections to vaccination. United issued a denial on Oct. 26, 2021.

    Ms. Stone asked her boss how to appeal the decision. She was told she couldn’t appeal but could try again. Ms. Stone did so and was denied a second time. She wasn’t informed either time why she was denied.

    United told Ms. Stone on Nov. 30, 2021, that she was being placed on leave for not complying with the mandate. United said if she didn’t receive a vaccine, she might be terminated. United fired her on Jan. 2, 2022.

    The U.S. court in southern Ohio was asked to block United from discriminating against people on the basis of their religion, ordering United to give Ms. Stone back pay with interest, front pay, or reinstatement, and provide compensation for losses resulting in its discrimination.

    Company Said It Would Never Grant Exemption

    Kaitlyn O’Neal started working for Hank’s Furniture in 2020 and was promoted in 2021 to be an assistant manager.

    Ms. O’Neal was informed by the company in July 2021 that it planned to encourage employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the other suit. The company wanted all managers to immediately receive a shot.

    Ms. O’Neal said she didn’t plan to get the vaccine.

    Several weeks later, Ms. O’Neal informed the company that she had sincerely held religious beliefs that would prevent her from getting vaccinated, and asked for a religious exemption.

    Hank’s Furniture sent her online articles in an attempt to change her mind, according to the suit. When contacted by the company, Ms. O’Neal said she hadn’t. When she inquired about how to submit a written request for a religious exemption, the company didn’t respond.

    When Ms. O’Neal complained, her manager and supervisor said Hank’s Furniture didn’t care about her reasons and that the company would never grant an exemption, the EEOC said.

    On Aug. 20, 2021, Hank’s Furniture announced that its policy of encouragement had become a vaccine mandate. Workers who didn’t receive a vaccine by Oct. 31, 2021, would be fired, it said.

    Ms. O’Neal submitted a written request for an accommodation, which was ignored by the company.

    After she followed up, the company said her request was “severely lacking” and was rejected. Ms. O’Neal asked for help in filing a proper request, but the company refused, before firing her on Oct. 31, 2021.

    The EEOC asked the U.S. court in northern Florida to award Ms. O’Neal back pay with interest and order Hank’s Furniture to pay front pay or reinstatement, compensation for losses, and damages. The company should also be blocked from discriminating against workers on the basis of religion, the agency said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:40

  • Putin On Prigozhin Death: Wagner Leaders Got Drunk, High, & Played With Grenades Aboard Plane
    Putin On Prigozhin Death: Wagner Leaders Got Drunk, High, & Played With Grenades Aboard Plane

    President Vladimir Putin just floated the most interesting – and let’s say, colorful – theory to date on why Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane went down outside Moscow on August 23. While much of Western reporting and even Russian media itself have described the Wagner chief’s death as due to either an anti-air missile or a planted bomb being detonated, Putin told an annual meeting of the Valdai Club in Sochi on Thursday that Prigozhin and his men likely got drunk or possibly high, and were playing with grenades.

    Bloomberg, which picked up on the unexpected public comments, wrote: “Russian President Vladimir Putin said pieces of grenade were found in the bodies of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and other mercenary leaders who died in a plane crash, as he hinted that the man who led an armed revolt against the Kremlin’s military leadership had been a drug user.”

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    Putin said, “In the bodies of those who died in the air crash fragments of hand grenades were found.” 

    The Russian leader expressed regret that toxicology tests weren’t conducted on the recovered bodies at the crash site, as they “found not only $10 million in cash, but 5 kilograms of cocaine” in a subsequent raid on Wagner PMC’s main offices in St. Petersburg.

    In total 10 passengers as well as crew were killed aboard the Embraer SA Legacy 600 private jet. US sources have speculated it was likely a bomb that was placed on the plane, and detonated midair. There’s also the Russian shootdown theory, ordered by either Putin or the military as ‘revenge’ for the June Wagner mutiny.

    Broadly, Western sources have viewed the whole killing as an assassination ordered by Putin himself, but which the Kremlin has denied as an “absolute lie”. 

    But given the nonchalant and casual way Putin just told an audience of top Russian officials that it boils down to irresponsible mercenaries getting drunk and high and deciding to play games with hand grenades, it seems Putin could simply be openly taunting his enemies here. Is he trolling?

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    The Thursday comments on Prigozhin’s death were widely reported in international headlines soon after Putin saying them. It came during a lengthy Q&A session with the Russian leader, as is typical of the Valdai format. Putin certainly knows US and European press and officials closely watch and monitor his words at these events.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:20

  • Iraq To Fully De-Dollarize Cash Transactions By Year's End
    Iraq To Fully De-Dollarize Cash Transactions By Year’s End

    Via The Cradle,

    The Iraqi government will ban all cash withdrawals and transactions in the US dollar as of January 1st 2024, according to Mazen Ahmed, director-general of investment and remittances at the Iraqi Central Bank (CBI).

    The CBI official says that people who deposit dollars into banks before the end of 2023 will still be able to withdraw these funds in dollars next year. However, dollars deposited in 2024 will only be available in local currency at the official rate of 1,320 dinars.

    “You want to transfer? Transfer. You want a card in dollars? Here you go, you can use the card inside Iraq at the official rate, or if you want to withdraw cash, you can at the official rate in dinars… But don’t talk to me about cash dollars anymore,” Ahmed told Reuters.

    He also claimed the move is meant to “stamp out the illicit use” of about 50 percent of the $10 billion that Iraq imports in cash each year on semimonthly cargo flights from the New York Federal Reserve.

    With more than $100 billion in reserves held by US banks, Baghdad heavily relies on the goodwill of US officials to ensure the economy doesn’t collapse. Furthermore, since 2003, all Iraqi oil revenues have been paid into an account with the US Federal Reserve, allowing Washington to control the Iraqi economy and pressure its government.

    On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that US officials last month refused to approve the transfer of an extra $1 billion in cash to Iraq from the country’s oil sales proceeds.

    “After the US denied Iraq’s initial appeal last month, the [CBI] last week submitted a formal request, which the [US] Treasury is still considering,” a senior Iraqi official told the WSJ.

    The move reportedly angered Iraqi officials, who said they need access to their oil revenues to protect Iraq’s cash reserves after recent restrictions from the White House “set off panic buying of greenbacks and hoarding of dollars by exchanges.”

    US Treasury officials reportedly told CBI officials that “sending a large extra shipment is contrary to Washington’s goal of reducing Iraq’s use of US banknotes in favor of more easily traceable electronic transactions.”

    With more than $100 billion in reserves held hostage by the US, Washington has significant leverage over the Iraqi economy and banking system. In July, the US Treasury sanctioned fourteen Iraqi private banks accusing them of facilitating US dollar transfers to Iran, a country whose economy Washington seeks to suffocate via sanctions. As a result of this, nearly a third of Iraq’s 72 banks are now banned from facilitating dollar transactions.

    In 2022, Iraq’s central bank enforced tight regulations under US pressure to ensure dollars do not reach Iran. Bank clients wishing to transfer dollar funds must apply through an online platform and provide detailed information on end recipients before a transfer is approved.

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    Iraqi MP and member of the Finance Committee in Iraq’s Council of Representatives, Hussein Mouanes, told The Cradle in an exclusive interview in May: “Iraq has been and continues to be a slave to the US dollar… every country’s economic strength depends on the strength of its currency.”

    “It is clear that Iraq is economically dominated by the US, and our government does not truly control or have access to its own money… We believe that it is crucial to move away from the hegemony of the dollar, especially as it has become a tool to impose sanctions on countries. It is time for Iraq to rely on its local currency,” he added.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 17:00

  • 56 Rare Porsches Head To Auction Despite Classic Car Bubble Bursting At This Week's Sotheby's
    56 Rare Porsches Head To Auction Despite Classic Car Bubble Bursting At This Week’s Sotheby’s

    Auctioneer RM Sotheby’s announced on X earlier this week that it’s presenting “The White Collection,” a stunning 56-car-strong collection of Porsches, from 356 B Carrera 2 to a 2015 918 Spyder, on Dec. 2. 

    Sotheby’s said The White Collection took the owner over a decade to collect, where many of these vehicles are in original condition. “To truly comprehend this collection’s depth, one has to understand the secondary Porsche market,” Gord Duff, global head of auctions at RM Sotheby’s, told Forbes. 

    Duff continued, “These vehicles, which show high originality and remarkably low mileage, are among the most sought-after Porsche sports cars in the current market.”

    The collection has 63 lots, including 56 Porsche sports cars, two Porsche tractors, and other notable automotive memorabilia. 

    The vehicles will hit the auction block as the economy slumps under President Biden. JPMorgan, Goldman, Bank of America, Barclays, and Citi have all warned about faltering consumers. And stock and bond market turmoil, as well as political chaos in Washington, DC, doesn’t help with sentiment. Also, interest rates at decade highs have killed fast money at auctions. 

    Many Sotheby’s and/or Barrett-Jackson auctions are attended by wealthy boomers, maybe some millennials, and very few Gen Zers. So when risk parity portfolios underperform for boomers — their ability to splurge on classic cars and cruise ship travel becomes obsolete. 

    To get a glimpse of how boomers at RM Sotheby’s auctions feel considering the challenging political and macroenvironment. One X user posted at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday night -detailed in a series of posts – that blue chip cars were selling well below Sotheby’s price range. 

    The X user showed a 1931 Cadillac 370-A V-12 Roadster by Fleetwood that was forecasted to fetch $250k – $300k but only sold for $187k – well below the range offered by the auctioneer. 

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    “Another Pebble Beach car sold for 50% off at RM Sotheby’s. Terrible sentiment is reflected in poor economy,” he said. 

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    Taking a look at the classic car bubble, Hagerty indexes show American Muscle, Blue Chip, British, and Ferrari automobiles peaked right before Covid. Many of these vehicles are popular with boomers and shunned by millennials. Some of these vehicles may have peaked for good as the younger generations want no parts of these cars. 

    1950s American

    Blue Chip

    British

    Ferrari

    German Collectibles have also stalled. 

    And American Muscle Cars is running out of buyers. 

    Meanwhile, easy money during Covid sent Affordable Classics rocketing higher. 

    As for the Porsche collection, the auction’s upcoming results might hint at how wealthy consumers feel considering the challenging environment.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 16:40

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Oct 05

Today’s News 5th October 2023

  • Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK's War First
    Luongo: Ukraine Was Always The UK’s War First

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

    – Verbal Kent, the Usual Suspects

    For more than a year we’ve been regaled with headline after headline about how the War in Ukraine is a US war. It’s easy to think that, certainly. We’re the ones who started the process here, at least on the face of it.

    Victoria Nuland and her cookies on The Maidan. John McCain and his money and support of Right Sector. Seymour Hersh’s expose on the Nordstream 2 bombing. The seemingly endless billions of materiel from Congress. Even this weekend’s continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown hinged on Ukraine.

    The US has the political, economic, and military prowess and rightly should be first considered to be driving this bus towards war. And there are no shortage of commentators in the space helping that narrative along. And none of what I’m implying or about to say absolves these people from their actions which have led us to the current state.

    Hundreds of thousands of people are dead because of what should have been a fully avoidable war had someone been in charge on the West’s side that wanted peace.

    But the West didn’t want peace.

    It froze the conflict in 2014 with the Minsk Agreements because Vladimir Putin believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honorable. He traded liberating the Donbass fully for building Nordstream 2 hoping that the pipeline would finally tie Germany and Russia together in a that bond couldn’t be broken.

    This was Putin’s greatest mistake. And he’s still paying for it to this day.

    In 2014 Ukraine was in no shape after the rout at Gorlovka to oppose a Russian-backed Donetsk and Lugansk forces to secure both Oblasts which included the important city of Mariupol. The land bridge to Crimea could have been secured then and the entire buildup to this version of today’s conflict avoided.

    It would have changed the gameboard coming into 2022.

    But Russia always knew that it wasn’t only the US pushing this conflict. That push was coming from the entirety of Europe and the US. One could argue that Putin understood there was never going to be peace without conflict, that the great war to end 300+ years of Russia fighting colonial Europe wasn’t going to end with the building of a pipeline.

    But, to his credit, he had to try.

    The problem, of course, is exactly this. Russian/European or, more explicitly, Russian/British animosity goes back centuries. Russia’s relationship with Europe is far more complex and violent than that of its relationship with the US.

    Russia’s initial invasion created a real problem for the West, particularly the UK, and in that initial land grab, we almost forget that there was an opportunity for a settlement in May of 2022, until British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Ankara and blew up peace talks being brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    It has been the British military and intelligence agencies acting as the grease between the Ukrainians and the Americans to ensure that the conflict continued. As my friend Alex Krainer always says, “All roads lead to London.” And George Soros’ arguments about the clash of two civilizations, Open vs. Closed Societies, go back much farther than his raid on the Bank of England:

    In his address to the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos in May 2022 George Soros explained that we are witnessing a clash between two models of governance. This was only slightly misleading: models don’t wage war on one another; it is the stakeholders in these models that are fighting. Soros characterized the two opposing sides as “open societies,” vs. “closed societies,” where open societies are liberal democracies that respect human rights, and closed societies are autocracies.

    But Soros’s “open” societies are in fact oligarchies concealed behind faux democratic facades. To believe Soros, we’d have to accept that the trillionaire oligarchs in charge of open societies are die-hard defenders of democracy and human rights, willing to shed blood and treasure in their defense.

    The term Neoconservative rightly describes a particular type of person who holds foreign policy ideals which are indistinguishable with that of British foreign policy going back over 200 years. They exist within the Soros framework of creating global governance by oligarchs at the helm of an open system that they argue benefits all of humanity.

    This is a lie. What it really does is pull back the curtain on what the real goal is, total global domination through control over the value of money which fuels endless wars to subjugate the unruly and recalcitrant.

    These ideas were codified by Halford Mackinder early in the 20th century, which I’ve written about and discussed ad nauseum.

    Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

    And that’s why there can be no losing for the West in Ukraine. To the Mackinderists at the top of the power structures in London, Washington D.C. and Brussels, losing Ukraine means losing the entire world, because they have this very-outdated view of world geography.

    Mackinder-ism in today’s world is a tautology, reducing to: We have to control the Heartland because we can’t lose the Heartland.

    Because of the dominance of Mackinder’s ideas and the policies erected to support it, the world has been subjected to endless conflict over his conception of the “World Island,” which is basically Eurasia.

    US foreign policy is shaped by these ideas, but the roots of it becoming so go back to Woodrow Wilson, if not further. Richard Poe has done amazing work illuminating the history on this that many would rather forget about. From creating communism, to their influence to stoke the US Civil War, to even creating “George Soros” himself.

    You can listen to our 2.5 hour conversation on these topics in the podcast Richard and I did over the summer if you need a refresher course.

    The Willfully Blind Hand

    Denying the hand of the British Foreign Office, City of London, and the influence over US foreign and domestic policy is like denying that such a thing as history even exists. It’s easy to see once you look for it.

    The question you should be asking yourself is who is driving the bus today, the US, the UK, or both?

    It’s easy to believe the UK has no influence here. But if that’s the case why did they work so hard to neuter Donald Trump’s presidency at every turn (Christopher Steele, Joseph Mifsud)? Why did RussiaGate wind up with Trump being impeached twice, once for Joe Biden’s crimes in Ukraine?

    When you trace the political lineage of people like Former CIA Director Gina Haspel, Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, and Fiona Hill, all of whom threw their boss under the bus for Nancy Pelosi’s inane witch hunt of Trump, you come a British cropper every time.

    Trump’s only win as president was keeping us out of a direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine and Syria. But he was maneuvered by all of these people and Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, et.al. into doing the very things to ensure when he left office all the groundwork for the present conflict would proceed exactly as it has.

    No deal with North Korea, severing diplomatic relations with Russia, empowering Polish and Baltic Russophobia, doing Israel’s bidding at every turn, every day in the Trump White House on foreign policy was “Opposite Day.” Whatever Barack Obama did on behalf of Europe and Davos he undid, playing right into the British goals of putting the US on track under Joe Biden to end up where we are today.

    It doesn’t matter if he did this to support ‘our greatest ally’ to fight for a proper Brexit from the near comical evil represented by the European Union. Like Putin’s soft spot for Germany, Trump’s soft spot for the Union Jack made him susceptible to both flattery, a personal weakness of his, and incredibly biased ‘intelligence’ he got from his advisers.

    Maybe a second Trump term will have him battle-hardened to see things more clearly, but I’m not holding out hope.

    The Need for War

    This need for Ukraine to ‘win the war’ is a uniquely Neoconservative talking point. It comes from the need to break the dominance of the US economy over global markets. For those who can only think in terms of the US being the “Evil Empire” of today I want to ask you a simple question,

    Why would the US embroil themselves in a fight against Russia and/or China and all the tail risks that come with those wars when they could maintain their current dominance through working with both countries, keep the dollar the universal trade settlement currency and fix its problems?

    In other words, folks, where’s the bono for the US in the Cui Bono analysis?

    Because I don’t see any upside here. What I see are nothing but risks and bad returns on investment.

    The US doesn’t need Russia’s oil and gas. We do not need the other natural resources like aluminum, timber, coal, iron, copper, etc. We make enough food to export to the world.

    So, what’s the deal?

    And don’t give me that tired, Malthusian, finite planet bullshit loved by so many, frankly, leftist ignoramuses. We are nowhere near the event horizon of the finite planet model. Just because you believe in it doesn’t make it true.

    What is true is that US leadership is clearly operating outside the mandate of what’s good for America. And if you don’t ask simple questions like the ones above then how can you ever begin to think outside of the simple explanation put in front of you?

    We see the US today as an empire in decline. But this empire was built on a particular model, the British model. And if you do the basic trace through history you can make a very compelling argument (not the only argument, mind you), that the US empire is simply the remnant of the British Empire outsourced to its former colonies.

    That implies if we, as Americans, come to grips with this, make sense of it, then we can reframe our criticisms of US domestic and foreign policy as something other than incompetence mixed with a generous dollop of hubris. We can ask the hard question that maybe, just maybe, this is an operation to destroy the US from within for the purpose of transferring its power back ‘across the pond’ to either the UK, Europe or China.

    Then all you really have to do is look at who’s really pulling the strings, who’s getting screwed and who’s opportunistically piling on during the chaos for their own benefit.

    Why Now? Why US?

    But when it comes to Ukraine, this has always been the UK’s war. This is why there has been such turmoil at the top of the British government, why at every turn they have been there making sure this thing escalates at a consistent pace and their partners in Congress, the State Dept., the CIA, the DoD and the K-Street think tanks are all in on the insane moralizing about America’s duty to Ukraine.

    This is:

    Why they are sending UK troops to Ukraine.

    Why the Royal Navy is moving into the Black Sea.

    Why they gave Ukraine Storm Shadow missiles to shoot at Crimea.

    Why Biden approved sending cluster munitions to kill Russian civilians.

    Why they helped Ukraine blow up the Kerch Strait bridge twice.

    Why the Poles were set up to be the trip wire for a NATO Article 5 invocation.

    Why Zelenskyy is allowed to run around the world begmanding for money.

    Why Neocons on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill want an open-ended flood of money there.

    Why all discussions of peace talks get shut down before they are allowed to be considered.

    Why Putin invokes the “Anglo-Saxons” when discussing the war.

    Why Medvedev implies London as the decision center needing a cleansing.

    There is more than a distant whiff of desperation the air now over Ukraine coming from the usual suspects.

    Kevin McCarthy’s last minute deal to get Ukraine back door funding could cost him his speakership this week. Good.

    The American people don’t want this war. They don’t want to fund it or fight it. Putin is being maneuvered into a decision that either destroys him politically in 2024 or pushes him into becoming literally Putler.

    It’s 1938 all over again folks and the historical record isn’t as cut and dried as we were all taught in school.

    This isn’t an existential crisis for the US, but it is for the old colonial powers of Europe, especially the UK.

    It’s beyond time we face that honestly.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want to face the face

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 10/05/2023 – 02:00

  • This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State
    This Is Not Freedom, America: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State

    Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

    – Frédéric Bastiat, French economist

    Pay no heed to the circus politics coming out of Washington DC. It’s just more of the same grandstanding by tone-deaf politicians oblivious to the plight of the citizenry.

    Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted by the competing news headlines cataloging the antics of the ruling classes. While they are full of sound and fury, they are utterly lacking in substance.

    Tune out the blaring noise of meaningless babble. It is intended to drown out the very real menace of a government which is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population.

    Focus instead on the steady march of the police state at both the national, state and local levels, and the essential freedoms that are being trampled underfoot in its single-minded pursuit of power.

    While the overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us—warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling—you rarely hear anything about them from the politicians, the corporations or the news media.

    So what’s behind the blackout of real news?

    Surely, if properly disclosed and consistently reported on, the sheer volume of the government’s activities, which undermine the Constitution and dance close to the edge of outright illegality, would give rise to a sea change in how business is conducted in our seats of power.

    Yet when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this.

    As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.

    When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.

    These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

    Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

    Not only are Americans forced to spend more on taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, education and clothing combined, but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.

    Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.

    On the roads: Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and speeding and red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit sharing by imposing a vehicle miles-traveled tax, which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.

    In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has one of the largest prison populations in the world.

    In the schools: The public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.

    In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million per hour. Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.  Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. War spending is bankrupting America.

    In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.

    In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police have actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”

    By the security industrial complex: We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of “precrime,” this government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. This far-reaching surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn’t even touch on the government’s bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying and tracking the American people from birth to death.

    By a government addicted to power: It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

    This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.

    This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.

    Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few.

    Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.

    With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

    All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those are your tax dollars at work.

    It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to speak their truth to their elected officials.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is not freedom, America.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:40

  • Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.
    Best (And Worst) Cities For Retirement In The U.S.

    According to projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, by the year 2030, all individuals belonging to the baby boomer generation—estimated to be roughly 73 million in the United States—will have reached the age of 65. As retirement comes into sharper focus for many in this group, thoughts are increasingly turning to the most suitable locations for enjoying their twilight years.

    With that in mind a new study from Consumer Affairs looked into the best (and worst) cities for retirement in the United States. The study looked at the following from each location:

    • Cost of living index

    • Percentage of people 65 and over

    • Total crime (violent and property crimes) per 100,000 people

    • Rent burden (percentage of households spending 30% or more of household income on rent)

    • Preventive services (percentage of people 65 and older up to date on core set of clinical preventive services)

    • Access to healthy foods (percentage of people living more than half a mile from the nearest grocery store

    • Access to parks (percentage of population living within a 10-minute walk of a green space)

    • Physical inactivity score (percentage of population with no leisure-time physical activity in the past month)

    • Walkability (Walk Score)

    • Community well-being score (Sharecare index)

    • Temperature (Whether average temperature from February 2022 to January 2023 was between 65 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit)

    Jennifer Tripken, associate director for the Center of Healthy Aging at the National Council on Aging, stated: ”Where you live plays a critical role in not only how long you live, but in your quality of life. Communities that are age-friendly are ones that promote health and are designed to meet the needs of diverse populations, including having inclusive and equitable policies, practices and services.”

    Lincoln, the seat of government in Nebraska, not only serves as the state’s capital but also ranked highest on the list for ideal retirement cities. Despite being the state’s second-largest city by population, it’s the higher proportion of residents over 65 that could make it especially attractive to retirees. Another key factor in its favor is the cost of living index, which suggests that your money will go further here when it comes to everyday expenses.

    Additional merits of Lincoln encompass its relatively low crime rate and more affordable rental prices. Though its average temperature for the year 2022 stood at around 53 degrees Fahrenheit—somewhat cooler than other cities in the survey—its rich offering of parks and high community well-being index propelled it to the top of the list.

    While Lincoln stands out, it’s not the lone contender for retirement according to the metrics. Omaha also made the cut, securing the 25th position in the study.

    The report’s runner-up in is St. Louis, largely due to its affordable cost of living and high marks in overall well-being. As Missouri’s most populated city, it boasts a sizable community of residents aged 65 and above. 

    The city also shines in its accessibility to healthier food options and its walkability. Additionally, a high proportion of its senior citizens have benefited from clinical preventive services. While St. Louis does record higher crime and physical inactivity rates compared to other top contenders, it compensates with an abundant offering of parks that are easily accessible.

    It’s worth noting, however, that St. Louis is somewhat of an anomaly in Missouri when it comes to retirement-friendly cities. Other cities in the state such as Joplin, ranked 91st, Springfield, coming in at 99th, and Kansas City, landing at 100th, all scored significantly lower on the list.

      Situated in Illinois and hosting the University of Illinois, Champaign is not merely a hub for students but also ranks as a prime location for retirees. The city provides a variety of attractions, ranging from sports events to a vibrant arts community, catering to diverse tastes among the retired populace.

      Champaign earns commendation for its low levels of crime and high rate of seniors who have availed themselves of preventive healthcare services. The city also scores well in terms of walkability.

      In the context of Illinois, Champaign is not alone in its appeal for the older generation. Bloomington also receives positive reviews, securing the 16th position on the retirement-friendly list, followed closely by Decatur at 26th place.

      Among the worst cities for retirement were Lake Havasu City, Arizona, which despite boasting the highest population of individuals aged 65 and over along with a low crime rate, finds itself at the very bottom. Primary reasons include poor access to nutritious food options, a less-than-stellar community well-being index, and a steep cost of living. Following closely are Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Olympia, Washington, both of which scored poorly in terms of park accessibility and walkable neighborhoods. If these factors hold importance for your retirement planning, you might want to explore other options, the report notes.

      You can view the full list of best and worst cities to retire in, as well as a list of demographics on each city, at the full study here.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:20

    • Retired General Milley's Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China
      Retired General Milley’s Legacy Is Brinkmanship With Russia & China

      Authored by Connor Freeman via AntiWar.com,

      Gen. Mark Milley retired on Friday as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and handed over command to Air Force chief Gen. Charles Q. Brown. In 2019, Milley took up the post after being nominated by President Donald Trump. He oversaw massive escalations in the buildup for war with China, the Ukraine proxy war, and the current brinkmanship with Moscow during his four-year tenure.

      Milley’s years as top general saw Washington and the Pentagon pour weapons into Kyiv and begin transforming Ukraine into a de facto NATO state, well before Russia launched its invasion in 2022. This process saw multiple joint military exercises held by US and Ukrainian forces as well as between the North Atlantic alliance and Ukrainian troops.

      Throughout 2021, the US and Ukrainian militaries along with NATO participated in a series of war drills, many of which took place near Russia’s borders and in the Black Sea, the size of which rivaled any military exercises during the post-Cold War era. In November 2021, the US was flying bombers only about a dozen miles off Russia’s borders and simulating nuclear first strikes.

      These were some of the policies being implemented by Milley and his colleagues – including Gen. Brown – in Eastern Europe in the months before Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. After helping to provoke the invasion, US military leadership seized upon the opportunity to back Kyiv in a bloody proxy war with the aim of “weakening” Russia and crippling its military. As a result of this policy, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now warns humanity has never been closer to outright nuclear war.

      Despite the catastrophic risks, the policy has failed. As EUROCOM chief General Christopher Cavoli explained to Congress earlier this year, Russia’s navy and air force have taken negligible losses and its ground forces are “bigger today” than when the war began. The Pentagon is depleting its own weapons stocks to support Kyiv’s failing war effort, while Russia’s capacity to produce armor and ammo has outstripped the entire NATO alliance.

      Ukraine has lost 20% of its country, the Kremlin gained more territory than Kyiv this year, and Ukrainian forces are estimated to have suffered tens of thousands of casualties during recent months.

      Although Milley was calling for negotiations last fall, perhaps sensing that Kyiv had reached its peak in terms of battlefield successes, he was overruled by the likes of the ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

      Milley did not threaten to resign in protest of a policy he reportedly made a “strong push” against, a policy he not only believed was wrongheaded, but that carries with it the ultimate risk of direct war between the United States and Russia.

      Instead, when Kyiv launched its long-awaited and disastrous counteroffensive in June, Milley told CNN “the Ukrainians are very well prepared.” Before the doomed campaign began, Western military officials knew Ukraine’s troops were woefully ill-equipped and undertrained.

      In May, a neo-Nazi militia tied with Ukrainian military intelligence launched a raid using NATO vehicles and weapons targeting civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region. In the aftermath, Milley bluntly explained “we have asked the Ukrainians not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia… Why is that? Because we don’t want – this is a Ukrainian war. It is not a war between the United States and Russia. It’s not a war between NATO and Russia.”

      Although, the White House is now preparing to send Ukraine ballistic missiles – with a range of nearly 200 miles – that can be used for attacks against Crimea and the Russian mainland. “In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” Blinken said last month when asked if the US would green light Kyiv’s desires to hit targets deep inside Russia.

      Again, Milley made no public protest after the administration declared the US will facilitate and support attacks on Russia which he previously stated could trigger World War III.

      In recent months, the US has resorted to pouring cluster bombs and Abrams tanks armed with toxic depleted-uranium ammunition into what is now the most heavily mined country on the planet, demonstrating a lack of concern for the lives of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

      But this is in keeping with Milley’s pronouncement last year that “what’s at stake here is much greater than Ukraine.”

      Under Milley’s leadership, the US military drastically ramped up Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” encircling China for a future war. In 2020, Trump’s war cabinet vastly expanded the US military footprint in Beijing’s near abroad by sending more warships and spy planes, conducting aerial surveillance flights, to the region and especially the South China Sea.

      During the end of the Trump administration, Milley called his Chinese counterpart and assured him there was no imminent plan to launch an assault against China. US intelligence indicated Beijing believed the US was planning an attack “based on tensions over [Washington’s dual aircraft carrier] military exercises in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trump’s belligerent rhetoric toward China,” the Washington Post reported.

      Milley later explained, “My task at that time was to de-escalate.” As with the Russia policies, however, since then Milley never put his post on the line to voice opposition to Washington’s trajectory in the Asia-Pacific, which appears to be leading to war between the United States and China. Instead, he led the charge in his position as the nation’s top military officer.

      Last year, US spy planes flew 1,000 sorties in the South China Sea, in some instances, just over a dozen miles from the baseline of China’s mainland territorial waters. US aircraft carrier strike groups and amphibious alert groups made eight deployments to the region as well, with extended durations. The US also sent nuclear-powered attack submarines to the South China Sea 12 times.

      Currently, Washington and its partners are “setting the theater” for an upcoming direct war with China. The US is securing additional bases near Taiwan and China and increasing U.S. military access in the Pacific island nations. The US has even committed billions in unprecedented military aid to Taipei, making war more likely.

      Meanwhile, in Syria Milley championed Washington’s indefinite and illegal occupation over large swathes of the eastern parts of the war-torn country. The US controls a third of Syria including most of the nation’s oil and wheat resources as an ancillary to its economic war against Damascus. Roughly 900 US troops and an undisclosed number of contractors are embedded with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

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

      Ethnic tensions and violent clashes between Washington’s Kurdish proxy and the local Arab tribesmen may soon make the occupation untenable. As CENTCOM chief Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla has conceded, the American troops’ unwanted presence is also becoming more dangerous as there have been numerous close calls with Russian forces and aircraft as well as dozens of attacks by ostensibly Iranian-backed groups.

      Nevertheless, Milley has not advocated for a withdrawal or even a reduction in troop levels, instead as he leaves his post another base is being built in the northern province of Raqqa.

      Earlier this year, Milley told Congress US forces would begin “harshly” targeting members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria, which could lead to a hot war with Iran. “We need to be targeting [the IRGC Quds Force], and targeting them very harshly over time, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing,” Milley declared.

      After Trump kicked off 2020 with the brutal and illegal drone strike assassination at the Baghdad International Airport of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the Iraqi parliament demanded all US forces leave the country. The American troops were never removed, making Milley’s lofty rhetoric about what’s at stake with the rise of China and the Ukraine war dubious.

      Washington’s wars in the post-9/11 era have killed 4.5 million people overseas and cost Americans trillions of dollars. Despite these realities, in August, Milley boasted “I can’t imagine that the United States would ever walk away from the Middle East. I think we’ll remain committed for many, many years and decades to come.”

      In 2021, during the end of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan – after the failed 20-year war and occupation which left about a quarter of a million people dead – a US drone strike on a home in Kabul slaughtered ten civilians, including seven children.

      US officials claimed the strike targeted an ISIS-K suspect who was planning a terrorist attack. Instead, Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker employed by a California-based NGO, along with nine members of his family were killed in the August 29 strike.

      Almost immediately, evidence mounted that noncombatants had been murdered. But the administration and the military chose to promote it as a success as long as possible. Milley was emphatic, “the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”

      Months later, Lt. Gen. Sami Said, the Air Force Inspector General, led a review which found the killings were not the result of any “misconduct or negligence” and there was no need to hold anyone involved accountable. At the time, Milley’s successor, Gen. Brown, was Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

      Milley’s legacy is the completely broken foreign policy that has defined the new American century. The Wolfowitz doctrine will continue sputtering out as the multipolar world realities supplant unipolar moment fantasies. Washington can be expected to chaotically lash out at the so-called “revisionist powers,” Russia and China, until America is bankrupt or nuclear weapons are launched.

      Milley never tried to save his countrymen or his military from this destruction, he could always be counted on to do what was best for his own selfish interests.

      He will be celebrated by the corporate press every time he excoriates Trump as a “wannabe dictator” and talks up his oath to the Constitution, even if each war Milley was involved with was undeclared, unconstitutional, and illegal.

      Next, he may find himself a comfortable seat on the board of Raytheon or Lockheed Martin. He may even make a presidential run. Regardless, history will be ruthless in its appraisal of the man who co-bylined an imperial agenda destined to culminate in a Third World War, condemning humanity to misery, poverty, death, and despair.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 23:00

    • 84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)
      84% Of CEOs Expect A Recession In 2024 (& 0% Of Fed Staff)

      For much of the last year, recession fears have been building against a sharp rise in interest rates and market uncertainty.

      Only recently has there been a shift in sentiment. Given the resilience of the U.S. economy, a growing amount of investors are seeing an increasing likelihood of a soft landing – where the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation without triggering a recession. However, many still remain cautious.

      In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Nuefeld shows U.S. economic forecasts across Wall Street, Main Street, and C-Suite for 2024.

      U.S. Economic Forecast: Is a Recession Coming?

      Here’s what key players are projecting for the economy:

      Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Wolters Kluwer, The Conference Board, Goldman Sachs Investment Research, Bank of America. Data based on surveys and projections conducted August-September.

      *Based on a New York Fed model estimating recession probabilities using 10-year minus 3-month Treasury yield spreads, based on data from 1959-2009.

      **Conference Board Q3 CEO survey probability of a recession over the next 12-18 months.

      In July, the Federal Reserve staff announced that they were no longer forecasting a recession in 2024, marking a sharp departure from earlier projections.

      While the Fed staff continue to share a brighter outlook, the yield curve spread between 10-year and 3-month Treasury rates suggests there is a 61% change of a recession in the 12 months ahead. Historically, the yield curve has been a reliable predictor of recessions, based on a New York Fed model which uses data from 1959-2009.

      Meanwhile, a survey of economists by Wolters Kluwer shows that they’re split, with 48% calling for a recession over the next 12 months.

      Across Main Street, consumers share a more cautious sentiment, with over 69% saying that a recession is likely in the next year, based on a Conference Board survey.

      Yet corners of America’s C-suite have grown more positive. Goldman Sachs recently dropped its recession forecast to a 15% likelihood while Bank of America gives it a 35-40% odds. On the other hand, 84% of CEOs are preparing for a recession in the next 12-18 months, a drop from 92% seen in the second quarter of 2023.

      Bull Case vs. Bear Case Signals

      Among the key factors investors are closely watching center around the impact of higher interest rates on the economy.

      For the bull case, higher rates appear as though they haven’t significantly impacted consumer spending yet, although spending has slowed on non-essential items. Retail sales continue to be solid, and earnings across Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, and other major retailers show resilience. Where the main changes are occurring are with consumers purchasing more affordable options.

      However, consumers are relying increasingly on borrowing for spending.

      For the bear case scenario, household debt has hit record highs of $17 trillion in March, rising 19% year-over-year. Higher rates have led these borrowing costs to jump, likely affecting household budgets. Meanwhile, corporate defaults have accelerated in 2023, and are projected to keep rising.

      Overall, there are mixed signals across the wider economy. Quantifying the full effects of higher interest rates on consumers and businesses remains an open question.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:40

    • Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin
      Contempt For Press Freedoms: US Officials Bar Tucker Carlson From Interviewing Putin

      Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via AntiWar.com,

      Tucker Carlson reports that the U.S. government prevented him from interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Carlson told the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche that he had sought to arrange an interview with Putin, but U.S. officials blocked him.

      “I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. government prevented me from doing so. Think about [the implications],” Carlson told the newspaper on September 24.  Worse, according to Carlson, no one in the U.S. news media supported his right as a journalist to report on the Russian leader’s views regarding the Ukraine conflict.

      Such obstructionism reflects a growing contempt on the part of officials in the United States and other supposedly liberal democratic countries for freedom of the press.  It is merely the latest episode in a lengthening parade of restrictions, ranging from petty to truly alarming.  The highest priority targets are critics who dare condemn or even dispute the accounts that Western leaders put forth regarding key foreign policy objectives

      European Union governments have been even more brazen than Washington in their efforts to impede critics.  Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU banned the two most prominent Russian outlets, RT and Sputnik.  The official rationale was that those organizations were Kremlin controlled and were disseminating “disinformation” regarding the war in Ukraine.  EU officials even ordered the removal of RT and Sputnik material from search engines.

      More than 300 million inhabitants of EU countries were thus deprived from accessing Russia’s views about the war or its causes.  Conversely, EU authorities did not impose the slightest restrictions on the tsunami of propaganda coming out of Kyiv regarding the war.  Such gross imbalance has been a transparent effort to rig public opinion on a major international issue.

      U.S. officials have been somewhat more subtle in their efforts to squelch dissenting views, especially on Russia, but they have been bad enough. The FBI, the CIA, and other agencies have engaged in a two-front assault on freedom of the press.  One method is to emulate the EU and take direct action against alternative news outlets and other dissenters.  The other strategy, which has become increasingly pervasive over the past decade is to pressure or collude with social media platforms to harass, marginalize, or eliminate sources that Washington dislikes.  Such censorship by proxy is both insidious and dangerous.

      The FBI took a major step toward implementing the first approach in October 2017.  FBI leaders created a new Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. The FBI subsequently considered any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to U.S. national security.  Targets for suppression were not confined to publications and outlets that were indisputably under the control of one of those hostile powers.

      However, censorship by proxy has become by far the U.S. national security state’s preferred method.  The U.S. national security apparatus has even actively assisted Volodymr Zelensky’s Ukrainian regime to undermine the constitutional rights of Americans.  CNN noted a worrisome revelations in a July 2023 report from the House Judiciary Committee.  “The committee says SBU [Ukraine’s top security agency] sent the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly ‘spread Russian disinformation,’ and that the FBI then ‘routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement.’”

      In other words, the FBI served as a willing conduit and facilitator for Kyiv’s overseas censorship efforts.  Moreover, U.S. officials did not make even a minimal effort to vet Kyiv’s allegations before pressuring social media companies to shut down the accounts of targeted organizations and individuals.

      Revelations from the so-called Twitter files, confirm the extent of such ideological collusion between federal agencies and social media companies.  Among other unhealthy aspects was that the FBI had paid Twitter $3.4 million.  In a so-called fact-check, USA Today conceded that “the FBI flagged Twitter accounts the agency believed violated Twitter’s terms of service. Second, another document shows the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million for Twitter’s processing of information requests the FBI made through the Stored Communications Act.”  However, “fact-checker” Molly Stelino concluded that the FBI was not using Twitter for censorship purposes, insisting that “the $3.4 million is unrelated to the FBI flagging accounts.”  Such an argument deserves an award for gullibility.

      The extent of the government’s collusion campaign was even more apparent because Yoel Roth, the Twitter executive in charge of content moderation and members of his staff met weekly with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  It is a safe bet that those meetings were not to discuss the weather.  Such meetings also cast even more doubt on the allegedly benign nature of the FBI’s $3.4 million payment to Twitter for processing “information requests.”  Yet even Roth apparently balked at some of the FBI’s more far-reaching demands.  Roth contended that the list of alleged Russian disinformation offenders even included “‘a few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. [Grayzone’s] Aaron Mate),’ and said that Twitter would focus on rule violations and inauthentic behavior (i.e., bots).”

      One interaction between the FBI and Facebook was as alarming as the collusion with Twitter. The FBI worked to discredit the New York Post’s blockbuster story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later reported that FBI officials had approached him with a warning that Russia was conducting a concerted disinformation campaign during the 2020 U.S. election cycle, just as the Kremlin did in 2016.  It was hard to miss the government’s implication that the laptop probably was part of the latest disinformation effort, and that Facebook should take down posts or algorithmically throttle accounts contending that revelations contained in the files were genuine. Yet there was no evidence at the time or subsequently that the laptop involved Russian disinformation.  The allegation further poisoned relations with Russia, though, as well as stifled debate on a crucial issue.

      In an early September 2023 ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Biden administration’s meetings with social media companies had violated the First Amendment.   That is an encouraging development in the battle against censorship by proxy, but it is unlikely that agencies in the national security apparatus will abandon their efforts to curb dissent, especially on controversial issues related to Washington’s role in the world.  Freedom of the press clearly is under siege even in supposedly liberal, democratic countries.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:20

    • Pentagon 'Alleviates' Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons
      Pentagon ‘Alleviates’ Ukraine Arms Shortage By Sending Seized Iranian Weapons

      Is this Biden’s attempt at a solution to the problem of blocked Ukraine aid for the time being? CNN is reporting that the US administration is set to transfer weapons it seized from Iran to Kiev…

      “The US will transfer thousands of seized Iranian weapons and rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, in a move that could help to alleviate some of the critical shortages facing the Ukrainian military as it awaits more money and equipment from the US and its allies, US officials said.”

      US CENTCOM revealed Wednesday that the process has already started, with over one million seized rounds of Iranian ammunition having been given to Ukraine forces thus far.

      “The government obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” the Pentagon statement explained.

      Previously, the Justice Department announced over the summer the seizure of “over 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, approximately 194 rocket launchers, over 70 anti-tank guided missiles, and over 700,000 rounds of ammunition.” These had been obtained by the US Navy from foreign vessels caught “trafficking” in Gulf regional waters.

      Some European allies, such as the French, have also announced their own Iranian weapons seizures of late. The majority of these were believed bound for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are the Shia allies of Iran currently fighting the Saudis and Emirates. 

      CENTCOM has tallied that among the US and its partner forces, a total of 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammunition have been captured. Tehran has held this and oil seizures up as examples of Washington “piracy”. 

      The Pentagon only days ago announced that it is running out of weapons for Ukraine, having just “months” left in approved supplies, at a sensitive moment that support from among the Western allies in general is waning.

      Iranian, Chinese & Russian weapons seized by the US Navy en route to Yemen from Iran in undated photo. Source: US DOJ

      Last Friday, US defense officials had informed Congress that it has “exhausted nearly all available security assistance funding for Ukraine” – including air defense weaponry and ammunition, leaving Ukraine more vulnerable as the Russian onslaught continues.

      * * *

      In the below brief analysis, the hawkish think tank The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is hailing this Biden policy as one which “turns the tables” on both Tehran and Moscow…

      The U.S. transfer of Iranian arms to Ukraine turns the tables on both Tehran and Moscow, which have doubled down on their defense partnership following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Tehran provides drones to Moscow and helps the Russians localize their production. In March 2023, Iran agreed to purchase 24 advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters from Russia, significantly upgrading the capabilities of the Islamic Republic’s air force. In 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Russia and Iran conducted joint naval drills in the Gulf of Oman. Russia and Iran are also sharing intelligence and cooperating in a joint effort to push U.S. military forces out of the region.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 22:00

    • "Too Freaking Late" – Mayorkas Finally Admits "Acute & Immediate Need" To Build Border Wall In Texas
      “Too Freaking Late” – Mayorkas Finally Admits “Acute & Immediate Need” To Build Border Wall In Texas

      This is awkward…

      In a stunning reversal of everything that was said over the last 7 years by the left, and just months after the Biden administration was caught selling portions of Trump’s border wall on a government surplus website, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is citing an “acute and immediate need” to waive dozens of federal laws in order to build a border wall in south Texas as the illegal immigration crisis grows utterly out of control.

      “The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” reads a notice posted to the U.S. Federal Registry that Fox News obtained.

      In light of the surge in illegal immigration, Mayorkas found that there exists an “acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas.”

      No, this is not Babylon Bee.

      As Ben Whedon reports at JustTheNews.com, The former president’s campaign team took Mayorkas’s decision as a vindication, telling Fox News that:”

      “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now. Instead, Crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.”

      In total, Mayorkas plans to waive a total of 26 federal laws to expedite construction.

      It’s going to fun to see the Democrats and their MSM lackeys squirm out of this one…

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

      Does the Biden administration want to remind Latinos that they are not welcome?

      Is the Biden administration building a monument to White Supremacy….

      Is the Biden administration’s wall “xenophobic and racist”?

      There are a million more examples…

      These 3 words seem to sum things up perfectly “Too Freaking Late!”

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

      …and cue the “we never said it was racist” or “it was racist because Trump wanted it” narrative spin incoming…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:40

    • El Chapo's Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico
      El Chapo’s Sons Allegedly Ban Fentanyl Production In Northern Mexico

      Large roadside banners have appeared on bridges in northern Mexico that state the Sinaloa Cartel has banned fentanyl production and sales. The banner was signed with the words “Los Chapitos,” the sons of ex-Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. This comes as US authorities are increasing pressure on Mexico to take action against drug cartels flooding the US with fentanyl, which has sparked the worst drug crisis this country has ever seen. 

      According to X user “Michelle Rivera,” the banner reads: “In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transportation or any type of business that involves the substance known as fentanyl is strictly prohibited, including the sale of chemicals for its production.”

      Rivera said, “Narcomantas allegedly signed by the criminal group “Los Chapitos” were placed in various points throughout the State.” 

      She added: “They also assure that they have never been related to the fentanyl business “Depend on the consequences” they warn.” 

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

      It’s unclear if the Sinaloa Cartel, which Guzman’s sons now run after their father was extradited to the US in 2017, fastened the banners to bridges and overpasses. 

      The Telegraph noted, “The banners appeared at a time when US authorities are ramping up pressure on Mexico to take action against crime groups involved in fentanyl production” amid yet another year drug overdoses in the US are expected to reach another record. 

      Leo Silva, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked in Mexico, said the Los Chapitos are trying to shift blame for the fentanyl production that floods the US. She said, “Coupled with the extradition of one of the brothers, it’s a ploy to take the heat off of them,” adding, “I don’t see them stopping production.” 

      It remains to be seen if Los Chapitos will enact such a ban across Sinaloa. But why would they if they’re driven by profits and the gift of the Biden administration to keep the southern border wide open?  

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:20

    • CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation
      CDC Journal And Five Others Rejected Key Paper On COVID Vaccines, Heart Inflammation

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

      Six medical journals rejected a key paper on COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation, a condition the vaccines cause, according to documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.

      The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

      The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), was one of them.

      CDC officials falsely told the paper’s authors that the paper did not add anything to a previously published CDC report, which estimated more COVID-19 hospitalizations would be prevented than cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, caused.

      “I ran this by the MMWR lead editorial staff members; they felt that while the report was interesting, they did not feel that there was anything that was not already relayed,” Dr. Jacqueline Gindler, one of the officials, said in an Aug. 10, 2021, email.

      The CDC a month earlier in a non-peer-reviewed paper estimated that among males aged 12 to 17, one million second Pfizer doses would cause up to 69 myocarditis cases but prevent some 5,700 COVID-19 cases and 215 COVID-19 hospitalizations.

      The new paper clarified the risk-benefit calculus by separating children without serious underlying conditions such as obesity from children with one or more of the problems. It broke down the age group into two parts, 12- to 15 and 16- to 17. And it subtracted incidental hospitalizations, or hospitalizations where people test positive for COVID-19 but are actually being treated for other conditions.

      The researchers estimated, using similar methods as the CDC, that one million doses would cause more cardiac adverse events in healthy boys than COVID-19 hospitalizations prevented. Among boys aged 12 to 15 without comorbidities, they calculated up to 6.1 times more adverse events among the vaccinated.

      Both the CDC and the new paper utilized reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC co-manages.

      Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of the paper’s co-authors, said that the CDC’s position that the paper did not add anything “was laughable.”

      “What we added was stratification for non high-risk vs high-risk children, which was new,” Dr. Hoeg told The Epoch Times in an email. “We also reported a higher rate in 12-17 year olds than CDC had been reporting in males after dose two. Finally we removed incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations, when estimating potential vaccine benefits, which CDC had not been doing up to that point.”

      Benjamin Hayes, a CDC spokesman who answered a query sent to Dr. Gindler, told The Epoch Times in an email that MMWR had to be “highly selective” due to receiving many submissions during the pandemic.

      The paper from Dr. Hoeg’s group “included some additional analyses,” Mr. Hayes said, but “did not provide information that would have caused the conclusions from the previous report to be refined or modified.”

      Other Rejections

      Five other journals also rejected the paper, which was crafted after the CDC finally acknowledged vaccines likely cause myocarditis.

      The New England Journal of Medicine dismissed the paper after having peers review it. One reviewer falsely said that with pre-pandemic myocarditis, adolescents were not known to experience lingering cardiac problems. In fact, deaths and a serious condition called dilated cardiomyopathy have been documented in such patients. Another reviewer said that a major concern was the social consequences of publishing the paper. A third falsely said most post-vaccination cases do not require hospitalization, asserting that offering a risk-benefit analysis based on hospitalization was inappropriate.

      “Your paper was evaluated by four external reviewers and a statistical consultant and was discussed among the editors,” John Jarcho, the journal’s deputy editor, informed the paper’s authors. “Although it is interesting, I am sorry to say it was not accepted for publication. This was an editorial decision and reflects an assessment of the merits of your manuscript as compared with the many others we receive.”

      The statistical reviewer did convey helpful feedback that resulted in adjustments to the paper, authors said.

      Dr. Elizabeth Loder, a British Medical Journal, later rejected the paper, offering a similar rationale as the CDC.

      “In comparison with the many other papers we have to consider, this one is a lower priority for us. I’ve reviewed the paper along with another senior editor, and we do not have confidence in the comparison you make in the paper,” Dr. Loder said. “The raised risk of myocarditis has been noted before based on this database and the novelty is in the comparison.  That calculation will depend on the prevalence of COVID at the time and it was low in May/June 2021.”

      A spokesperson for the journal told The Epoch Times in an email: “We are unable to comment in detail about a specific paper, as this is a confidential matter. However, we can say that in general, papers are considered on matters of methodology, potential importance, interest to our broad readership, and on what they add to the established literature. Every paper is thoroughly assessed to ensure that any claims made are supported by robust methods and definitive conclusions before a decision is made.”

      Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, editor-in-chief of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, told the authors that he shared their paper with several editors and experts.

      “Many of us appreciated you tackling this critical topic, and lending your analytical skills as well as important voices to this debate. However, at the end of the day our concerns were really around the substantial uncertainty of calculating incident estimates using VAERS,” he wrote.

      Two American Medical Association journals also turned down the paper. One said it was better for a pediatric journal.

      The paper was first submitted to journals in July 2021.

      Preprint

      The authors were surprised by all the rejections.

      “It was really the first time in my life that I was getting this sense the journals were afraid of taking a chance on publishing something,” Dr. Hoeg said. “This was particularly frustrating, not because of my own academic career, but because the consequences of them choosing not to publish our findings were adolescents and their families would not be fully informed about the risks of myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine.”

      Dr. John Mandrola, a cardiac electrophysiologist based in Kentucky and another co-author, said it was unusual but not unheard of to be rejected by so many journals.

      Read more here…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 21:00

    • America's Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets
      America’s Poorest Only Own 6% Of Assets

      The poorest 50 percent of Americans owned just 5.9 percent of the country’s total assets in Q2 of 2023, according to data from the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

      As Statista’s Ann Fleck shows in the following chart, the share of wealth as total assets remained at a low 5.9 percent through the first two quarters of this year, having seen a downtick from 6 percent at the end of 2022.

      Infographic: America's Poorest Only Own 6% of Assets | Statista

      You will find more infographics at Statista

      Since 1989, the peak share of assets held by this group was in Q2 and Q3 of 1995, when it reached just 8.7 percent.

      By contrast, data shows that the top 0.1 percent (99.9th to 100th wealth percentiles) of the U.S. held 11.4 percent of total assets in Q2 of 2023 – almost double that of the lowest 50 percent.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:40

    • Newsom Neutered – Repeals California's Orwellian 'COVID Misinformation' Law
      Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law

      Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

      California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation to repeal a portion of the state’s COVID-19 “misinformation” and “disinformation” law intended to punish doctors who refused to comply with the government’s narrative on masks, vaccines, and treatments during the pandemic.

      On Sept. 30, the governor signed Senate Bill 815 repealing provisions in the law—under Assembly Bill 2098—that “expressly designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19 as unprofessional conduct,” according to an analysis by the bill’s author, Assemblyman Richard Roth (D-Riverside).

      A year ago when Mr. Newsom signed AB 2098, introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and co-authored by then-Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) into law, he warned of a “chilling effect” other potential laws could have on the freedom of physicians and surgeons to effectively talk to their patients about the risks and benefits of treatments for COVID-19 but said he was “confident” the bill was “narrowly tailored” to apply only to egregious instances in which a doctor was acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the “required standard of care.”

      Just days later, the law, which vaguely defined “misinformation and disinformation” as “unprofessional conduct,” was challenged in court. The law defined disinformation as “misinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead” and misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”

      Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a former professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California–Irvine’s School of Medicine and director of the medical ethics program, was fired on Dec. 16, 2021, for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, claiming he had natural immunity after contracting the illness and recovering from it.

      He and four other doctors—Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi—sued Mr. Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several administrators at the Medical Board of California.

      “We were being discriminated against because we had a form of immunity that was equally good, in fact superior … compared to vaccine immunity,” Dr. Kheriaty told The Epoch Times.

      “People with vaccine immunity were allowed on campus, and I was not.”

      Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing AB 2098, ruling that the statute’s “unclear phrasing and structure” could have a “chilling effect.”

      Dr. Kheriaty said he’s glad SB 815 has negated the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions of AB 2098.

      “This is a good victory, but we can’t rest on our laurels,” he said.

      “We’ve got to be very vigilant because people who want to take control over medicine and intervene in the doctor-patient relationship are going to keep trying to find other angles.”

      Dr. Kheriaty suspects the governor and state legislators realized when the preliminary injunction was granted that the court would most likely rule against AB 2098 and ultimately declare it unconstitutional.

      “So, rather than getting slapped down by the court in ways that would have probably made the newspapers, they decided to quietly shuffle the law off the stage as a kind of embarrassment and hope that no one really noticed,” he said.

      Attorneys for the five doctors have filed a motion for a summary judgment from the court.

      “We would like to see the government lawyers have to argue in court in our favor … because the law has been struck down,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

      “We would like to hear them publicly say that in court.”

      Dr. Kheriaty said the case shows that because “scientific consensus” during the pandemic evolved quickly, doctors were punished for simply being ahead of the curve and expressing or endorsing ideas the rest of the medical community had not yet caught up with because they weren’t paying as close attention to the available research.

      While AB 2098 attempted “to fixate a particular scientific consensus,” the court found scientific consensus to be an ill-defined legal concept, he said.

      “The fact that this law was struck down is obviously meaningful to me … but it’s also concerning that this law was passed in the first place,” he said.

      The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has since indicated that it should not discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated because vaccines don’t stop infection and transmission.

      Natural immunity is “robust, durable, and long-lasting,” Dr. Kheriaty said. “So, I guess I lost my job for being nine months ahead of the curve.”

      Mixing Politics With Science

      In his book, “The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State,” Dr. Kheriaty examines the “age-old problem” of mixing politics with science.

      The book, he said, is about the biomedical security state melding an increasingly militarized public health apparatus with the use of digital technologies of surveillance and control, such as vaccine passports, and backing those two elements with police powers of the state and the declared state of emergency which allowed governors and the president to accrue additional extra-constitutional powers and “wield tremendous authority” effectively “micromanaging the lives of citizens.”

      “Especially today, when science has a certain authority or prestige, political power wants to commandeer and weaponize science to achieve its aims, and that’s what you saw during the pandemic,” he said. “It’s what I call scientism.”

      Scientism, he explained, tries to monopolize science and claim that it is the only valid form of knowledge and then appoints its preferred “so-called experts” to speak in the name of science.

      “That has nothing to do with science. That’s a power move. In fact, it’s a totalitarian move because that’s what totalitarian regimes do: They monopolize what counts as knowledge and rationality, and they exclude anyone who doesn’t endorse their ideology,” Dr. Kheriaty said.

      “That was done with science during the pandemic. Science was weaponized.”

      Scientism is “totally antithetical to science,” which relies on open-ended inquiry, hypothesis, conjecture and debate, evidence, reputation and the willingness to change one’s mind, he said. “And so, trying to fix a particular ‘consensus’ as unassailable completely contradicts the whole ethos of scientific investigation. Science advances precisely by challenging conventional thinking or consensus or what we take to be common sense.”

      Prior to the lawsuit, Dr. Kheriaty challenged the University of California system’s vaccine policies in an opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal “just to try to get a conversation going,” he said.

      But the UC Irvine authorities weren’t interested in discussion or debate and fired him for allegedly refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate after they twice declined a medical exemption signed by his physician and accused him of unprofessional conduct.

      “I was a threat,” he said. “So, it was easier just to shut down the debate.”

      The state then used him as an example to send a message to other doctors who dared to step out of line, he suggested.

      “You don’t have to fire too many people before it has a real chilling effect on everyone else,” he said.

      “Obviously, other people could look at what happened to me, and it was very clear: ‘OK, this is one issue that you just don’t touch. You don’t open your mouth and speak your mind unless it’s to endorse the position that the university wants to take.’”

      Dr. Kheriaty now runs a private practice in Orange County. He is also a scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Judeo-Christian based group in Washington, D.C., the chief of medical ethics at The Unity Project, a non-profit medical freedom and parental rights group, and the Brownstone Institute has supported his work in public health.

      “So, I’m very happy,” he said. “I’ve landed on my feet. I don’t really have a desire to go back to the university.”

      Dr. Kheriaty is also a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden case, alleging the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor disfavored speech.

      ‘Legislative Power Grab’

      Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2 that AB 2098 would not likely have survived a legal challenge and is “an embarrassment for Newsom” and his presidential ambitions.

      Dr. Malone called AB 2098 a “legislative power grab” from the state medical board to the legislature and criticized state lawmakers for interfering in the practice of medicine.

      To have COVID-specific legislation on regulating medical standards is “bizarre” in the first place because there is already “perfectly adequate” legislation regulating medical standards, he said.

      He said Mr. Low’s Sept. 12 statement that the “update” will still hold doctors accountable suggests the new law is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he said.

      “Fortunately, with this update, the Medical Board of California will continue to maintain the authority to hold medical licensees accountable for deviating from the standard of care and misinforming their patients about COVID-19 treatments,” Mr. Low said in the statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

      A doctor with an adverse finding or even a pending investigation against their medical license cannot transfer their licenses to another state, so physicians in this situation are forced to decide whether to leave the state before it has an opportunity to impose an action against their license or run the risk of losing it, “which would make it impossible for them to leave the state,” said Dr. Malone.

      “Independent thinkers—the very people that you most want to have medicine—are being run out by the state legislative policies,” he said. “It means that people with no qualifications to practice medicine are mandating how medicine must be practiced directly.

      Dr. Malone, the chief medical officer at The Unity Project, is known for expressing concerns about the possibility of immune imprinting. He claimed vaccines provide poor protection over time, with some indications the shielding turns negative.

      The “politicization of medicine,” during the pandemic years was “bad medicine,” he said, noting that recent reports about myocarditis are “stunning.”

      For more than a year-and-a-half, news reports have documented that the CDC “has been withholding critical information from the medical community relating to COVID-19 vaccines and their safety, Dr. Malone said.

      Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, told the Epoch Times there was no need for SB 815 or AB 2098.

      “The writing is on the wall,” she said. “There’s a temporary injunction right now against AB 2098, and I think the authors of this terrible legislation knew that they had to do something to modify this because it’s so horrendous.”

      Ms. Sextro said a doctor who owns an urgent care clinic with seven practitioners in California told her on Oct. 2 the clinic would be shuttered because of legislation like AB 2098 and SB 815.

      “They’ve made the decision to close the clinic,” she said.

      “I think that bills like AB 2098 are actually designed to penalize the sole proprietor doctors—the single-practice doctors who are not associated with … big box medical groups,” she said.

      Other Legal Challenges

      AB 2098 has since met other legal challenges, including complaints from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the American Civil Liberties Union and two California doctors, Dr. Mark McDonald and Dr. Jeff Barke.

      Shubb’s ruling runs contrary to Judge Fred W. Slaughter’s earlier decision to deny a preliminary injunction in the case involving Dr. Barke and Dr. McDonald, who sued the medical board, Mr. Newsom, and AG Bonta in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last year. The lawsuit, which is still pending, asked the court to declare AB 2098 unconstitutional and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement.

      Dr. Simone Gold, a Beverly Hills physician who founded America’s Frontline Doctors, called AB 2098 an “unconstitutional, Orwellian gag-order,” that attempts to mandate a new and undefined standard known as ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ and illegally suppress dissenting professional medical opinions.

      Eric Hintz, legislative director for Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona) told The Epoch Times several Republicans voted against SB 815 because they knew the Democratic majority would pass it to remove the “misinformation” and “disinformation” provisions in AB 2098 and because Republicans wanted to voice opposition to fee increases for medical licenses in the state.

      The bill increases medical license fees for all physicians by $288, from $863 to $1,151.

      “So, I think that’s the reason why a lot of Republicans decided to vote against it,” Mr. Hintz said.

      The bill would also extend the regulatory powers of the medical board by two more years from a Jan. 1, 2026, sunset clause to Jan. 1, 2028.

      “That would be another reason why someone might oppose the bill,” he said.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:20

    • Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts 'Climate Deniers' & Warns "Breaking Point" Coming
      Pope Francis In Greta-Style Rebuke Lambasts ‘Climate Deniers’ & Warns “Breaking Point” Coming

      Pope Francis has made the ‘climate crisis’ a big focus of his papacy, and on Wednesday he has for only the second time issued a major ecology-focused encyclical, which is being called his strongest statement yet on the issue.

      In the 7,000 word new encyclical called Laudate Deum (“Praise God”) which is certain to make climate activists like Greta Thunberg happy, he lambasted “irresponsible” Western lifestyles and big industries which are bringing to world to a “breaking point”. He went after Americans in particular. 

      “Our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point,” he wrote. “Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen.”

      CNN and other US mainstream publications are now lauding his blistering attack on “deniers”: 

      “Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident. No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest,” Francis wrote.

      Ignoring the accelerating climate change process, he continued, will only advance “the probability of extreme phenomena that are increasingly frequent and intense.”

      He went after the United States and its citizens in particular, while appearing to give China somewhat of a pass:

      “If we consider that emissions per individual in the United States are about two times greater than those of individuals living in China, and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he wrote. 

      Francis at one point seemed to tailor his argument for the ‘common man’ while lamenting what he called “Resistance and confusion” in a subheading to the document…

      “In recent years, some have chosen to deride these facts. They bring up allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming,” he said. “They forget to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it.”

      And he claimed all of this can be easily perceived: “The rise in the sea level and the melting of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts.”

      Currently, an old video of circus performers at the Vatican has resurfaced and is circulating…

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

      We noted earlier this week that conservative Catholics have been increasingly frustrated by Pope Francis’ ultra-ambiguous statements which have left the door open for novel practices and departures from longtime doctrine, such as “blessings of gay unions”. At the same time his attacks and rebukes of ‘climate deniers’ now on display (a political hot topic issue which is outside the scope of religion in the traditional sense) are crystal clear in meaning and intent. Some traditional Catholics are warning that his agenda is to ‘revolutionize’ the Vatican in a decidedly leftward direction. 

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 20:00

    • Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism
      Shellenberger: Why This One Simple Chart Will End Wokeism

      Authored by Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian via Public Substack,

      Over the last few years, Woke progressives have behaved in increasingly odd ways. Black Lives Matter activists in Washington, D.C., screamed at and hovered over a woman sitting peacefully in a restaurant, demanding that she raise her fist in a salute. Climate activists threw soup at a Van Gogh painting, dumped milk on the floor of a grocery store, and cemented their hands to an airport runway. And transgender activists claimed, falsely, that there was a “genocide” against trans people, even though there’s no evidence that trans-identified people are being killed at higher rates than non-trans people.

      Some of these behaviors can be explained by the fact that Wokeism is a religion. Two years ago, the two of us published a chart, “Woke Religion: A Taxonomy,” and an accompanying essay, which described how race, climate, trans, and other Woke activists had created their own versions of original sin, taboos, and myths. We turned the taxonomy into a poster and sold hundreds of copies. Both of us still get emails from people saying that the chart helped them to understand why so many previously secular people appear to be in the grip of a deeply superstitious religion.

      But over the last year, the two of us felt that something was missing. Wokeism is a religion, but its religious nature didn’t necessarily describe the madness that seemed to grip its most devoted adherents. Many people believe crazy things but don’t behave so narcissistically or psychopathically, without regards for other people, in the way that Woke activists do. And so we decided to create a new taxonomy, one focused on Woke psychopathology.

      “Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy” is inspired by the traits that characterize what the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-V) calls “Cluster B personality disorders.” There are four of these personality disorders: narcissistic, anti-social (previously psychopathy), histrionic, and borderline. The traits, which run horizontally across the top of the Taxonomy, are Attention-Seeking, Grandiosity, Emotional Dysregulation, Excess of Empathy, Victimhood Ideology, Impaired Reality Testing, Lack of Empathy, and Splitting. Together, the traits form an easy-to-remember acronym: AGE-EVILS.

      Along the horizontal axis are the three major categories of Wokeism: Race, Climate, and Trans. Inside each of the 24 boxes formed by the 3×8 grid are descriptions and examples of these traits.

      The result is striking.

      Attention-Seeking explains not only throwing soup on paintings but also Jussie Smollett’s hoaxed lynching and Dylan Mulvaney’s antics.

      Lack of Empathy (for those designated “oppressors”) explains not only BLM activists demanding fist salutes but also disregard for working-class commuters by climate activists and violence by trans activists against women.

      And Impaired Reality Testing explains not only the false claims of trans genocide but also the claim that racism is worse than ever and that climate change is making disasters worse.

      The result is a crib sheet that we believe will be devastating to Woke ideology. The late Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski, who lived under Nazism and Communism, argues in Political Ponerology that it’s not enough to condemn totalitarianism. We must also seek to explain it. And by explaining it, he meant to diagnose it psychologically. As such, in producing this Taxonomy, we are diagnosing Woke movements and the behaviors of their adherents, if not the individuals themselves, as psychopathological.

      We recognize that these claims, and the Taxonomy, will be controversial. But we think such controversy is necessary if we are to put an end to, or at least significantly reduce, the narcissistic, psychopathic, and histrionic behaviors that have come to define progressive politics.

      Without further ado, here’s Woke Psychopathology: A Taxonomy!

      Public subscribers can click on the image above to see an enlarged version of the Taxonomy…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:45

    • Coal Production Surges By 83% At India's Largest Power Firm
      Coal Production Surges By 83% At India’s Largest Power Firm

      Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

      India’s state power giant NTPC Ltd reported on Tuesday an 83% jump in coal production from the mines it operates in the first half of the 2023/24 fiscal year as India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its electricity demand.   

      Coal still generates around 70% of the country’s electricity. NTPC, with a current installed power generation capacity from all sources of more than 73 gigawatts (GW), is the largest integrated power company. 

      In the first half of the fiscal year 2023/2024, between April and September, NTPC also saw coal dispatch for the period soar by 94%, Indian media report, citing the company’s first-half and Q2 figures. 

      NTPC also boosted its coal production by 66% in the second quarter of its fiscal year, compared to the period between July and September in 2022.

      In September 2023 alone, the company’s coal production surged by 80% and coal dispatch jumped by 106% year-on-year. 

      During the whole previous fiscal year between April 2022 and March 2023, NTPC’s coal production soared by 65%, Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director, told the annual general meeting in August 2023. 

      India had anticipated that its power generation from coal would increase in the current year as authorities plan to have coal-fired units maximize electricity production from imported coal to meet rising demand.

      Early this year, India’s government expected coal-fired power plants to use 8% more coal in the financial year between March 2023 and March 2024, as demand is set to continue rising thanks to growing economic activity and unpredictable weather.

      Last year NTPC said it could increase its coal-generation capacity as it prioritizes energy security after the power outages in the spring of 2022.

      The coal phase-out in India is “going to take 2-3 decades, if not more,” NTPC’s chairman Gurdeep Singh said at the time.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:40

    • Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After "Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater" Siphoned For Alfalfa
      Arizona Cancels Saudi Land Deal After “Unchecked Amounts Of Groundwater” Siphoned For Alfalfa

      Arizona is finally cracking down on foreign companies drinking their milkshake, after Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) canceled a deal which would give a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company free groundwater.

      To review; Over the past several years we’ve noted that as the American southwest has suffered under severe drought conditions (last winter notwithstanding), foreign-owned farms have been siphoning water from underground aquifers to grow water-thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately end up overseas in order to feed cattle and other foreign livestock. Saudi Arabian companies swooped in following a 2018 ban on the growing of alfalfa due to the strain on the water supply.

      One such company, Fondomonte, grows alfalfa in Arizona for export to the Middle East. While there is no firm data on exactly how much water the company uses, a State Land Department report revealed that Fondomonte is estimated to be using as much as 18,000 acre-feet (22 million cubic metres) each year – enough water to supply 54,000 single-family homes.

      In April, Fondomonte agreed to rescind two new drilling applications after Attorney General Kris Mayes highlighted ‘inconsistencies’ in the company’s applications.

      According to La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin (speaking to CNN earlier this year), Middle East agriculture companies “have depleted their [water], that’s why they are here,” adding “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”

      In fact, 80% of Arizona has no laws governing how much water can be drained by corporate megafarms, nor is there any way to track it.

      In September, Arizona state lawmaker Ruben Gallego (D) put forth a bill to stop the practice, called the Domestic Water Protection Act of 2023. The law would impose a 300% tax on the sale of water-intensive crops grown by foreign companies in the state.

      “The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” said longtime resident of Wenden, Arizona, Gary Saiter, who said a UAE-based company, Al Dahra, had been tapping into an underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years.

      [R]ural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet.

      Shallow, residential wells in the county started drying up in 2015, local officials say, and deeper municipal well levels have steadily declined. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.” -CNN

      According to Saiter, water in the town well has been plummeting – with the depth-to-water level dropping from around 100 feet below the surface in the 1950s to around 540 feet in 2022 – far beyond what an average residential well can reach.

      Hobbs cancels lease

      On Monday, the governor’s office announced that an investigation in La Paz county found that Fondomite has been in violation of its lease since 2016.

      “It’s unacceptable that Fondomonte has continued to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater out of our state while in clear default on their lease,” said Hobbs.

      According to Mayes, the AG, “This decision to protect Arizona’s precious groundwater resources and uphold the integrity of our state land trust is a good step in the right direction for the future of Arizona,” adding “However, we must take additional steps to urgently protect Arizona’s water resources – especially in rural Arizona.”

      Hobbs now says she won’t renew Fondomonte’s three other leases in the state which expire next year, saying that the contracts were “not in the best interest of the Trust’s beneficiaries due to excessive amounts of water being pumped from the land—free of charge.”

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:20

    • Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat
      Harder Than Gold, Faster Than Fiat

      Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

      French Emperor Napoleon III would use a unique set of aluminum cutlery only for his most honored dinner guests.

      Normal guests had to contend with gold utensils.

      In the middle of the 19th century, aluminum was more scarce and desirable than even gold.

      As a result, aluminum bullion bars found a place among the national treasures of France, and aluminum jewelry became a symbol of the French aristocracy.

      Aluminum, known by its atomic number 13 on the periodic table, is a ubiquitous element, yet it mainly exists intertwined in complex chemical compounds and not in its metallic state.

      The complex procedure of transforming aluminum compounds into pure aluminum metal was costly, making aluminum harder to produce than gold. The aluminum price at the time reflected that.

      In 1852, aluminum hovered around $37 per ounce, significantly more expensive than gold at $20.67 per ounce.

      But aluminum’s fate was about to take a dramatic turn towards the end of the 19th century.

      A monumental discovery in 1886 made it possible to produce pure aluminum on an enormous scale at a fraction of the previous cost.

      Before this groundbreaking finding, global aluminum production was a mere handful of ounces per month.

      After the discovery, America’s leading aluminum company manufactured 800 ounces daily. Within two decades, this company, which would later become Alcoa, made over 1.4 million ounces of aluminum daily.

      The price of aluminum plummeted from a staggering $550 per pound in 1852 to a mere $12 in 1880. By the dawn of the 20th century, a pound of aluminum cost approximately 20 cents.

      In less than a decade and a half, aluminum transitioned from the planet’s most expensive metal to one of the cheapest.

      Nowadays, aluminum is no longer a precious metal fit for royal feasts or a country’s national treasure. It has become an everyday item used in soda cans and cooking foil.

      Aluminum’s dramatic transformation from a highly prized metal to an inexpensive household material illustrates “hardness”—the most important characteristic of a good money.

      Hardness does not mean something that is necessarily tangible or physically hard, like metal. Instead, it means “hard to produce.” By contrast, “easy money” is easy to produce.

      The best way to think of hardness is “resistance to debasement,” which helps make it a good store of value—an essential function of money.

      Would you want to put your savings into something somebody else can create without effort or cost?

      Of course, you wouldn’t.

      It would be like storing your life savings in Chuck E. Cheese arcade tokens, airline frequent flyer miles, aluminum, or government fiat currencies.

      What is desirable in a good money is something that someone else cannot make easily.

      The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Ratio

      The stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio measures an asset’s hardness.

      S2F Ratio = Stock / Flow

      The “stock” part refers to the amount of something available, like current stockpiles. It’s the supply already mined. It’s available right away.

      The “flow” part refers to the new supply added from production and other sources each year.

      A high S2F ratio means that annual supply growth is small relative to the existing supply, which indicates a hard asset resistant to debasement.

      A low S2F ratio indicates the opposite. A low S2F ratio means new annual production can easily influence the overall supply—and prices. That’s not desirable for something to function as a store of value.

      In the chart below, we can see the hardness of various physical commodities.

      No other physical commodity comes close to gold’s hardness or resistance to debasement.

      Monetary commodities such as gold and silver have higher S2F ratios. On the other hand, industrial commodities have low S2F ratios, typically around 1x.

      With an S2F ratio of 60x, it would take about 60 years of the current production rate to equal the existing gold supply.

      Another way to think of it is to look at the inverse of the SF ratio, which is the annual production rate relative to existing stockpiles. So, for example, gold’s yearly production is about a trivial 1.7% of its existing stockpiles.

      Two things can explain gold’s uniquely high S2F ratio.

      First, gold is indestructible.

      Gold doesn’t decay or corrode. That means that most gold people produced even thousands of years ago is still around today and contributing to current stockpiles.

      Second, gold has a history of thousands of years of production, unlike other metals.

      These two factors make gold’s existing stockpiles so large relative to new production. That means nobody can arbitrarily increase the gold supply, which helps make it a neutral store of value. It’s what gives gold unique and unmatched monetary properties among other metals.

      It’s important to clarify that hardness is not the same as scarcity. They are related concepts but not the same thing.

      For example, platinum and palladium are scarcer than gold but not hard assets. Current production is high relative to existing stockpiles.

      Unlike gold, stockpiles of platinum and palladium have not built up over thousands of years. It’s the primary reason why new supply can easily rock the market.

      Because of their low S2F ratios, platinum (0.4x) and palladium (1.1x) are even less suitable as money than silver. Their low S2F ratios indicate they are primarily industrial metals, corresponding to how people use them today. Almost nobody uses platinum and palladium as money.

      Here’s the main point.

      Hardness is the most important characteristic of a good money. All other monetary characteristics are meaningless if the money is easy for someone to produce.

      That’s why the history of money is the history of the hardest asset winning and why gold has always reigned supreme.

      But now gold has a serious competitor…

      Bitcoin’s S2F ratio today is about 57x, slightly below gold’s.

      According to its fixed protocol, we know precisely how Bitcoin’s supply will grow in the future.

      A key feature is that the new supply gets cut in half every four years, which causes Bitcoin’s hardness to double every four years.

      The process where Bitcoin’s new supply is cut in half every four years is known as the “halving”—or what I like to call “quantitative hardening.”

      Here’s another way to think of it.

      In 2023, the gold market must absorb roughly 117 million troy ounces of new supply.

      In 2024 we can expect that the gold market must absorb slightly more, say 119 million troy ounces of new supply.

      In subsequent years we can expect the amount of new supply the gold market must absorb to increase gradually.

      Bitcoin has the opposite dynamic. The amount of new supply the market must absorb is constantly shrinking.

      In 2023, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly 328,500 Bitcoin of new supply.

      After the halving in May 2024, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 164,250 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2028.

      After the halving in 2028, the Bitcoin market must adsorb roughly an additional 82,128 Bitcoin of new supply each year until the halving in 2032.

      This process of new supply decreases will continue until the year 2140, when the last Bitcoin will be created. That’s when the total Bitcoin supply will reach 21 million. Today it’s about 19.5 million, meaning the vast majority—about 93%—of the total Bitcoin supply has already been created.

      That means only 1.5 million more Bitcoin will be created over the next 117 years at a decreasing rate.

      In other words, Bitcoin’s supply will only grow about 7% in the next 117 years. By reference, the US money supply has increased by around 35% since March 2020.

      Historically, halvings and their massive supply shocks have catalyzed eye-popping Bitcoin bull markets where Bitcoin has skyrocketed 10x (or more).

      The next time Bitcoin’s supply growth will be cut in half will be in May 2024—less than eight months from now.

      But this coming halving will be very different…

      That’s because Bitcoin’s hardness, as measured by the S2F ratio, will be twice that of gold’s when that happens.

      That’s how Bitcoin will soon become the hardest money the world has ever known—in less than eight months. And it will keep getting harder as its S2F ratio approaches infinity.

      For thousands of years, gold has always been mankind’s hardest money. That is all set to change in a matter of months, and most people have no idea.

      I think now is the time to get positioned for this unique moment in monetary history.

      Absolute Scarcity

      Bitcoin has another unique scarcity attribute. It isn’t just scarce. It is absolutely scarce.

      For example, imagine the price of copper going 5x or 10x.

      You can be sure that would spur increased production, eventually expanding the copper supply. Of course, the same is true of any other commodity.

      That’s why there is a famous saying in mining: “the cure for high prices is high prices.”

      The dynamic of higher prices incentivizing more production and ultimately more supply, bringing prices down, exists with every physical commodity. However, gold is the most resistant to this process.

      That supply response is why most commodity prices tend to revert around the cost of production over time.

      This dynamic is even more profound with money.

      When an asset obtains monetary properties, the natural reaction is for people to make more of it—a lot more of it.

      This known as the easy money trap.

      However, Bitcoin totally defies it because its supply is perfectly inflexible. It’s the only commodity where higher prices cannot induce more supply.

      In other words, Bitcoin is the first—and only—monetary asset with a supply entirely unaffected by increased demand.

      That is an astonishing and game-changing characteristic.

      Here’s the bottom line. Gold and other commodities are scarce, but only Bitcoin is absolutely scarce.

      That means the only way Bitcoin can respond to an increase in demand is for the price to go up. Unlike every other commodity, increasing the supply in response to increased demand is not an option.

      The market cap for Bitcoin today is around $528 billion.

      The market cap for all the mined gold in the world, which took thousands of years to accumulate, is about $12.3 trillion.

      That means Bitcoin has a market cap roughly equal to 4.2% of gold’s, even though it is about to surpass—double—gold’s hardness.

      Assuming gold stays flat and Bitcoin goes up about 23x, it would have a market cap roughly equal to gold. At that point, a single Bitcoin would be worth over $620,000.

      I think that’s a real possibility in the years ahead, though it could happen much sooner as the fiat currency scam continues to collapse at an accelerating rate.

      If that sounds outrageous, consider this…

      Ten years ago, the Bitcoin price was around $100. Today, it’s roughly 271x that.

      Bitcoin has made numerous breathtaking moves to the upside in the past. I think it can do it again, especially as corporations, institutional investors, and even nation states start buying Bitcoin for the first time and as Bitcoin surpasses gold and becomes the hardest money mankind has ever known. Of course, it’s important to remember that past performance does not indicate future results for any investment.

      That’s why I’ve just released an urgent PDF report revealing three crucial Bitcoin techniques to ensure you avoid the most common—sometimes fatal—mistakes. Check it out as soon as possible because it could soon be too late to take action. Click here to get it now.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 19:00

    • FBI Creates 'MAGA' Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election
      FBI Creates ‘MAGA’ Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election

      The Biden FBI has ‘quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers’ ahead of the 2024 election, according to prolific (and well connected) anti-war journalist and political commentator, William Arkin, who has previously reported on the FBI’s efforts to “Fight MAGA Terrorism.”

      In a Wednesday Newsweek article, Arkin reveals that the vast majority of FBI investigations into “anti-government” activities are of Trump supporters.

      “The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” a current FBI official told Arkin, who added that the agency’s stated intent is stopping a repeat of January 6th type incidents (which was riddled with feds), while balancing the Constitutional right of Americans to protest the government “Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” the official continued.

      Newsweek spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism. Most requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.

      Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether “terrorism” is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions.

      We would note that an FBI whistleblower in March claimed that the agency pressured him to inflate domestic terrorism figures against conservatives, and that the agency created a specific threat tag for pro-lifers “THREATSCOTUS2022” following the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion (and not a threat tag for the violent leftists who threatened SCOTUS justices?).

      The FBI told Newsweek in a statement that: “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” adding “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.”

      According to the FBI’s data leaked to Arkin, the number of domestic extremism cases has dropped since Jan 6, but that “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.”

      So – while the threat that the FBI has encouraged agents to inflate may have fallen, they’re on the lookout!

      The agency has even created a new subcategory of threats, “AGAAVE-Other,” to denote those who are a threat but don’t fit into its anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen categories.

      Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as “domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.” -Newsweek

      Trump or MAGA aren’t directly menti0oned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, however “government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president’s supporters.“

      “What other name could we use?” said one FBI officer, who added: “Obviously if Democratic Party supporters resort to violence, it [AGAAVE-Other] would apply to them as well. It doesn’t matter that there is a low likelihood of that. So yes, in practical terms, it refers to MAGA, though the carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan.”

      Sure anonymous FBI guy… there’s a ‘low likelihood’ that Democrats (the party which the FBI’s top brass belong to) aren’t causing political violence. Did someone get into Hunter’s crack stash?

      A parked limousine burns during a demonstration after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington.

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

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

      More:

      3 cops, pepper spray used in arrest of Sen. Tim Kaine’s son near Trump rally at Capitol

       “100% Antifa” Portland Shooting Suspect Brought Loaded Gun To July Riot

       “We Know Where You Sleep At Night”: Antifa Mob Whose Founder Loves Assassination Targets Tucker Carlson At Home

      As The Federalist perfectly notes;

      Despite widespread, leftist-led and encouraged riots during the 2020 summer of rage, FBI data says that spikes in domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism investigations in 2020 and 2021 “show clearly that the main targets of the investigations and cases open were of Trump supporters,” not the people who wreaked billions of dollars of damage on American cities.

      Similarly, “assessments,” a shadowy tool used by the FBI to spy on Americans who have political or ideological associations deemed unfavorable by the agency, “more than doubled from 2019 to 2021.”

      A drastic rise in politicized probes of Trump voters follows an avalanche of rhetoric touted by President Joe Biden, his White House, Democrats in Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and other officials who have named the “domestic extremism” often pinned on Republican voters as the nation’s biggest threat.

      The increase also serves as a continuation of the Biden regime’s persecution of its number one political opponent and his popular brand of wrongthink ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

      Totally ‘not weaponized.’ 

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      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:40

    • Big Tech's Armageddon
      Big Tech’s Armageddon

      Authored by Betsy McCaughey via The Epoch Times,

      Never before in U.S. history have Americans been less free to see and say what they want. The blame goes mostly to the social media giants such as Facebook, YouTube, and Google that censor political views they don’t like.

      But the tech giants’ day of reckoning is near. Justice Clarence Thomas is taking them on.

      Phone companies such as AT&T or Sprint can’t shut down your account because of your political views. American Airlines can’t refuse to sell you a ticket because you’ve questioned climate change or COVID lockdowns. The law forbids it.

      That same ban against political discrimination should apply to social media platforms. Justice Thomas has argued against Big Tech censorship since at least 2021, saying these companies should have to serve all customers, just like phone companies, utilities, and public accommodations.

      On Sept. 29, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will rule on state laws enacted by Florida and Texas that prohibit tech giants from canceling users based on their political views. Expect Justice Thomas to lead a majority of the justices to conclude that internet censorship is inconsistent with democracy and must be stopped.

      A high court ruling against censorship will deal a powerful blow against Big Tech tyranny. Not a day too soon. Hallelujah.

      Right now, social media platforms freely censor, taking down posts and deplatforming users whose views they don’t like—even a former president of the United States—and burying information so it’s impossible to find with a Google search.

      Big Tech censorship impacts far more people than when colleges silence dissent or even when workplaces and schools indoctrinate.

      Texas’s anti-censorship law is designed to protect the public against this loss of freedom. The law still allows the removal of items that are pornographic, threaten violence, or promote the sexual exploitation of children—what’s truly harmful.

      To defend Texas’s law, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, specifically cited Justice Thomas’s argument.

      The law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, deciding that corporations don’t have a “right to muzzle speech.”

      But a similar Florida law was struck down by the 11th Circuit, arguing that Big Tech platforms have a First Amendment right to pick and choose views like a newspaper does.

      Now, the Supreme Court is poised to resolve those conflicting outcomes. The court will decide who is protected by the First Amendment—the tech companies that claim they’re like newspapers, or the millions of social media users.

      The smart money is on Justice Thomas persuading a majority of the justices that democracy requires an uncensored internet.

      In a 2021 concurring opinion, Justice Thomas suggested a role for Congress to provide a legislative fix, including changing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But Congress is unlikely to act, as long as Democrats control either house.

      Most Democrats in Congress are rooting for more censorship. They’ve become the anti-free speech party. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told tech executives during a 2020 Senate hearing that he wants them to censor “climate denialism.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) urged them to do more “content modification” and eliminate “disinformation” in future elections.

      When Mr. Blumenthal says “content modification,” it’s a euphemism for silencing the opposition—in short, rigging elections.

      “Disinformation.” Don’t be fooled by that word. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes explained that the way to test the truth of any statement is to see if it survives in the marketplace of ideas. Truth will prevail.

      Lousy ideas, falsehoods, and loser politicians such as President Joe Biden need censorship to survive.

      At the Supreme Court, Biden’s Department of Justice is siding with Big Tech against the public’s right to free expression.

      That’s no surprise. President Biden likely owes his 2020 election to Big Tech’s rush to squash the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reporting.

      Since taking office, Joe Biden has erected a vast censorship operation, with the White House, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other government agencies colluding with Big Tech to limit what you can see and say. Bravo that Elon Musk’s company X, formerly Twitter, refuses.

      The next move belongs to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments and rule early in 2024.

      Count on Justice Thomas’s anti-censorship views to prevail. Americans will be freer as a result.

      Thank you, Justice Thomas.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 18:20

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 04

    Today’s News 4th October 2023

    • EU Wants To Pay Off Hungary To The Tune Of €13BN So Orban Doesn't Veto Ukraine Aid
      EU Wants To Pay Off Hungary To The Tune Of €13BN So Orban Doesn’t Veto Ukraine Aid

      Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has long been an opponent of the mainstay of EU policy on Ukraine, having also persistently criticized Kiev for discrimination against Hungarian minorities, and demanding that a 2017 law restricting the use of minority languages be changed. He’s also refused to ratify Sweden’s entry into NATO.

      Orbán has further throughout the conflict stood against policies which escalate against Moscow, and has constantly warned against stumbling into a WW3 scenario involving direct NATO-Russia clash. He told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview that “the Third World War сould be knocking on our door so we have to be very careful.” With Budapest having been a consistent thorn in the side of the EU, Brussels now wants to pay the Hungarians off.

      AFP/Getty Images

      “The European Commission is preparing to unfreeze around €13 billion in funds for Hungary to try to avoid Prime Minister Viktor Orbán vetoing EU aid for Ukraine, in a move likely to draw criticism from the European Parliament,” Politico reports Tuesday.

      “The Commission needs the unanimous backing of the bloc’s 27 countries for an update to the EU’s long-term budget, which includes a €50 billion funding pot for Ukraine,” the report adds.

      Akin to what’s currently going down in Washington with a group of Republicans holding up Ukraine funding, Brussels may soon have its own Ukraine aid blockage problem. EU aid for Kiev which was previously approved runs out in December, hence the urgency for EU leadership in wanting to push through a new package.

      A week ago, Orbán gave a speech declaring Hungary will no longer support Ukraine in any way unless certain significant policies are changed both in Kiev and in the European Union.

      He stressed in the words given before parliament that “Hungary is doing everything for peace” but that “unfortunately the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, tens of thousands of people are victims.” Thus, he continued, “Diplomats must take control back from the hands of the soldiers, otherwise it will be in vain for women to wait for their sons and fathers and husbands to come home.”

      The Hungarian leader has stood against ratcheting Western sanctions on Moscow, instead choosing to maintain a generally positive diplomatic relationship with the Kremlin.

      He also a week ago charged that Kiev and its backers have cheated Budapest by “Ukrainian grain dumping” into his country. He had also laid out, per The Hill:

      … that he was protesting a 2017 law in Ukraine that limits ethnic Hungarians from speaking their own language, particularly in schools and said Hungary would not support Ukraine on international issues “until the previous laws are restored.”

      Needless to say EU officials are panicking, and are readying a lucrative quid pro quo with Hungary (based on freeing frozen funds related to the prior years’ so-called “rule of law” punitive measures”), so that EU aid to Ukraine doesn’t get blocked at a crucial moment that Washington funding is drying up.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 02:45

    • Poland, Austria, & Czechia Introduce Temporary Border-Checks With Slovakia To Curb Illegal Migration
      Poland, Austria, & Czechia Introduce Temporary Border-Checks With Slovakia To Curb Illegal Migration

      Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

      Poland, Austria and Czechia will all introduce random checks at the countries’ borders with Slovakia from midnight on Wednesday following an influx of illegal immigration.

      Temporary checks will be conducted along the length of the border for an initial 10-day period until Oct. 13.

      They will focus specifically on road and railway border crossings, although, pedestrians and cyclists may also be asked for documentation. Anyone within the vicinity of the border may be requested to identify themselves.

      “The numbers of illegal migrants to the EU are starting to grow again,” said Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala following the announcement. “We don’t take the situation lightly.”

      “Citizens need a valid passport or identity card to cross the border,” the Czech Interior Ministry added.

      The Czech policy would also be adopted by neighboring Austria, the country’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner confirmed.

      Poland had already announced its intention to reintroduce checks on the Slovak border with the number of migrants along the Balkans migration route continuing to surge. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week he was “instructing Minister of Interior Mariusz Kamiński to check on buses, coaches, and cars crossing the border when it is suspected there could be illegal migrants on board.”

      “In recent weeks, we detected and detained 551 illegal migrants at the border with Slovakia. This situation causes us to take decisive action,” Kaminski added.

      Slovak caretaker Prime Minister Ludovit Odor acknowledged the growing issue of illegal migration in his country but insisted that the problem needs a European solution rather than individual nations restricting border access.

      He claimed that the decision by the three neighboring countries had been fueled by the Polish government, which is involved in a tightly contested election campaign, with Poles heading to voting booths on Oct. 15.

      “The whole thing has been triggered by Poland, where an election will soon take place, and the Czech Republic has joined in,” Odor said.

      Slovakia revealed last month that the number of illegal migrants detained by its authorities this year had soared nine-fold to over 27,000. The majority of detainees comprise young men from the Middle East using the Balkan migratory route through Serbia as they seek to migrate to northwestern Europe.

      The winner of Sunday’s general election in Slovakia, former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has vowed to tackle the issue more robustly by promising to reintroduce border checks with neighboring Hungary.

      “It will not be a pretty picture,” Fico told journalists as he threatened to use force to dispel illegal migrants detected on Slovak territory.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 10/04/2023 – 02:00

    • No Privacy, No Property: The World In 2030 According To The WEF
      No Privacy, No Property: The World In 2030 According To The WEF

      Authored by Madge Waggy via SevenWop.home.blog,

      The World Economic Forum (WEF) was founded fifty years ago. It has gained more and more prominence over the decades and has become one of the leading platforms of futuristic thinking and planning. As a meeting place of the global elite, the WEF brings together the leaders in business and politics along with a few selected intellectuals. The main thrust of the forum is global control.

      Free markets and individual choice do not stand as the top values, but state interventionism and collectivism. Individual liberty and private property are to disappear from this planet by 2030 according to the projections and scenarios coming from the World Economic Forum.

      Eight Predictions

      Individual liberty is at risk again. What may lie ahead was projected in November 2016 when the WEF published “8 Predictions for the World in 2030.” According to the WEF’s scenario, the world will become quite a different place from now because how people work and live will undergo a profound change. The scenario for the world in 2030 is more than just a forecast. It is a plan whose implementation has accelerated drastically since with the announcement of a pandemic and the consequent lockdowns. 

      According to the projections of the WEF’s “Global Future Councils,” private property and privacy will be abolished during the next decade. The coming expropriation would go further than even the communist demand to abolish the property of production goods but leave space for private possessions. The WEF projection says that consumer goods, too, would be no longer private property.

      If the WEF projection should come true, people would have to rent and borrow their necessities from the state, which would be the sole proprietor of all goods. The supply of goods would be rationed in line with a social credit points system. Shopping in the traditional sense would disappear along with the private purchases of goods. Every personal move would be tracked electronically, and all production would be subject to the requirements of clean energy and a sustainable environment. 

      In order to attain “sustainable agriculture,” the food supply will be mainly vegetarian. In the new totalitarian service economy, the government will provide basic accommodation, food, and transport, while the rest must be lent from the state. The use of natural resources will be brought down to its minimum. In cooperation with the few key countries, a global agency would set the price of CO2 emissions at an extremely high level to disincentivize its use.

      In a promotional video, the World Economic Forum summarizes the eight predictions in the following statements:

      1. People will own nothing. Goods are either free of charge or must be lent from the state.

      2. The United States will no longer be the leading superpower, but a handful of countries will dominate.

      3. Organs will not be transplanted but printed.

      4. Meat consumption will be minimized.

      5. Massive displacement of people will take place with billions of refugees.

      6. To limit the emission of carbon dioxide, a global price will be set at an exorbitant level.

      7. People can prepare to go to Mars and start a journey to find alien life.

      8. Western values will be tested to the breaking point..

      Beyond Privacy and Property

      In a publication for the World Economic Forum, the Danish ecoactivist Ida Auken, who had served as her country’s minister of the environment from 2011 to 2014 and still is a member of the Danish Parliament (the Folketing), has elaborated a scenario of a world without privacy or property. In “Welcome to 2030,” she envisions a world where “I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.” By 2030, so says her scenario, shopping and owning have become obsolete, because everything that once was a product is now a service.

      In this idyllic new world of hers, people have free access to transportation, accommodation, food, “and all the things we need in our daily lives.” As these things will become free of charge, “it ended up not making sense for us to own much.” There would be no private ownership in houses nor would anyone pay rent, “because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it.” A person’s living room, for example, will be used for business meetings when one is absent. Concerns like “lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment” are things of the past. The author predicts that people will be happy to enjoy such a good life that is so much better “than the path we were on, where it became so clear that we could not continue with the same model of growth.”

      Ecological Paradise

      In her 2019 contribution to the Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum, Ida Auken foretells how the world may look in the future “if we win the war on climate change.” By 2030, when CO2 emissions will be greatly reduced, people will live in a world where meat on the dinner plate “will be a rare sight” while water and the air will be much cleaner than today. Because of the shift from buying goods to using services, the need to have money will vanish, because people will spend less and less on goods. Work time will shrink and leisure time will grow.

      For the future, Auken envisions a city where electric cars have substituted conventional combustion vehicles. Most of the roads and parking spaces will have become green parks and walking zones for pedestrians. By 2030, agriculture will offer mainly plant-based alternatives to the food supply instead of meat and dairy products. The use of land to produce animal feed will greatly diminish and nature will be spreading across the globe again.

      Fabricating Social Consent

      How can people be brought to accept such a system? The bait to entice the masses is the assurances of comprehensive healthcare and a guaranteed basic income. The promoters of the Great Reset promise a world without diseases. Due to biotechnologically produced organs and individualized genetics-based medical treatments, a drastically increased life expectancy and even immortality are said to be possible. Artificial intelligence will eradicate death and eliminate disease and mortality. The race is on among biotechnological companies to find the key to eternal life.

      Along with the promise of turning any ordinary person into a godlike superman, the promise of a “universal basic income” is highly attractive, particularly to those who will no longer find a job in the new digital economy. Obtaining a basic income without having to go through the treadmill and disgrace of applying for social assistance is used as a bait to get the support of the poor.

      To make it economically viable, the guarantee of a basic income would require the leveling of wage differences. The technical procedures of the money transfer from the state will be used to promote the cashless society. With the digitization of all monetary transactions, each individual purchase will be registered. As a consequence, the governmental authorities would have unrestricted access to supervise in detail how individual persons spend their money. A universal basic income in a cashless society would provide the conditions to impose a social credit system and deliver the mechanism to sanction undesirable behavior and identify the superfluous and unwanted.

      Who Will Be the Rulers?

      The World Economic Forum is silent about the question of who will rule in this new world.

      There is no reason to expect that the new power holders would be benevolent. Yet even if the top decision-makers of the new world government were not mean but just technocrats, what reason would an administrative technocracy have to go on with the undesirables? What sense does it make for a technocratic elite to turn the common man into a superman? Why share the benefits of artificial intelligence with the masses and not keep the wealth for the chosen few?

      Not being swayed away by the utopian promises, a sober assessment of the plans must come to the conclusion that in this new world, there would be no place for the average person and that they would be put away along with the “unemployable,” “feeble minded,” and “ill bred.” Behind the preaching of the progressive gospel of social justice by the promoters of the Great Reset and the establishment of a new world order lurks the sinister project of eugenics, which as a technique is now called “genetic engineering” and as a movement is named “transhumanism,” a term  coined by Julian Huxley, the first director of the UNESCO.

      The promoters of the project keep silent about who will be the rulers in this new world. The dystopian and collectivist nature of these projections and plans is the result of the rejection of free capitalism. Establishing a better world through a dictatorship is a contradiction in terms. Not less but more economic prosperity is the answer to the current problems. Therefore, we need more free markets and less state planning. The world is getting greener and a fall in the growth rate of the world population is already underway. These trends are the natural consequence of wealth creation through free markets.

      Conclusion

      The World Economic Forum and its related institutions in combination with a handful of governments and a few high-tech companies want to lead the world into a new era without property or privacy. Values like individualism, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at stake, to be repudiated in favor of collectivism and the imposition of a “common good” that is defined by the self-proclaimed elite of technocrats. What is sold to the public as the promise of equality and ecological sustainability is in fact a brutal assault on human dignity and liberty. Instead of using the new technologies as an instrument of betterment, the Great Reset seeks to use the technological possibilities as a tool of enslavement. In this new world order, the state is the single owner of everything. It is left to our imagination to figure out who will program the algorithms that manage the distribution of the goods and services.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 23:45

    • Aarg! Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay
      Aarg! Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay

      There’s a new, maritime dimension to the scourge of rampant crime in northern California cities, as homeless creeps are now taking to the water and preying on houseboats and yachts docked on San Francisco Bay, reports Fox News. 

      “Multiple vessels have been stolen and ransacked. Victims have had to resort to personally confronting the criminals to recover their property without the benefit of police support,” said former harbor master Brock de Lappe at a recent municipal meeting. “Is this appropriate activity for a 79-year-old senior?”

      The 3,000-slip Oakland-Alameda Estuary has been particularly hard-hit, as thieves use small boats to burglarize or steal private boats on the waterway. The pirates use stolen boats or old, abandoned dinghies to carry out their raids. 

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      A boating school for children has seen four of its eight safety boats stolen and destroyed. The boats cost the school between $25,000 and $35,000 apiece. “We cannot run our program without these boats,” wrote Kame Richards, owner of the nonprofit Alameda Community Sailing Center, in a letter to his municipal commission.

      “The response we received from APD (Alameda Police Department) was that they could do nothing, and a warning not to approach the perpetrators if we located our boats,” added Richards. Sounds about par for the course in a state where the Senate has advanced a bill that would criminalize retail-store policies requiring employees to attempt to thwart thieves. 

      “We had all hands on deck to retrieve this stuff, and it took 35 hours to get a police report number from the Alameda Police Department,” said Richards during a municipal meeting. The school is on the verge of calling it quits.

      Another woman scared a troubling tale, telling Fox that she recently heard faint cries of “help me, please, please, anybody help me” coming from the inky darkness of the estuary. She dared to venture out with her kayak and a headlamp, and found a sailboat with a “panicked and terrified young man” aboard. He said pirates cut his sailboat line and set him adrift after a confrontation. 

      “If there had been any wind at the time I wouldn’t have been able to go out there and rescue this young man who had no motor and no ability to sail that boat,” said his rescuer, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. 

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      Things have deteriorated to the point that a group that has regularly volunteered to clean up the waterway for the past six years cancelled this year’s event “because of safety concerns” arising from a particularly concerning homeless encampment. “Unfortunately, I don’t feel comfortable bringing children to the site until those are addressed by the city of Oakland,” said the group’s leader, Mary Spicer. 

      Alameda island has received high marks for suburban livability, but that’s in jeopardy as it’s increasingly feeling the ill effects of being across a narrow channel from Oakland and its skyrocketing homeless population. The island city has no maritime police equipment, and has seen its police force shrink by 30% in recent years. 

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 23:25

    • Truth-Speaking & The Technocratic Cabal
      Truth-Speaking & The Technocratic Cabal

      Authored by Bert Olivier via The Brownstone Institute,

      Truth-speaking (or truth-telling) is not the same as truth. At least not in the familiar sense of a correspondence between what is stated and the state of affairs to which it corresponds – the so-called correspondence theory of truth. Or, for that matter, the coherence theory of truth, which judges the truth of statements by the criterion of whether it coheres with the body of statements within which it functions. 

      There are several other such theories of truth, for example the pragmatic theory of truth, which assesses truth in the light of what supposedly true statements do, or by their consequences for action (ancient Greek ‘pragma’: ‘thing done’; ‘act’; ‘deed’). 

      Truth-telling, or in ancient Greek, parrhesia, is something different. It is what one does when you tell or speak the truth exactly as you experience or perceive it, with no punches pulled. You don’t have to call the proverbial spade a shovel (unless this is what it takes to get through to your interlocutor), but you have to speak truthfully without holding back. This is particularly relevant for speaking (or writing) in public, where you run the risk of exposing yourself to harsh criticism. 

      It is also what you do when you feel constrained to tell a friend the barefaced truth about something that she or he has done, or is doing, and which falls short of the standards of honesty, or decency, or friendship, and because you care for your friend and value your friendship, you risk it by saying what has to be done to rescue it. It is not this kind of friend-to-friend parrhesia which concerns me here, in the first place, but rather the kind that sometimes, albeit seldom, occurs in the public domain. Here is Michel Foucault, in a justly famous philosophy seminar, talking about it: 

      In parrhesia, the speaker is supposed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks. The word ‘parrhesia’ then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and forms of expression he can find. Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician’s own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people’s mind by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.

      This should sound very familiar to us today. Not because we are familiar with such truth-speaking, but precisely because we are not – at least not in the public domain, in the vast majority of cases. On the contrary, today one is mostly witness to the deliberate distortion of truth, and not even through the sophisticated use of rhetoric. It is usually straightforward, blatant lying.

      Foucault is careful to add that there are two types of parrhesia – sometimes the word is used to denote the genuine thing and sometimes it is employed pejoratively, to indicate that someone is just “chattering”, as Foucault calls it. Heidegger calls this “idle talk”. In both instances it means that someone says virtually anything that comes to mind, without exercising any discerning judgement about the sense or implications of what they say, or simply because it is the fashionable thing to say. 

      However, according to Foucault, most of the time when the term is encountered in classical Greco-Roman texts, it is in the affirmative sense of truth-speaking. Needless to point out, it is not a practice explicitly familiar to us today, in the specific sense with which it was endowed in antiquity. Nonetheless, it would not be difficult to find counterparts to parrhesia in contemporary society, particularly because there is an exigency for it in the present time. Why is that? In the text cited earlier, Foucault reminds one that: 

      …the commitment involved in parrhesia is linked to a certain social situation, to a difference of status between the speaker and his audience, to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk, and so on…

      If there is a kind of ‘proof’ of the sincerity of the parrhesiastes, it is his courage. The fact that a speaker says something dangerous — different from what the majority believes— is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes.

      To appreciate this, one should remind oneself that not every instance of speaking the truth can be considered as being parrhesia. Foucault explains:

      Someone is said to use parrhesia and merits consideration as a parrhesiastes only if there is a risk or danger for him or her in telling the truth. For instance, from the ancient Greek perspective, a grammar teacher may tell the truth to the children that he teaches, and indeed may have no doubt that what he teaches is true. But in spite of this coincidence between belief and truth, he is not a parrhesiastes. However, when a philosopher addresses himself to a sovereign, to a tyrant, and tells him that his tyranny is disturbing and unpleasant because tyranny is incompatible with justice, then the philosopher speaks the truth, believes he is speaking the truth, and, more than that, also takes a risk (since the tyrant may become angry, may punish him, may exile him, may kill him)…

      Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger: it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the ‘game’ of life or death.

      The well-known saying, ‘to speak truth to power’, is obviously related to this, and probably derives from Foucault’s (and also Edward Said’s) work.

      And have we not witnessed exemplary instances of this today, in the face of what is arguably the largest attempt at a (global) coup d’etat in the history of humanity! 

      We all owe those brave souls who have risked their reputations, their incomes, and sometimes their lives, by acting as parrhesiastes in the face of almost incomprehensible institutional, technological and media power, a huge debt of gratitude for setting an example for the rest of us. There are too many to list here, but among the names that come readily to mind are those of Dr Naomi Wolf, Robert F. Kennedy, Dr Joseph Mercola, Dr Robert Malone, Dr Peter McCullough, Alex Berenson, Dr Meryl Nass, Dr Denis Rancourt, and Todd Callender, among many others who have suffered and even died. 

      As Foucault said, parrhesia is dangerous and risky. But what choice does one have, if not merely your income, reputation and your life, but also – more importantly – your moral integrity as a human being is at stake? It takes courage to be a parrhesiastes. This is why Foucault observes that:

      When you accept the parrhesiastic game in which your own life is exposed, you are taking up a specific relationship to yourself: you risk death to tell the truth instead of reposing in the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken. Of course, the threat of death comes from the Other, and thereby requires a relationship to himself: he prefers himself as a truth-teller rather than as a living being who is false to himself.

      Here’s the thing: presumably all those people who contribute to, and most of those who read Brownstone articles, know what evil power is behind the attempts to cause the collapse of the world economy and decimate the world’s human population. I use the word ‘evil’ advisedly, for there is no way of saying more clearly and accurately what animates the actions of those agents in the service of the Leviathan in question, which has several fronts, among them most prominently the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

      Moreover, one cannot expect any parrhesia from them. On the contrary, as Foucault points out, “It is because the parrhesiastes must take a risk in speaking the truth that the king or tyrant generally cannot use parrhesia; for he risks nothing”.

      Nothing prevents us from practicing this ancient mode of address when we confront the tyrannical monstrosity in question, however, which is why I want to say to them that, contrary to what they believe, drunk with their own vaunted importance and supposed power, they should not be too sure of not risking their necks. The disgusting Klaus Schwab of the WEF himself talks about people being very “angry,” which is probably an understatement, judging by the opinions expressed by many people I know. 

      So, Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and your ilk – including the bankers who are hiding in the shadows – I cannot encourage you to examine your collective and individual conscience, because you evidently don’t have one. It is, after all, a telling characteristic of psychopaths to be devoid of a conscience, and therefore of the capacity to feel guilt or remorse. 

      But evidently you can feel fear, otherwise you would not have been sufficiently paranoid to surround yourselves with 5000 heavily armed troops at your exclusive boys’ club meeting at Davos in January. And you should be afraid, very afraid, because when this is over, you will be called to account.

      Signs are abounding that increasing numbers of people are realising that you and your empty ‘promise’ of ‘building back better’ are the engineers of the increasing economic hardships they face, and are showing in no uncertain terms that they will not allow that to continue indefinitely. 

      Hence, don’t start celebrating too soon about your desired success in getting the better of the putative ‘useless eaters’. Except, of course, that you don’t know how to celebrate; only truly human people know how to do that – people who know the joy of togetherness at a birthday celebration, or a wedding, or when you go dancing – something the love of my life and I do regularly, when our favourite bands perform live at a joint we frequent in the city. To quote the late, inimitable Leonard Cohen:

      So you can stick your little needles in that voodoo doll; 
      I’m very sorry baby, doesn’t look like me at all
      I’m standin’ by the window where the light is strong…

      Now, you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure:
      The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
      And there’s a mighty Judgement comin’…
      You see, I hear these funny voices in the Tower of Song…

      Therefore, you empty vessels, here is a concluding bit of parrhesia: on those cold winter nights (as Dolly famously sang to Horace Vandergelder) you can snuggle up to your AI robots, while we humans cuddle up for mutual warmth. You would be envious if you could imagine it, but I know you have no imagination. If you did, you would use all your money and technology to make the world a better place for all people; not just the few quasi-robots in your coterie, masquerading as people. But I can assure you that we shall make the world a better place – without you.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 23:05

    • Tropical Storm Philippe Forecasted To Impact Maine Or Nova Scotia 
      Tropical Storm Philippe Forecasted To Impact Maine Or Nova Scotia 

      Several weeks after Tropical Storm Lee made landfall in the western part of Canada’s Nova Scotia province, another storm is brewing in the Atlantic Basin, with computer models forecasting parts of the US Northeast and Nova Scotia could be hit again. 

      The latest report from the National Hurricane Center states Tropical Storm Philippe was about 70 miles northwest of Anguilla and about 55 miles east-northeast of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, moving northwest at 10 mph with sustained winds of 45 mph.

      “It made landfall on the island of Barbuda on Monday with 50 mph winds and is now headed away from the Caribbean into the Atlantic, but its tropical-storm-force winds still extend out 175 miles,” according to Orlando Sentinel. 

      “On the forecast track, the center of Philippe is expected to pass just north of the British Virgin Islands today and then move away from the northern Leeward Islands beginning tonight,” NHC wrote in the 1100 ET update, adding, “However, the strongest winds and heaviest rains will likely occur in the islands to the southeast of the center.”

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      NHC said, “Little change in strength is forecast during the next day or two, but Philippe could begin to strengthen after midweek.” 

      Models expect the storm to turn north and parallel the US East Coast while at sea, with a potential landfall impact area from Maine to Nova Scotia by as early as Sunday. 

      So far, the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season has produced 18 named storms and is already above average, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher with Colorado State University. 

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 22:45

    • The SAFER Banking Act Is Anything But
      The SAFER Banking Act Is Anything But

      Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

      After a long debate, the SAFER Banking Act is making its way out of committee and onto the floor of the Senate for a vote.

      The Act would allow banks to work with cannabis businesses without penalty. It currently enjoys bipartisan support in the Senate, but there are some sinister consequences for firearms businesses due to loose language hidden in the text of the Act.

      As currently written, the law does not sufficiently protect the firearms industry from the abuse of banks or regulators to harm firearms businesses in a manner similar to “Operation Chokepoint” of the Obama era.

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      The law states that Federal Banking regulators can recommend to financial service providers de-bank businesses that they suspect of breaking a rule or condition from a federal agency like ATF.

      Consider that currently, the Biden administration has imposed a “Zero Tolerance Policy” on FFLs, which makes mundane and simple mistakes such as misspelling an abbreviation on a form into federal crimes for which a gun store could now be penalized.

      ATF’s published data concerning its compliance inspections in 2020 reflects that it conducted 5,823 inspections and found and reported errors in 43.7% of those inspections.

      ATF’s compliance inspections for 2022 increased over 2020 by 1,156 inspections to 6,979 inspections, and ATF’s data reflects that it found and reported errors in 45.5% of the inspected FFLs. In summary, a failure to clarify whether the language in the law applies only to banking regulations could result in nearly half of all gun stores losing access to financial services!

      Gun Owners know full well how statutory language can be redefined and weaponized with a simple rule change and agency definition.

      ATF routinely issues contradictory guidance letters to the firearm industry, refuses to publish the guidance publicly, and has even reversed such guidance in a way that criminalizes millions of customers and shuts down entire companies.

      Members of the firearms industry will not only have to deal with rogue ATF regulators in court but could also be cut off from essential financial services because of this “informal guidance.”

      In addition, a provision of the law imposes strict liability on account holders who deal with “a threat to national security,” someone involved in “other illicit financing,” or is “engaged in… any other criminal activity.”

      This could affect members of the firearms industry even if they were unaware that they were selling to potential national threats or criminals.

      For instance, criminals often deceive gun stores by lying on form 4473 to buy firearms illegally. During Operation Fast and Furious, the government even permitted Mexican cartel agents to buy guns from FFLs. Under this provision, firearms businesses could be de-banked for the actions of criminals regardless of whether the FFL was unaware of the criminal activity.

      The SAFER Banking Act also clarifies that federal regulators should recommend de-banking businesses whose customers pose a “national security threat,” posing a huge threat to the entire firearm industry. Especially given that national security agencies increasingly label gun owners as “Militia Violent Extremists” or “Domestic Violent Extremists.”

      Gun stores have little protection from this extensive and imperfect list of reasons to deny them financial services.

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      So, what are we doing to combat this attack on the firearms industry?

      Gun Owners of America supports the Fair Access to Banking Act. This Act aims to prevent large financial institutions that benefit from federal funding, not just anti-gun regulators, from discriminating against the Second Amendment community.

      Considering that major banks owe their existence to federal bailouts and federal depository insurance, they shouldn’t dictate the scope of Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

      The SAFER Banking Act permits financial institutions to bypass federal marijuana restrictions but doesn’t grant the same leniency for gun ownership rights. The Act treats the Second Amendment as inferior.

      Gun Owners of America opposes any laws that promote the legal marijuana industry while undermining gun rights in states where marijuana use is legal.

      *   *   * 

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

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 22:25

    • 'Not-ESG Friendly': New Panasonic EV Battery Plant In Kansas To Be Powered By Coal 
      ‘Not-ESG Friendly’: New Panasonic EV Battery Plant In Kansas To Be Powered By Coal 

      Panasonic’s new battery plant in Kansas will require an amount of energy equivalent to that used by a small city, forcing a nearby utility to halt the shutdown of a coal-fired power plant. This has sparked criticism that electric vehicle production and electric vehicles aren’t ‘ESG-friendly.’ 

      According to The Kansas City Star, citing documents filed by power company Evergy with the Kansas Corporation Commission, Panasonic’s 4-million-square-foot plant in Johnson County will double the utility’s load and require two new substations and upgrades to 31 miles of transmission lines. 

      Documents show Evergy will have to keep a Lawrence coal-fired power plant online until 2028 to meet the new load at the EV battery plant that will be ramped up as production begins at the end of 2025/early 2026. The utility plans to transition from coal to natural gas by the decade’s end.  

      “Beyond the sheer magnitude of load and load factor, Panasonic’s construction schedule, and, in turn, its energy needs, are being planned on a very aggressive schedule. With energy needs starting to ramp in 2024 and full load requirements by 2026, there is urgency to procure capacity and energy to fulfill the expected energy usage schedule,” said Kayla Messamore, Evergy’s vice president of strategy and planning. 

      Currently, no other power generation source in the area can supply enough on-demand power to the Panasonic battery plant. In testimony from Ryan Mulvany, Evergy’s vice president of distribution, he said the plant will demand approximately 200 to 250 megawatts (or the equivalent of a small city). 

      Despite the $4 billion cost of the factory, the Japanese company is “poised to get as much as $6.8 billion from provisions in last year’s federal Inflation Reduction Act,” the local paper said in July. The company is expected to receive over $8 billion in federal, state, and local incentives and support the plant in Johnson County. 

      Zack Pistora, a lobbyist with the Kansas Sierra Club, called the EV battery plant powered by coal a “shame”: 

      “Not only are we squandering an opportunity to access local Kansas clean energy resources that invest in our state, but it also is not doing anyone else a favor as far as more greenhouse gas pollution.”

      For readers, none of this should be a surprise. The whole ‘ESG’ movement is a scam. For years, we’ve noted “Some EVs Are “Dirtier” Than Conventional Vehicles; New Study Finds” and ‘Zero Emissions’ From Electric Vehicles? Here’s Why That Claim Has Zero Basis. Four years ago we said, “Electric Car-Owners Shocked: New Study Confirms EVs Considerably Worse For Climate Than Diesel Cars.”

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 22:05

    • Trump, Newsom, And DeSantis – The Odd Throuple
      Trump, Newsom, And DeSantis – The Odd Throuple

      Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,

      Appearing at the annual California Republican Party convention Friday, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took an unusual political tack: They not only heaped scorn on President Biden and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, but on the state of California itself.

      “California really is the petri dish for American liberalism,” DeSantis told a dinner crowd of some 350 Republicans at the Anaheim Marriott. “What Biden is doing are things that California was doing many years ago. What California is doing now is likely what a second Biden term would do, or God forbid, Kamala Harris, or God forbid, Newsom himself.”

      A few hours earlier, at a sold-out luncheon with a crowd four times as large, Trump used his singular rhetorical style to make similar assertions. Expanding the hit list beyond Biden and Newsom to four members of California’s congressional delegation (Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Maxine Waters), Trump said, “Guess who is running your state? Bad people. It’s becoming a symbol of our nation’s decline.”

      Warming to the subject matter, Trump continued: “Gavin Newsom and the far-left Communists in Sacramento…San Francisco and L.A., cities which are absolutely being destroyed rapidly on a daily basis, have given you sanctuary cities, wide open borders, vast homeless encampments, and out-of-control taxes.”

      The former president also referred to Biden and his administration’s economic advisers as “lunatics,” vowed that if returned to the White House he’d investigate the “Marxist monsters unleashing mayhem” on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and called Newsom an “environmental maniac.” When it came to California’s governor, however, Trump’s heart didn’t quite seem to be in it. He quickly amended his statement to say that Newsom was appeasing California’s environmentalists “for political reasons,” adding as an aside that as president he and Newsom had worked well together.

      Trump expressed no similar sentiment for his fellow Republican who occupied the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, whom he ridiculed in a lengthy riff about the time DeSantis asked for Trump’s endorsement in his first gubernatorial election. A member of Congress at the time, DeSantis was trailing far behind in the GOP primary. After he endorsed DeSantis, his campaign started soaring, Trump recalled.

      “I said, ‘Let’s do it,’ and this guy went up like a rocket,” Trump said, claiming that he, not DeSantis, was responsible for turning Florida Republican red. Trump also boasted about receiving more than a million votes more than DeSantis did in 2020.

      Trump went on to wallow in his irritation at DeSantis’ “no comment” response to a reporter’s question last year about a presidential run. “That means he’s running!” Trump said. “And I started hitting him very early. I hit him hard, and he’s crashing like a bird seriously wounded in flight.”

      If Trump sounded like he was making up for lost time, there was a reason: He skipped Wednesday’s debate at the scenic Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and he wasn’t able to immediately rebut criticism from DeSantis and Chris Christie implying that Trump was wimping out.

      Moreover, even before the debate, DeSantis sensed it would be nearly impossible to break out of the bickering pack of seven Republican candidates, all desperate to shed their second-tier status and cut into Trump’s gaping lead.

      So with the focus of the political world on California, Team DeSantis released a campaign ad a day before the debate teasing the real showdown he’s counting on to change his trajectory: a mano a mano cage match between himself and Gavin Newsom over their ideals, ideology, and records as mega-state governors.

      After rattling off a series of comparisons between the state of Florida and California on violent crime, government deficits, and the economy, the ad wraps up with the words “Revival vs. Decline” flashing on the screen in bold letters against black-and-white images of a sunglass-clad DeSantis staring down a scowling Newsom.

      “Florida vs. California, conservative vs. progressive – It’s the debate we should be having at the national level,” the ad quotes Fox Business host Stuart Varney intoning.

      Actually, it is the debate Americans are already having – with the two governors leading the conversation joined by Trump, who likes taking pointed potshots at both Newsom and DeSantis. But there is a wrinkle, as is almost always the case with The Donald. Trump’s penchant for making all politics personal means that the three-way conversation has the feel of a tag-team wrestling match that doesn’t break along party lines: DeSantis is fighting them both.

      For his part, Newsom noticed DeSantis’ pre-debate trolling – and responded with some of his own. California’s governor played the smart-alecky host showing up at the Republicans’ Wednesday debate where he extolled California’s weather, lauded the scenic Reagan library, and jousted good-naturedly with Fox News host Sean Hannity about California’s sky-high gasoline prices. Then he got down to business, taking dead aim at DeSantis. As Newsom worked the post-debate spin room, he heckled DeSantis for “taking the bait” and agreeing to the faceoff, set to take place Nov. 30 with Hannity moderating.

      “DeSantis looks small debating a California governor that’s not running for president,” Newsom told a throng of reporters. “He’s getting smaller by the day.” Newsom also indicated that the animus between him and DeSantis is genuine, calling Florida’s governor a “liar” and a “hypocrite” who bullies “marginalized communities.”

      Newsom insists he’s not running for president himself – at least not in this cycle – but that hasn’t stopped the swirling speculation that he’s operating a shadow campaign and is ready to jump in if Biden isn’t able to answer the bell. On Friday night in Anaheim, DeSantis fired back, hitting Newsom and Biden on gas prices, stubborn inflation, and what he cast as a collapse of the American Dream. For the first time in the history of the Golden State, he told the crowd in the Anaheim Marriott ballroom, more Americans were leaving California than arriving. Many of them were arriving in Florida he added, appreciative of lower taxes and an absence of Democrats trying to micromanage their lives.

      “To me, the debate about what state is governed better, Florida or California, that debate has already been answered by people voting with their feet,” DeSantis said. Speaking less than a mile from the entrance of Disneyland, DeSantis began his speech with a puckish reference to his prominent role in the culture wars as the nemesis of the Disney Company.

      It was this battle that prompted Newsom to throw down the gauntlet last year when he went up on Florida airwaves targeting DeSantis’ war on woke and his socially conservative policies on abortion and public-school curriculum.

      “Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” Newsom argued in the spot. “Republican leaders – they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors.”

      DeSantis returned the favor earlier this year when visiting  San Francisco, a city Newsom ran for two terms as mayor, and touring the city’s homeless encampments in the Tenderloin district, a denizen of fentanyl dealing and overdoses. He then tweeted out photos of tents and squalor, labeling the city a “dumpster fire.” 

      DeSantis seems to like his chances in a battle against Biden or Newsom, but that might be fantasy land. The massive obstacle in his path isn’t a Democratic president or a Democratic governor. It’s the most recent Republican president.

      In recent weeks, the gap between Trump and DeSantis has grown to a chasm, increasing as each criminal indictment against the former president has piled up at his feet. Trump is now 43.9 percentage points ahead of DeSantis in the RealClearPolitics Average of polls, a 27-point jump in six months.

      That gap was on full display at the California GOP convention. Trump, the political reality TV star, attracted a larger crowd than DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy combined. He relished the attention, captivating his audience with his fiery freewheeling riffs, humorous jabs, wild exaggerations, and appalling insults.

      Trump spent the first 10 minutes telling  the largely supportive audience that he would have won California – a state he lost by more than 5 million votes in 2020 – if not for a “rigged election.” The former president also promised to take on “ultra-left-wing liars, losers, creeps, perverts and freaks” that, he said, “are devouring the future of this state like a swarm of locusts.”

      When it comes to rampant smash-and-grab thefts undermining retail businesses from here to Philadelphia, Trump offered a simple but shocking solution. “We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store – shot,” Trump said.

      He promised to stand up to “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” who he said had “ruined San Francisco,” then shifted to mock her husband, who was a victim of a brutal attack in the family’s San Francisco home last October.

      “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?” he asked a crowd that laughed uncomfortably in response. “And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house – which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

      Although Trump put most of the blame for the country’s ills on Democrats, toward the end of his remarks he punched hard at DeSantis too. 

      “I’m the only candidate that [Biden and the Democrats] don’t want to run against – they’ll take DeSanctimonious in about two seconds,” he remarked.

      He then rattled off the results of the most recent Morning Consult poll, showing him with 63% support nationwide compared to 12% for DeSantis. And in a recent CNN poll, DeSantis fell to fifth place in the New Hampshire primary, Trump jeered.

      Here in California, Trump holds an enormous, nearly 50% lead over DeSantis in the primary. Thanks to a new change in state Republican election rules, which the Republican National Committee still must approve, if Trump wins more than 50% of the March 5 primary vote, he would secure all 169 of the state’s delegates. If no candidate hits that threshold, delegates will be awarded proportionally.

      By now, DeSantis is accustomed to Trump’s slings and arrows. In the ballroom Friday night DeSantis seemed more relaxed and natural, sprinkling his remarks with quotes from Reagan and offering Reaganesque flourishes about American renewal and this generation’s “rendezvous with destiny.” He appeared to acknowledge his underdog status in the race but also his commitment to soldier on in what he described as a moral obligation to reverse the country’s trajectory.

      DeSantis also seemed slightly amused by all of Trump’s attention earlier in the day.

      “I understand that one of my residents was here earlier saying that he turned Florida red,” he remarked. “All I will say is, Ronald Reagan made the point [that] there’s no limit to what you can do when you don’t care who gets the credit. I just wish if he was the one that turned Florida red, that he wouldn’t have turned Georgia and Arizona blue because that’s not been good for us at all.”

      In an earlier Friday interview, DeSantis addressed Newsom’s attempt to ridicule him for agreeing to debate in the first place and brushed it off as disingenuous campaign jousting.

      “You know Sean [Hannity] asked him to debate. He said yes. So, then he asked me,” DeSantis recounted. “I’m like, ‘I’ll do it. Let’s do it.’ And now he’s acting like ‘Why do you want to debate me?’ Well, I’m debating you because you asked to do it, so let’s go and get it done.”

      “I do think it will be good, it will be instructive,” he added. “These are the types of debates America really needs to have.”

      Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ White House/national political correspondent.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 21:45

    • Judge Denies SEC's Plan For Quick Appeal Against Ripple Ruling
      Judge Denies SEC’s Plan For Quick Appeal Against Ripple Ruling

      District court judge Analisa Torres has rejected the SEC’s motion to appeal its loss against Ripple Labs, the company responsible for issuing the XRP token.

      The SEC needed Torres’ permission to appeal her ruling because it wasn’t a final judgment.

      The regulator was also seeking to put on hold its suit against Ripple for allegedly offering unregistered securities while the appeal is pending.

      As CoinTelegraph’s Tom Mitchellhill reports, in the court order, Judge Torres denied the SEC’s motion, claiming that the regulator failed to meet its burden to show that there were controlling questions of law or that there were substantial grounds for differences of opinion on the matter.

      “The SEC’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal is denied, and the SEC’s request for a stay is denied as moot.”

      As a reminder, Bloomberg reports that Torres’ initial ruling was widely hailed as a victory for the crypto industry, which has resisted attempts to categorize digital assets as securities subject to regulation.

      In her July 13 decision, Torres drew a distinction between sales of XRP to institutional investors, which she said met the test for an investment contract under federal securities law, and sales to the public on exchanges.

      Ripple’s XRP token is up over 6% following the headlines…

      Notably, the decision isn’t an outright loss for the regulator, as judge Torres scheduled a trial for April 23, 2024 to address the remaining issues on the matter.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 21:25

    • Food Stamps Will Be Harder To Get From October
      Food Stamps Will Be Harder To Get From October

      Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

      This month, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will get a boost, but eligibility requirements have changed.

      The new rules, which went into effect Oct. 1, stipulate that able-bodied adults without dependents between the ages of 52 and 54 will have to prove that they are actively working, training, or in school. Before, those between the ages of 18 and 52 had to prove they are working at least 80 hours per month, in school, or involved in a training program to get the SNAP benefits.

      The age requirement was expanded as part of the debt ceiling deal that was passed in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year. The age requirement will expand by another year in October 2024, while the new requirements will be in effect until Oct. 1, 2030.

      With the recent changes, the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warned that more than 750,000 “older adults” are at risk of losing SNAP benefits due to the “expansion of the existing, failed SNAP work-reporting requirement.” The requirements initiated under the debt ceiling deal were the largest changes made to the SNAP, or food stamps, in decades.

      “The expansion of this requirement would take food assistance away from large numbers of people, including many who have serious barriers to employment as well as others who are working or should be exempt but are caught up in red tape,” it said.

      It was part of a deal between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) several months ago. At the time, Mr. McCarthy said that “what work requirements actually do [is to] help people get a job.”

      Republicans have tried for decades to expand work requirements for these government assistance programs, arguing they result in more people returning to the workforce. “We’re going to return these programs to being a life vest, not a lifestyle. A hand up, not a handout and that has always been the American way,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters in June.

      A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson told The Hill that there are some exceptions to the new requirements. They include veterans, homeless people, and people aged 18 to 24 who aged out of foster care situations, the spokesperson said.

      Those who have a mental or physical limitation, have a child aged 18 or younger living in their home, or pregnant women are also exempt, the spokesperson added.

      At the same time, individuals who already get SNAP and still qualify will see their benefits increase starting Oct. 1, said the USDA. Benefit changes for SNAP are based on the Consumer Price Index that measures inflation for June 2022.

      “The maximum allotments will increase for the 48 states and D.C., Alaska, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” the agency said.

      “The maximum allotment for a family of four in the 48 states and D.C., will be $973,” and allotments “for a family of four will range from $1,248 to $1,937 in Alaska,” while “maximum allotments for a family of four in Hawaii will decrease to $1,759.

      The minimum benefit for all 48 states and the District of Columbia will stay the same at $23, according to the USDA.

      The average family started receiving about $90 less per month in March, although some households dropped by up to $250, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

      Fraud?

      Last month, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) warned that the food stamp program is losing some $1 billion per month due to errors and fraud as she announced legislation designed to deal with the alleged monthly losses.

      “Families across the country are going hungry while bureaucrats are jumping the line to gobble up SNAP dollars, either as a meal ticket to beef up state budgets or a self-serve buffet of benefits for themselves or others who do not qualify,” the senator said.

      “I’m snapping back! It’s time for states at fault to pay the piper and eat the costs of their taxpayer waste. Instead of overserving bureaucrats, let’s end the waste and set a place at the table for hungry families,” Ms. Ernst added.

      Other Details

      Earlier this year, the federal government ended its public health emergency over COVID-19, which ended a booster program for all SNAP recipients. The duration of those extra payments was originally tied directly to the duration of the public health emergency, but that was changed in December 2022 and the final pandemic-boosted SNAP payments went out at the end of February.

      The emergency program was enacted by Congress at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and expanded a year later. Originally, the extra benefits were intended to continue as long as the COVID-19 public health emergency was in force before it expired.

      SNAP benefits can rise and fall with inflation and other factors. Maximum benefits went up by 12 percent in October to reflect an annual cost-of-living adjustment boosted by higher prices for foods and other goods. But payments went down for those who also receive Social Security because of the 8.7 percent cost-of-living increase in that program on Jan 1.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 21:05

    • "We're In The Middle Of A Revolution" – Victor Davis Hanson Warns Tucker: "The Next 12 Months Will Be The Most Explosive In History"
      “We’re In The Middle Of A Revolution” – Victor Davis Hanson Warns Tucker: “The Next 12 Months Will Be The Most Explosive In History”

      Historian Victor Davis Hanson sat down with Tucker Carlson to discuss his perspective on the current political climate in the US, asserting that American liberalism is characterized by dishonesty, and warning about what he sees as liberal efforts to introduce a highly intolerant age.

      “It’s hard for most Americans to comprehend the total dishonesty of American liberalism.”

      VDH says Trump represents a significant threat to the specific vision held by liberals, who are employing a “critical legal theory,” in which traditional moral values are abandoned in favor of whatever gains power.

      “Liberals are now telling us they plan to protect American democracy and that’s the clearest possible sign that they intend to end it.”

      Most specifically, Hanson told Carlson that:

      “I think they’ve come to the conclusion that Trump is an existential threat and by association, half the country is to their vision of what they want to transform us into, and so they feel that whatever means necessary are justified.”

      And this is an issue since Hanson pointed out that while some conservatives were speaking up, they are also fighting a culture in the Republican Party that preferred to “lose nobly” as opposed to winning elections in an “ugly” manner.

      Hanson emphasizes that the traditional boundaries and norms are being renegotiated, from the Senate filibuster and the Electoral College to societal understandings of gender and language, raising concerns that:

      “We’re in the middle of a cultural, economic, political revolution,” but “we think that we’re still playing within the same sidelines or parameters, and we’re not. Everything’s under negotiation.”

      Hanson argues that the legal actions against Trump are politically motivated and biased and designed to send a message to the half of America that will not simple ‘comply’:

      “The idea is now that we now have the power to do this, and because we have the power to do it, it’s moral and right, and if you don’t like it, what are you doing to do about it?”

      Finally, Hanson issues a call to action of sorts, noting that “There are legitimate efforts to rectify and stop this madness and let’s see what happens in 2024.”

      “You need leaders who will tell people we are in a Jacobin takeover of this country, and the old get along at any cost does not work,” Hanson said.

      “I hope everybody can keep their head because I think the next 12 to 18 months are going to be the most explosive in our history since the Great Depression.”

      Watch the full interview below:

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      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 20:55

    • Can RFK Jr Become President As An Independent?
      Can RFK Jr Become President As An Independent?

      Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

      As predicted two weeks ago, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., appears ready to declare as an independent for president. Already polling at 20 percent nationwide, he will announce that he is severing ties with the Democratic National Committee (DNC). This is because the DNC has set up impossible roadblocks to victory within the party apparatus and the primary process. The Biden administration is denying him Secret Service protection despite apparent attempts on his life.

      Of all figures in public life today, RFK has the strongest claim to the legacies of his father and uncle, ideologically and culturally. That would put him in the solid category of a real Democrat—half a century ago. Times have changed and dramatically so. He started off this campaign with the belief that he would help guide his family’s party back to a principled commitment to the common good. But he has discovered that this is not what the party is about anymore, at least not according to the masters at the top.

      This is a man who believes that America is not lost, not foundationally corrupt, not a complete goner. He looks around at the people in this nation and sees goodness, love of country, a desire for freedom, and a strong devotion to make things right. Conventional American politics, however, seems designed to block real solutions. Because he still wants to make a difference—one senses that he believes it is his destiny—he will continue his run for president as an independent.

      In normal times, there would be every reason to predict that he stands zero chance of winning. This is most likely due to Duveger’s law. In this model, voters don’t necessarily push the button for the person they want. Because only one candidate can win, they vote for the person most likely to beat the person they truly hate. That leaves us always with second-best choices, and third-party candidates, no matter how much they are loved, in the lurch.

      It’s because of this principle, this habit, this basic logic of voting, that third parties have never performed well in winner-take-all elections. They pop up every four years and usually get 1–5 percent or so and then go away. At best, such candidates have been spoilers: they don’t win, they only block victories for others.

      Who benefits from an RFK independent run? The conventional wisdom is that he pulls more from Trump than from Biden, in which case the Democrats benefit from his decision to go independent. But that’s just what the polls say. What happens at the voting booth is another matter. People who despise Trump might be reluctant to vote for RFK for fear that Trump could be made the winner, and people who despise Biden might feel exactly the same.

      Both major candidates have major issues, and yet, so far, there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping their nominations.

      Which is to say: it is very hard to predict in this environment.

      These are not normal times. It is not entirely impossible that RFK’s movement could overcome Durverger’s law simply through passion and excitement. If the polls start showing him as a possible winner, and if his rallies elicit more attendance, intelligence, and commitment than his competitors, that could cause a huge rush away from the two parties over to a genuine alternative.

      People might take the risk of “throwing away” their vote to push for the simply incredible, as a way of sending a much-needed message to the establishment of both parties.

      If any election year in my lifetime holds out the possibility of such a radical upset—something that would have been inconceivable in the past—it is this one. Vast numbers of people are overwhelmed with distrust of the entire system. And yet the same numbers have not and will not let go of the basic American idea: the people are in charge of their government and should be the determinative force concerning the laws under which we live.

      The hurdles are huge: essentially he is battling against the whole history of two-party dominance in the United States. In the 20th century, the history has shown us a number of fairly substantial runs:

      • 1912, Teddy Roosevelt, 28 percent

      • 1924, Robert LaFollette, 17 percent

      • 1948, Strom Thurmond, 3 percent

      • 1968, George Wallace, 14 percent

      • 1980, John Anderson, 7 percent

      • 1992, Ross Perot, 19 percent

      None came close to winning. And yet we have to admit that the system has never been as broken as it is today. Few people really want to see a Biden/Trump rematch, and those who do are motivated by a burning passion to reverse or reinforce the 2020 election, the results of which are widely disputed thanks to Trump’s aggressive protests against irregularities.

      Let’s just say that this constitutes about one-third of the electorate. What about everyone else who would like to see something like normalcy return to this country without the incredible corruption that has invaded our public lives? RFK makes a credible claim that he has the knowledge and ability to begin to clean up the system in Washington, precisely because he has been litigating against it for many years.

      What else does he have going for him? There is an authenticity to his language and approach that no other candidate can match. He is obviously not a professional politician. He speaks and sounds more like the best professor you ever had, with an incredible and ever-present command of facts and information about a huge range of subjects. His recall seems at times to be photographic concerning names, dates, data, and anecdotes. His speeches often seem more like teaching seminars.

      In a strange way, we need that now. Regardless of what you think about his views on this topic or that, everyone has to admit that he has an amazing command of all the issues, whether health policy, foreign policy, censorship, or environmental problems. In a startling way, when he doesn’t know something, he outright admits it and seeks out experts to help him.

      What’s especially beautiful about RFK is his absolute refusal to censor himself. He believes that the CIA was involved in the killing of his uncle and says that, bringing the receipts. He believes that the FDA and CDC are deeply corrupt, sacrificing American liberty and health in the pay of the legally privileged pharmaceutical industry, and he says that too. He looks around the country and sees a government/corporate cartel crushing the interests of small business, farmers, and the middle class generally, and he says that too.

      Most striking of all, none of these points are politically strategic, much less put together by consultants with focus groups. They come from his own mind and heart. He has ruminated on them for many years. Running for president is just his chance to reach a larger audience with a message that is his alone.

      There is not a single voter who agrees with all of his positions, and that’s ok. No single voter agrees fully with anyone else because we are human beings. In choosing a president, we are looking for truth telling, courage, sincerity, moral and practical clarity, and a ferocious opposition to government policies that pillage the public for ruling class interests. RFK certainly has a bead on that problem, and, for that reason, we are blessed to have him.

      He also benefits from niche interests that he has cultivated and only he represents: the vaccine-injured, the bitcoiners, the civil libertarians, the pro-peace contingent of both parties, the anti-corporatists, the partisans of old-fashioned environmentalism, the unjustly persecuted like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and the advocates of better health. Maybe together they make up only 25 percent but they are motivated and determined. They could bring others with them, in the interests of saving this country.

      A point I like about the quixotic run as an independent is that it breaks the model. It refuses to see the historical record as a given template of the future. He believes that these emergency times require heroic and unconventional measures. It’s a good bet that a majority of Americans agree with him on this point. Getting people to vote their conscience is the real challenge.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 20:25

    • IRS Hits MyPillow With Five Audits: Mike Lindell
      IRS Hits MyPillow With Five Audits: Mike Lindell

      Last week we noted that MyPillow has been “crippled” by American Express, according to CEO Mike Lindell.

      On Saturday, Lindell said that his company is now facing five IRS audits related to employees who worked remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic.

      “It started in California. Now there’s three other states that are coming at MyPillow. And Steve, it’s disgusting,” Lindell told Bannon on the “War Room” podcast.

      “They just keep attacking. Now they’re going after our employees. They made it very personal,” he added.

      Lindell says the audits are punishment for supporting President Donald Trump and claims that the 2020 US election were stolen.

      “This is something that hasn’t happened in 15 years, and all of a sudden there’s 5 IRS audits against MyPillow in three different years,” said Lindell, who’s also facing a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems and anotehr from Smartmatic.

      In July, MyPillow auctioned off equipment from its Minnesota pillow factory after the company lost more than $100 million in retail sales, Lindell said at the time.

      “It was a massive, massive cancellation,” said Lindell. “We lost $100 million from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels, all of them did cancel culture on us.”

      The stores which dropped MyPillow products include;

      • Walmart
      • Bed Bath & Beyond
      • Slumberland Furniture

      In response, Lindell auctioned off more than 850 pieces of ‘surplus equipment’ online, including sewing machines, industrial fabric spreaders, conveyor belts, electric forklifts, and more.

      According to Lindell, the company is also subleasing some of its manufacturing space because the packaging for direct sales is different than what the company required when producing products for large retailers.

      “We kind of needed a building and a half, but now with these moves we’re making, we can get it down to our one building,” he said.

      “If the box stores ever came back we could have it if we needed it, but we don’t need that,” Lindell continued. “It affected a lot of things when you lose that big of a chunk [of revenue].“

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 20:05

    • Trump Campaign Asks RNC To Cancel All Future Debates
      Trump Campaign Asks RNC To Cancel All Future Debates

      Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

      President Trump’s campaign team has asked the Republican National Committee to cancel all upcoming debates.

      Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita issued a statement that reads “The Republican National Committee should immediately cancel the upcoming debate in Miami and end all future debates in order to refocus its manpower and money on preventing Democrats’ efforts to steal the 2024 election.”

      “Anything less, along with other reasons not to cancel, are an admission to the grassroots that their concerns about voter integrity are not taken seriously and national Republicans are more concerned about helping Joe Biden than ensuring a safe and secure election,” the statement adds.

      The call comes after the Fox News GOP debate last week which turned into a squabbling match between candidates who are almost all poll in the low single digits.

      Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have called for more debates to be scrapped, noting that it is clear Trump will be the nominee.

      “Trump will be the nominee and the question now for everybody is do you want to see Joe Biden reelected or do you want to help Donald Trump? There’s no middle ground here,” Gingrich urged.

      Trump has also dismissed the notion of having any of the other candidates as a number two.

      “They are all running for a job,” Trump told a crowd in Michigan, adding “They’re all job candidates… they will do anything, secretary of something. They even say VP. I don’t know. Anybody see any VP in the group? I don’t think so.”

      *  *  *

      Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 19:45

    • Mexico President Blasts US Billions To Ukraine As "Irrational" – Says Focus On Latin America
      Mexico President Blasts US Billions To Ukraine As “Irrational” – Says Focus On Latin America

      Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is no stranger to issuing pointed and scathing criticisms of Washington foreign policy.

      On Monday he did it again, but this time related to US military aid to Ukraine, at a sensitive moment that some Congressional Republican holdouts are trying to strip Ukraine funding from the defense budget. Lopez Obrador took the opportunity to question why more US foreign aid isn’t being invested in America’s own backyard. In this context, he blasted sinking billions into Ukraine as “irrational”. 

      “I was just looking at how now they’re not authorizing aid for the war in Ukraine,” he said during a daily press briefing. “But how much have they destined for the Ukraine war? 30 to 50 billion dollars for the war. Which is the most irrational thing you can have. And damaging.”

      Via AP

      “So they do have to modify their strategy and learn respect. It’s not the time for them to ignore Mexican authorities,” The Mexican president added.

      Reuters underscored that in the remarks he “urged Washington to devote more resources to helping Latin American countries.”

      The leftist Lopez Obrador has maintained a neutral stance regarding Ukraine, in line with other Global South countries, but has generally been supportive of a number of UN resolutions rebuking ‘Russian aggression’. 

      At the same time, he has still been more cooperative with Moscow than any of the big Western powers would ever be at this point, as Reuters also notes:

      Two weeks ago the president defended the presence of a Russian military unit in a weekend parade marking Mexico’s independence day, following sharp criticism that his country had given a platform to forces that invaded Ukraine.

      Lopez Obrador has also frequently taken aim at US sanctions, having just last week linked anti-Cuba and anti-Venezuela sanction to a surge in migrant activity across the region and at the US border.

      “They (the U.S.) don’t do anything,” he said last Friday, according to the Associated Press. “It’s more, a lot more, what they authorize for the war in Ukraine than what they give to help with poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

      He called on US leaders “to remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries, an integrated plan for cooperation so the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Ecuadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans wouldn’t be forced to emigrate.”

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 19:25

    • McCarthy Won't Seek Speaker Position In Re-Vote; Trump Nominated By Nehls
      McCarthy Won’t Seek Speaker Position In Re-Vote; Trump Nominated By Nehls

      Update (1920T): Newly ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will not seek reelection to the post when the chamber convenes to select a new candidate.

      According to Just the News, “McCarthy was removing his name from consideration when the House convenes to select a new speaker.”

      Following McCarthy’s ouster, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) called the former Speaker a “feature of the swamp.”

      “Kevin McCarthy couldn’t keep his word. He made an agreement in January regarding the way Washington would work, and he violated that agreement. We are $33 trillion in debt. We are facing $2.2 trillion annual deficits,” said McCarthy, adding “We face a de-dollarization globally that will crush Americans working class Americans. Kevin McCarthy is a feature of the swamp. He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors.”

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      Meanwhile, Congressman Troy Nehls has nominated former President Donald Trump for Speaker.

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      Here’s where Goldman’s Alec Phillips sees things:

      1. The House has voted to remove Rep. McCarthy as speaker. House Financial Services Chairman McHenry (R-NC) will temporarily serve as caretaker speaker (speaker pro tempore) until a new speaker is elected. Legislative activity in the House will temporarily cease as Republicans reorganize. Selecting a speaker in January took 5 days, and it is possible the next selection could take several days as well.

      2. Although possible, we think it is very unlikely that the House will remain without a leader until Nov. 17, when the recent extension of spending authority expires. In the unlikely event that the House remains without a speaker in mid-November, we believe the speaker pro tempore would have the power to bring another temporary funding extension up for a vote, though the rules are somewhat unclear on this point and would ultimately come down to a decision by the House Parliamentarian.

      3. All other things equal, the leadership change raises the odds of a government shutdown in November, though with several weeks left until the deadline, many outcomes are possible. With many policy disputes remaining and a $120bn difference between the parties on the preferred spending level for FY2024, it is difficult to see how Congress can pass the 12 necessary full-year spending bills before funding expires Nov. 17. The next speaker is likely to be under even more pressure to avoid passing another temporary extension—or additional funding for Ukraine—than former Speaker McCarthy had been.

      4. We continue to view a shutdown in Q4 as the base case, likely when funding expires Nov. 17. That said, while a leadership vacuum raises the odds of a government shutdown, we still view a prolonged shutdown (i.e., more than 2-3 weeks) as unlikely given the political consequences of certain aspects of a shutdown, particularly a failure to pay servicemembers, which occurs twice a month (the next pay date at risk is Dec. 1).

      *  *  *

      Update (1635ET): After eight tumultuous months of pandering and lies (according to Rep. Matt Gaetz), Kevin McCarthy has been removed as Speaker of the House for the first time in US history.

      The final vote was 216-210.

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      The last time the House tried to evict a speaker was 1910, which failed.

      Rep. Patrick McHenry is now the acting speaker, as announced by the House Clerk. The next step is for the chamber to begin rounds of voting to elect a new Speaker, as we saw eight months ago.

      He’s just recessed the House so that the parties can meet and confer on a “way forward.” It was quite the tantrum…

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      The speaker pro tempore is imbued with all the powers of an elected speaker of the House. McCarthy hand-picked McHenry (R-N.C.) for this role when he was elected speaker in January. The pro tempore is kept as a secret, held by the clerk of the House, until a speaker is removed or incapacitated, a process designed after Sept. 11, 2001, to ensure continuity of government. -Politico

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      Oh brother…

      *  *  *

      Update (1630ET): The House is now voting on the motion to remove McCarthy, and – unless Democrats intervene, Gaetz has enough votes to vacate him as Speaker after six Republicans voted ‘aye’ (Biggs, Buck, Burchett, Crane, Gaetz and Good).

      Watch Live:

       

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      Update (1435ET): The House is now voting on whether to move forward with the ouster vote, or to ‘table’ it – which would save McCarthy.

      Update: The ‘motion to table’ has failed, and the House will now move forward with debate ahead of a vote on Gaetz’s effort to remove McCarthy.

      *  *  *

      Update (1323ET): It appears that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may actually be out of a job, just eight months after he bent over backwards (and forward?) to land it.

      In a ‘Dear Colleage’ letter, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tells his ‘troops’ that “House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican motion to vacate the chair.“

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      House Dems are falling in line.

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      Days after narrowly averting a government shutdown by striking a secret side-deal with Democrats over Ukraine funding, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) faces the biggest challenge to his Speakership by the same group of House conservatives who delayed his rise to power eight months ago.

      On Monday night, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed a motion to formally remove McCarthy from his role as speaker – a vote for which McCarthy says he’ll get out of the way first thing today, while CNBC says the vote should begin at 2pm ET.

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      In short, only Democrats may be able to save McCarthy – who says he hasn’t made any deals with the Democrats who he says “haven’t asked for anything,” following a Monday night call with House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) – who will ultimately decide McCarthy’s fate.

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      While the minority party in the House typically doesn’t support the majority’s choice for speaker, motions to vacate are rare – and this situation hasn’t been seen in more than a century.

      According to the Guardian, Gaetz and his allies have the votes to remove McCarthy.

      In a notice to lawmakers, Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s office said votes on the motion to vacate Kevin McCarthy from his position as speaker of the House could take place “at any time after the House convenes at 12:00 p.m. today.”

      Before voting on the motion itself, McCarthy’s allies may move to table the proposal, which, if successful, would block the motion to vacate, and save McCarthy’s speakership. That would need a simply majority to pass, and, the way the numbers are looking now, can’t be achieved without Democratic help.

      “Members should keep their schedules flexible and be prepared to vote at the appropriate time,” reads the notice.

      Gaetz and his Freedom Caucus allies were livid on Sunday after it emerged that McCarthy had made a secret side-deal with Democrats for more Ukraine funding, in exchange for passage of a continuing resolution that will keep the government running through mid-November.

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      Developing…

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      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 19:21

    • NY Judge Issues Gag Order After Trump Targets Clerk
      NY Judge Issues Gag Order After Trump Targets Clerk

      Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times,

      Former President Donald Trump attended day two of the civil fraud case against him that’s gone to trial in New York. After flip-flopping several times on his opinion of the presiding judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, he made a disparaging post on social media mid-day about Justice Engoron’s staffer.

      Justice Engoron is known to regularly confer with his clerk Allison Greenfield on cases. President Trump had made a post on Truth Social, linking to an Instagram account with a photo of Ms. Greenfield with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), attacking her and claiming she was “running” the case and making unsubstantiated claims about their relationship. The post was amplified by a campaign email blast on Tuesday, and millions had seen it.

      When the court broke for a lunch break, two closed-door meetings were held. After a delay, the trial resumed at 3 p.m. and the judge explained that he had ordered the post be taken down.

      The post was deleted by the time the trial resumed.

      “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable and inappropriate,” Justice Engoron said. He added that he had already warned both parties against such attacks on Monday.

      “Consider this a gag order on all parties with respect to posting or publicly speaking about any member of my staff,” he said, adding that violations of this order would not be tolerated and would result in sanctions.

      President Trump’s legal team has already been sanctioned by Justice Engoron multiple times, who ruled that the attorneys had made “frivolous” arguments repeatedly even after he had dismissed them.

      First Testimony

      Last September, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the former president claiming he defrauded the state by inflating his net worth to obtain more favorable deals from insurers and banks between 2011 and 2021. She is seeking $250 million in damages and to bar President Trump and his two adult sons from doing business in the state.

      The judge has already ruled President Trump liable for fraud and ordered the dissolution of the Trump Organization, and the trial will deal with several other claims Ms. James made in regard to falsifying financial statements, as well as the fate of President Trump’s businesses and properties.

      After repeated attempts from President Trump’s side to delay the case from going to trial, the case kicked off Monday with an unprecedented appearance from the former president. He entered the courthouse last minute, gave multiple remarks to the press, and closely scrutinized the evidence presented in court from the front row.

      President Trump, who is also polling as the frontrunner in the 2024 presidential elections, told reporters he would much rather be campaigning, but was attending the trial to “expose” the “fraud” and the “scam” that had been committed against him by what he described as a “rigged” prosecutor, case, and judge.

      Donald Bender, former partner at tax investigation firm Mazars USA, was the first to take to the witness stand. He was questioned by Kevin Wallace, attorney for the prosecution, on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, and was to be cross-examined by the defense Tuesday afternoon.

      Mr. Bender worked closely with the Trump Organization from 2011 to 2021, and prepared President Trump’s personal tax returns from 2009 to 2018. He said he spent about half his time working on the Trump Organization and frequently went to the Trump Tower offices.

      Mr. Bender was shown document after document from 2011 to 2020, and asked repeatedly whether he would have submitted the financial statements if he knew that the Trump Organization had withheld information.

      The prosecution sought to establish that it was the Trump Organization’s responsibility to provide accurate accounting, not Mazars.

      Mr. Bender testified to a letter from the Trump Organization that contained language stating it was responsible for the accurate accounting, noting that documents contained a red “prepared by the client” notation and that figures were copied and pasted from what he was provided by the Trump Organizations in some documents. He also testified regarding a letter from the Trump Organization stating that it had not knowingly withheld any relevant financial data.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 19:05

    • Fatal NYC Stabbing Of Social-Justice Activist Caught On CCTV
      Fatal NYC Stabbing Of Social-Justice Activist Caught On CCTV

      For the second time in a week, a left-wing activist has been murdered in a major US city, where soft-on-crime Democrat policies have resulted in record crime.

      On Monday, social justice advocate Ryan Carson was stabbed in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York City.

      According to police, Carson was walking with his girlfriend after a wedding when a suspect approached and asked “What are you looking at?” before stabbing Carson in the chest several times. The victim, 32, was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.

      Footage of the incident was obtained by the NY Post.

      According to CBS News, Carson was a campaign manager with the NY Public Interest Research Group.

      Reactions to the stabbing were as expected:

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      This is the second incident of a social justice warrior murdered in a major Democrat-run city in the last week.

      On Saturday, a left-wing Philadelphia journalist who mocked concern over rising crime in Democrat-run cities was shot to death in his home.

      Josh Kruger was shot seven times after someone entered his home, shot him at the base of his stairs, and then fled. Kruger ran outside seeking help from his neighbors and collapsed, where police found them after responding to call just before 1:30 a.m. on the 2300 block of Watkins Street.

      Kruger, 39, was rushed to the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died just before 2:15 a.m.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 18:45

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    Oct 03

    Today’s News 3rd October 2023

    • Putin Orders First-Ever Nationwide Nuclear Drill, Prepares Bomb-Test At Arctic Circle
      Putin Orders First-Ever Nationwide Nuclear Drill, Prepares Bomb-Test At Arctic Circle

      Via Remix News,

      Russia will hold its first nationwide drill simulating widespread nuclear strikes on the country, daily Magyar Hírlap writes.

      The one-day nuclear attack exercise is based on the assumption that NATO will launch a nuclear strike on Russia, destroying 70 percent of Russian housing and life-support facilities. In the scenario, martial law is imposed in the country and a full-scale mobilization is ordered.

      The test will also model the secondary threat posed by damage to nuclear power plants and other key facilities.

      State and regional authorities will have to organize emergency rescue teams to provide food, medical supplies and protection against radiation.

      According to the preparatory document, there is a need to prepare for an escalation of war, including a global conflict involving nuclear powers.

      The permanent relocation of the population from the life-threatened zone will be similar to Chernobyl, involving an internal population transfer on an unprecedented scale.

      Putin, meanwhile, is moving to one of his nuclear bunkers around the country to escape the simulated nuclear Armageddon. In the event of a real nuclear war, he has a fleet of “Doomsday” Il-80 Maxdome aircraft that can act as an air control center.

      The exercise is being held four days before Putin’s 71st birthday.

      Not only is the national disaster exercise seen as a training exercise for nuclear war, but preparations are also underway for a nuclear explosion test in the Arctic Circle.

      Russian Defense Minister Sergei Soygu visited Novaya Zemlya in August, signaling that tests could soon resume after a break of several decades.

      Tyler Durden
      Tue, 10/03/2023 – 02:00

    • Escobar: Nagorno-Karabakh Is No More
      Escobar: Nagorno-Karabakh Is No More

      Authored by Pepe Escobar,

      Why would the current administration in Yerevan ever care for a few lost souls in Artsakh?

      In the end, Nagorno-Karabakh – or the Artsakh Republic – is no more.

      It will cease to exist on 1 January 2024 – also the first day of the Russian presidency of BRICS 11.

      All autonomous state structures will be dissolved – according to a decree signed by the head of the Republic, Samvel Shahramanyan.

      The population – roughly 147,000, 99% of them Armenian Christians – has a choice that’s not really a choice: “familiarize themselves with the conditions of reintegration presented by the Republic of Azerbaijan” and stay, or leave to Armenia for good.

      Predictably, the exodus is on: an interminable serpent of vehicles congesting the mountain roads of a beautiful landscape where generations of Armenians lived for centuries. As of Thursday night, over 70,000 Armenians had left towards the Syunik region.

      The Azeri government in Baku sent police/security forces to Stepanakert. Former Foreign Minister Ruben Vardanyan, an oligarch, was detained by Azeri security while trying to leave for Armenia, mingling with refugees. He had renounced Russian citizenship last year when he moved to work in Artsakh. He’ll probably be freed.

      Others won’t be so lucky. Everyone leaving is being exhaustively searched. Baku has warned that every Artsakh notable – political and military – will be captured.

      This is how it sadly ends: the story of how a bunch of crooks – Team Pashinyan in Yerevan – profited personally from a geopolitical pretext.

      Armenian PM Pashinyan announced that in a few days he’ll consider there are no more Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Translation: those that decided to stay will be considered to be Azerbaijanis.

      Yet for Baku, Armenians from Artsakh will always remain Armenians – and thus an object of suspicion.

      It’s all about the Zangezur corridor

      Armenian priests are starting to ask for people power to come up with regime change in Yerevan to save the nation. It’s clear that Syunik will be the next Armenian territory to fall – considering both Azerbaijan and Turkey have their eyes on its strategic position. If Baku takes Syunik, Armenian Orthodox Christian priests will definitely be in hot water.

      The crucial fact is that the November 2020 armistice between Armenia and Azerbaïjan, with Russian involvement, was not respected either by Baku or Yerevan.

      Moscow didn’t do much except showing that Pashinyan gave Artsakh away to Baku – which in itself is outrageous and a violation of the armistice: imagine that the object of a war was relinquished by the attacked country to the attacker.

      What Baku really wanted was the opening of the Zangezur corridor – and that was also part of the armistice. The corridor was supposed to be controlled by Russian guards.

      Yerevan did nothing about it. Baku for its part kept provoking skirmishes in Artsakh and Syunik. And on top of it did not respect a clause stipulating the building of a road allowing Armenians to travel back and forth to Artsakh. In fact Baku blocked Artsakh by taking over the Lachin road.

      As corridors go, Zangezur is the proverbial Chinese win-win.

      Azerbaijan links with its Nakhitchevan enclave and Turkiye. Russia gets a road that goes through Baku and Yerevan. Armenia opens itself to international trade. And Iran is satisfied that the manager will be the former owner of the place: Russia.

      Ay, there’s the rub. The usual suspects were not happy that Russian guards would be back in Armenia. So they sabotaged this clause via their agent Pashinyan.

      The record shows how Team Pashinyan behaved these past few months: Armenia’s First Lady visited Kiev; Yerevan transferred “humanitarian aid” to Ukraine; there were joint military exercises with the U.S.; frantic back and forth by U.S. and EU politicos and NGOs.

      Relations with Moscow are deteriorating fast. Yerevan – a juicy strategic target – is being taken over by the Hegemon and its vassals. It’s not an accident that Yerevan hosts the second largest American embassy in the world.

      So only one thing is certain: the Transcaucasus will continue to be on fire.

      Empire of Chaos strikes again

      It’s not clear what will happen to Zangezur – and if and when Pashinyan will act on it. There’s always a – remote – possibility that Pashinyan, egged on by his Western handlers, may try to strike a deal with Aliyev to leave Russia out.

      The Russian Foreign Ministry has not minced its words, noting how Yerevan “flip flopped on policy and sought Western support over working closely with Russia and Azerbaijan”. And how in meetings in Prague and Brussels under the EU, Pashynian “acknowledged Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, but failed to address the rights and safety of the Karabakh Armenians.”

      The Foreign Ministry all but warns Pashynian that “unlike the West which has become quite skilled in organising color revolutions, Moscow does not engage in such activities.”

      At the same time, “a frenzied anti-Russian campaign has swept the Armenian media at the behest of the authorities. We are convinced that the Armenian leadership is making a huge mistake by deliberately attempting to sever Armenia’s multifaceted and centuries-old ties with Russia, making the country a hostage to Western geopolitical games. We are confident that the overwhelming majority of the Armenian population realises this as well.”

      Well, USAID head Samantha “Batshit Crazy” Power is in Armenia right now, “affirming U.S. support for Armenia’s democracy, sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and commitment to addressing humanitarian needs stemming from Nagorno-Karabakh”.

      Nonsense. This is all about the Empire of Chaos conquering a strategic asset close to Russia: Armenia is a member of the CSTO and the EAEU. There are more than 25 USAID projects being implemented in Armenia. Why would the current administration in Yerevan ever care for a few lost souls in Artsakh?

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 23:40

    • Philly Police Seek Biker Who Stomped Out Back Window Of Sedan Where Two Innocent Children Sat
      Philly Police Seek Biker Who Stomped Out Back Window Of Sedan Where Two Innocent Children Sat

      Philadelphia Police are seeking help from the community trying to find a motorcyclist who jumped through the back window of a vehicle on Sunday night while two innocent children sat in the back seat. 

      On Monday morning a video started making its way around social media showing a gang of motorcycle and quad riders in Philadelphia swarming a vehicle stopped in traffic outside of City Hall in Center City, Philadelphia. 

      The video — captured by a tourist sitting atop of a double decker bus — shows a motorcycle rider stop alongside a sedan before jumping on the back of the vehicle and busting out its back window. While jumping, the perpetrator’s gun fell from his pants. The female driver got out of the vehicle to confront the biker, who then headbutted her with his helmet. 

      Almost all of the vehicles in question did not have license plates, though several did but were affixed with tape to hide their plate numbers. 

      Fox 29’s Steve Keeley, who is one of the only journalists in the city with the courage to confront the crime epidemic the city is undergoing (and who has been villainized for it), reported: “9pm last night, George Colony from Florida watched helplessly as a male on motorcycle kicked in back windshield where two kids sitting.”

      Keeley also posted video of the incident:

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      “He had a gun that fell out of his waistband as he jumped down off her car. He then headbutted her with the visor of his helmet, as she fights back despite him being armed & she being way outnumbered,” Keeley wrote. 

      He wrote that the woman is an Uber Eats driver who brings her kids with her because a babysitter is “too costly”.

      He noted that Philadelphia Police are seeking information on the motorcycle rider:

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      Recall, Philadelphia just underwent mass looting last week that resulted in stores closing. Not unlike the crowd on Sunday, last week a crowd of 100 young people looted retail shops. 

      Police Commissioner John Stanford said the teens began looting stores around 2200 ET, which sparked a massive police presence across Walnut Street between 15th and 18th streets. 

      “What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and make an attempt to destroy our city,” Stanford told reporters last week.

      He said, “It’s not going to be tolerated.” 

      We reported earlier this month that Philadelphia’s police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw – who has overseen years of surging crime, property destruction and violent attacks in the Northeast city – has had enough and was stepping down. 

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

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

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      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 23:20

    • Judge Upholds Federal Bump Stock Ban
      Judge Upholds Federal Bump Stock Ban

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

      A federal judge has upheld the ATF’s ban on bump stocks, devices that boost firing speed.

      A bump stock is attached to a semi-automatic rifle at the Gun Vault store and shooting range in South Jordan, Utah, on Oct. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer/File)

      U.S. District Judge Jill N. Parrish ruled on Sept. 29 (pdf) that the prohibition on bump stocks imposed administratively by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) several years ago was appropriate.

      “This court concludes that the regulation is an appropriate exercise of the agency’s discretion to fill gaps implicitly left by Congress,” and so “it declines to declare the rule unlawful or enjoin its enforcement,” wrote Ms. Parrish, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

      The lawsuit opposing the bump stock ban was brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of firearms instructor Clark Aposhian. It is one of several challenging the ATF’s ban on bump stocks, which are accessories that attach to semi-automatic firearms.

      Bump stocks were banned in 2019 when the Department of Justice (DOJ) amended regulations of the ATF, classifying bump stocks as equivalent to machine guns and making them illegal.

      The NCLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. But the NCLA’s litigation counsel, Caleb Kruckenberg, earlier called the case a “perfect example, unfortunately, of what we call the administrative state.” remove

      “What I mean by that is with no intervening action from Congress with no change in the law, the ATF has said that they know better than Congress, and the ATF is trying to rewrite the statute. But that’s not their role,” Mr. Kruckenberg said in a video posted on the group’s website.

      “Congress is supposed to write the laws and the executive branch acting through the agencies are supposed to apply them,” he added.

      Congressional interest in bump stocks grew after authorities found that the gunman who perpetrated a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 attached them to several of his semi-automatic firearms.

      Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), points to a photograph of a rifle with a bump stock during a news conference to announce proposed gun control legislation at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Oct. 4, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

      The ATF’s administrative rule change amended the regulatory text by adding the following language: “The term ‘machine gun’ includes bump-stock devices, i.e., devices that allow a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semi-automatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.”

      Several bump stock owners, including Mr. Aposhian, filed lawsuits challenging the ban, seeking to block it from going into effect. A common argument was that the ATF promulgated the rule in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

      While the case is technically about bump stocks, the NCLA’s Mr. Kruckenberg said it’s about much more than banning a gun accessory—”This case is about who gets to write the law.”

      In a series of decisions, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Tenth and D.C. Circuits rejected APA-based challenges to the rule, while the Sixth Circuit was evenly split, leading to a district court upholding the ban. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the three cases.

      By contrast, the Fifth Circuit ruled in January 2023 that the rule violates the APA that an act of Congress is required to ban bump stocks. This lawsuit was brought by Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin.

      “Cargill is correct. A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machine gun’ set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act,” the Fifth Circuit said in its ruling.

      A bump fire stock that attaches to a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firing rate, at Good Guys Gun Shop in Orem, Utah, on Oct. 4, 2017. (George Frey/Reuters)

      More Details

      The Fifth Circuit ruling stated that semi-automatic weapons fitted with bump stocks don’t fall under the definition of a machine gun because one pull of the trigger corresponds to the firing of a single bullet.

      “Without a bump stock or the use of an alternative bump technique, the user must provide manual input by pulling the trigger with the muscles of his trigger finger. With a bump stock, the shooter need not pull and release his trigger finger. But the shooter must still apply forward pressure to the weapon’s forebody in order to maintain the shooting mechanism,” U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer Eldrod wrote in the opinion. “Again, the manual input remains, even though its form changes.”

      Dissenting judges argued that the statutory language is ambiguous enough to support classifying bump stocks as machine guns and that court used “lenity to legalize an instrument of mass murder.”

      Lenity is a principle in law that calls for any ambiguity in a criminal statute to be interpreted in favor of the defendant, resulting in a more narrow interpretation of the law.

      In April 2023, the DOJ petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of the Fifth Court’s ruling in favor of Mr. Cargill that halted the bump stock ban.

      The NCLA said in June that it supports Supreme Court review of the case, saying it believes that the ruling would uphold the Fifth Court’s decision to strike down the prohibition.

      “The Fifth Circuit held that the ‘rule of lenity’ requires that ambiguities in criminal statutes be construed against the government so that ordinary citizens will not be punished unless they have clear notice of the conduct that is prohibited,” Richard Samp, NCLA senior litigation counsel, said in a statement.

      “NCLA is urging the Supreme Court, if it agrees to hear Mr. Cargill’s case, to address whether the rule of lenity requires rejection of ATF’s rule,” he added.

      The case remains pending before the Supreme Court.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 23:00

    • Trump Lead Widens After Second GOP Presidential Debate: Poll
      Trump Lead Widens After Second GOP Presidential Debate: Poll

      Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

      Former President Donald Trump has further solidified his lead in the Republican presidential primary, following the second GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California.

      Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd during a campaign rally in Summerville, S.C., on Sept. 25, 2023. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

      “63% of potential Republican primary voters support Donald Trump for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, up from 58% in our survey released Monday ahead of the latest primary debate,” Morning Consult said in its survey released on Sept. 29.

      In comparison, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen as Mr. Trump’s biggest rival, saw his support dip from 15 percent to 12 percent after the second debate, though the Florida governor is still in second place.

      [ZH: According to PredictIt, the figures look even worse for DeSantis…]

      The survey, which polled 1,183 potential GOP primary voters, was conducted on Sept. 28, one day after the second debate, which Trump didn’t attend. Instead, he spent the debate night in battleground Michigan, delivering a speech to striking auto workers.

      Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley both lost 2 percentage points since the debate. Mr. Ramaswamy is at 9 percent and Ms. Haley is at 5 percent.

      Former Vice President Mike Pence lost one percentage point and is at 5 percent. Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) did not see any change after the debate, remaining at 2 percent.

      “This data reinforces our view that Trump is in the driver’s seat of the Republican primary, and that Trump-less debates aren’t having much of an impact on the other candidates’ national support, and may in fact be helping the former president,” the survey concludes.

      In August, Morning Consult found that the support for President Trump went unchanged at 58 percent after he skipped the first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee. Instead of attending the debate, the former president aired a pre-recorded interview he did with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

      The second debate, which was aired on Fox News Channel and Fox Business, drew 3.5 million fewer viewers than the first debate.

      Even with the absence of President Trump, the seven GOP presidential contenders did not make a breakthrough in the second debate, as they argued over topics including China, the border crisis, crime, fentanyl, and education.

      (L–R) North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and former Vice President Mike Pence at the second Republican presidential primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. on Sept. 27, 2023. (Pedro Ugarte /AFP via Getty Images)

      Mr. Ramaswamy finished third with 18 percent saying they were more likely to support him, ahead of Mr. Pence with 16 percent, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 15 percent, and Mr. Scott with 14 percent.

      Following the second debate, Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, urged the Republican National Committee (RNC) to cancel future debates.

      “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump,” Mr. LaCivita said on Sept. 27.

      Mr. LaCivita added, “The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.”

      According to Mr. LaCivita, Mr. Trump has no plans to attend future GOP presidential debates, after skipping the first two. The third debate is set to take place in Miami on Nov. 8.

      The former president is scheduled to host the Iowa Commit to Caucus event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Oct. 1.

      “Just landed in the Great State of Iowa,” President Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on early Sunday. “Remember, I got the farmers 28 Billion Dollars from China. Nobody else would have even thought of doing that, and if they did, wouldn’t have been able to get it done!”

      The former president was also in Iowa on Sept. 20, when he told supporters in Dubuque that he would use troops to secure the southern border if reelected.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 22:20

    • "Severe Crash" Looms For CRE Office Towers, Turmoil Lasting Years, Bloomberg Survey Finds
      “Severe Crash” Looms For CRE Office Towers, Turmoil Lasting Years, Bloomberg Survey Finds

      About seven months ago, panic gripped financial markets over the regional bank meltdown, primarily due to exposure to the commercial real estate space, specifically office towers. Since then, many market participants have forgotten the turmoil, but not all have done so. 

      A new weekly survey of Terminal users by Bloomberg’s Markets Live team finds two-thirds of the 919 respondents believe the office tower market needs to crash before a rebound can be seen. 

      Nearly half (44%) of respondents said tower prices will trough in the second half of 2024. About 29% believe 2025 or later. 

      Terminal users likely understand what Morgan Stanley pointed out earlier this year: a staggering $2.5 trillion in debt maturities and rollovers at much higher rates over the next five years:

      Last month, Kyle Bass told Bloomberg TV that the US banking industry will lose hundreds of billions of dollars from exposure to the office market amid shifting workplace trends and elevated interest rates.

      “Banks in the US will lose $200, $250 billion in office over time here,” Bass, founder of Hayman Capital Management, best known for correctly predicting and profiting from the bursting of the subprime housing bubble. He noted, “And there’s about $2 trillion of equity in the banks so it’s like a 10% hit to US banking equity.”

      What’s clear is that refinancing won’t be pretty for building owners. A Green Street commercial property index shows towers have already fallen 16% from a peak in March 2022. 

      “Nobody wants to sell at a huge loss,” said Lea Overby, an analyst at Barclays Plc. “These are properties that don’t need to be sold for long periods of time, and that means holders are likely to delay a sale as long as they can.”

      According to a March report from Goldman Sachs, regional banks hold about 30% of office tower debt as of 2022. Small banks have seen deposits shrink 2% over the last 12 months ending August. That means less funding. 

      Bloomberg noted it could take several years for some building owners to experience pressure from higher rates:

      Pain from higher interest rates can take years to filter through to owners of the US commercial real estate, which Morgan Stanley values at $11 trillion in total. Investors in office buildings, for example, often have long-term fixed-rate financing in place, and their tenants can be subject to long- term leases as well.

      It will take until 2027 for leases that are in place today to roll over to lower revenue expectations, according to research by Moody’s Investors Service published in March. If current trends hold, then revenues by then will be 10% lower than today.

      Barclays’s Overby said the office tower market “will take a long time to work out,” adding she isn’t too worried about the threat of the overall CRE market because “debt is spread across a wide enough array of investors to absorb losses.” 

      Meanwhile, a recent report from the Morgan Stanley team expects CRE prices to be down 27.4% from peak to trough in 18 to 24 months this cycle, not that far off from the -34.9% during the GFC in 34 months, which will range from a decline of 15% for apartments to a stunning plunge of 40% for office. 

      In places like San Francisco and Baltimore, some office tower prices have already crashed:

      While progressive corporate media outlets tend to attribute the decline of office towers in metro areas to Covid and the rise of remote work, there’s another seldom-discussed factor at play: disastrous social justice reforms that have triggered lawlessness, forcing companies to move to the suburbs or even to states that embrace law and order. 

      To sum up, office districts in Democrat cities will be dead for years. This will have significant impacts on recovery and taxes. 

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 22:00

    • New Details Emerge After Woman Found Dead In NJ Trucker's Rig
      New Details Emerge After Woman Found Dead In NJ Trucker’s Rig

      By Clarissa Hawes of FreightWaves

      A new report is offering more details about what led investigators to file murder charges against a New Jersey truck driver after a woman was found dead on the floorboard of his tractor-trailer in Maryland.

      Matthew Sidney Watley, 46, of Sicklerville, New Jersey, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder after Candice Thompson, 46, also of Sicklerville, reportedly was found dead in the cab of his truck at a Costco Distribution Center in Monrovia, Maryland.

      The charging documents state that a detective with the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office was able to positively identify Thompson with the assistance of the Winslow Township Police Department in Camden County, New Jersey, noting that their office had “a long history of domestic violence between Watley and Thompson.”

      What happened?

      According to the charging documents, a truck driver parked at the distribution center told investigators that he heard Watley say, “Help me, help me,” and went over to see if he was OK. After climbing up on the running boards on the driver’s side of the silver Freightliner Cascadia Watley was driving, the witness reportedly saw blood on the center of the dash and Watley lying down between the seats.

      The driver told investigators that he heard a sound that made him think that Watley was cutting or stabbing himself and that he jumped down and drove to the guard station at Costco to notify security that Watley was possibly “having a medical issue or trauma.”

      Deputies with the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office in Maryland reportedly used stop sticks, pepper spray and then a Taser to subdue Watley after they were called to conduct a wellness check at his truck around 1:30 a.m. Sept. 24.

      Charging documents claim deputies attempted to talk to Watley several times but that he refused to answer and was incoherent when speaking. He also refused deputies’ demands to put his vehicle in park and shut the vehicle off and “would rev the engine of the tractor-trailer.” 

      Watley’s tires slowly began to lose air after he attempted to drive out of the gate and into the Costco parking lot. 

      Deputies were able to eventually arrest Watley. The charging document states a deputy found Thompson’s body lying face down in the cab of the truck between the driver’s and passenger’s seats and observed “two large gashes that were close together on her back.” More wounds were found later on her back, right hand and face. Thompson’s cause of death has not been released.

      A claw hammer and two folding-style knives were located next to the driver’s side door of Watley’s truck, according to the report. 

      Trucking company owner speaks out

      Parminder Singh, owner of PAA Trucking LLC, of Westville, New Jersey, said Watley had worked for him for nearly six months prior to his arrest. He added that Watley had worked for him previously, about two years ago.

      “He had an accident and damaged one of my trailers. He had gone on a low bridge and hit it — and I had to fire him,” Singh told FreightWaves. “He kept calling me to come back, to give him back his job.”

      Singh said he’s unclear why Watley was at the Costco Distribution Center in Monrovia, stating he was supposed to deliver a load of pineapples to Del Monte Fresh Produce in Jessup, Maryland, about 50 miles away. 

      “I don’t know why he drove to Costco — he was supposed to be in Jessup,” Singh said. “This has really messed me up. It’s been a bad thing for my company.” 

      Singh said he met with Watley about 12 hours prior to his arrest to collect paperwork and hand him his paycheck and the new paperwork for the Del Monte load, which had to be delivered by 11 p.m. Sept. 23.

      “It was raining so he [Watley] got out of the truck and walked over to my pickup truck and we talked there,” Singh said. 

      He said that what stands out from Singh’s conversation with Watley was that the driver asked if he could go home first to take a shower and do laundry before delivering the load of pineapples.

      Singh said Watley told him he was staying at his mother’s home in Sicklerville.

      Singh said he tried calling and texting Watley around 11:30 p.m. but he didn’t answer. Singh also said Watley’s GPS tracking system had been turned off or wasn’t working. 

      Singh said he received a call from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office about 2:30 a.m. Sept. 24 that Watley had been arrested.

      Watley’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 24. He is being held without bond after waiving his right to a bond hearing, according to Jacqueline Rottmann, communications specialist for the Frederick County State’s Attorney’s Office.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 21:40

    • I’m Fighting For Taxpayers: Gaetz
      I’m Fighting For Taxpayers: Gaetz

      Op-Ed authored by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) via RealClear Wire,

      I know who my bosses are. They aren’t the special interests in Washington, it isn’t party leadership, it’s my voters in Florida.

      Earlier this month, I sat down with some of my bosses in Destin, Florida for a podcast they host in their driveway. I was there to be held accountable. Congress has yet to achieve the things voters are asking for like term limits and a balanced budget.

      That’s what this fight in Congress is all about. It’s about making sure the promises we’ve made to voters are fulfilled. The Speaker made promises to me and other lawmakers in January, and I want to hold him to account. To be specific, that agreement includes a vote on term limits, a vote on a balanced budget amendment, single subject spending bills, and the full release of the January 6 tapes.

      This isn’t about politics or personality. It’s about sticking to our word, and getting our nation back on track.

      In Joe Biden’s America, families are having to pinch pennies, so Congress should too. Politicians that have spent decades running up America’s deficit are taking this personally.

      Rep. John Carter, who has been on the appropriations committee since 2005, recently attacked me as an “idiot” to a reporter. Okay. What’s idiotic is that our nation’s national debt has increased more than $25 trillion since 2005.

      Some people are desperate to make a policy battle personal, because their policy failures are personally embarrassing.

      We have to stop the fiscal insanity in Washington and get our spending under control. I’m not voting for a continuing resolution that funds Jack Smith’s election interference, dangerous chaos on the southern border, and money for the endless war in Ukraine.

      Just think about what it means for Congress to govern by Continuing Resolution. Every time we vote for a continuing resolution, we make no changes in policy or spending. It’s a vote to continue the status quo. If that’s all Congress is going to do, just replace us with AI bots, because we aren’t doing anything. The hearings are fun, but it’s the budgets where real policy changes are made.

      Moody’s chief economist recently said that the typical American household is spending $709 a month more than they were two years ago just to buy the same goods and services. That’s nearly $9,000 per year being stolen from Americans through the hidden tax of inflation.

      Americans literally cannot afford Washington’s reckless spending. Politicians in Washington DC – on both sides of the aisle – are robbing the American people and their grandchildren to pay for war in Ukraine, drag queen shows in Ecuador, an open border, free stuff for illegal immigrants, and the Biden Department of Justice’s illegal election interference.

      I came to Washington to be a voice for my voters and fix this once great nation. I’m not here to empower the Democrats’ radical agenda. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit by and do nothing while greed and corruption destroys our great nation.

      Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) represents the 1st Congressional District of Florida. He is a member of the 117th Congress currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 21:00

    • "It's Broken": Bill Clinton Now Opposes NYC "Sanctuary City" Laws As Migrant Crisis Spirals Out-Of-Control
      “It’s Broken”: Bill Clinton Now Opposes NYC “Sanctuary City” Laws As Migrant Crisis Spirals Out-Of-Control

      Former President Bill Clinton acknowledged Sunday that New York City’s ultra-progressive “Right to Shelter law” needs to be amended due to the migrant crisis. The open southern border policy started by the Biden administration two years ago was championed by Democrats, but now, many have ‘U-Turned’ and reversed their position on “Sanctuary City.” 

      “Gov. [Kathy] Hochul thinks it should be modified, and it probably should under the circumstances,” Clinton told host John Catsimatidis on 77 WABC radio’s “The Cats Roundtable” show. He added the migrant crisis spreading across US cities is not a good look for Democrats. 

      Clinton argued that NYC’s “Right to Shelter” law needs to be changed as tens of thousands of migrants flooded the city this year after crossing the southern border with Mexico. 

      “It’s broken. We need to fix it… It doesn’t make any sense,” Clinton said of the law. 

      “They come here, and we’re supposed to shelter people who can’t get work permits for six months. We need to change that,” he added.

      “They ought to work. They need to begin working, paying taxes and paying their way. Most of these people have no interest in being on welfare,” Clinton said.

      Days ago, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, chief advisor to Mayor Eric Adams, said NYC should not be responsible for housing migrants on the right to shelter laws in the state. 

      Clinton, like many other Democrats, is reversing course on Sanctuary City laws because the writing is on the wall that voters are fed up with the migrant crisis. 

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      Responding to the post above, Elon Musk said, “They did literally ask for it.” 

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      In a separate post, Musk asked: “If New York is already buckling under the load and has run out of room, what will the situation be like a year from now?” He said, “The open border policy started under Biden two years ago. That policy was not in place under Obama, and Gov Hochul is Democrat not Republican, so this is not some D vs R political battle – it is specific to the current administration.” 

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      Musk noted over the weekend, “US Border Patrol just reported the highest number of recorded illegal immigrants in history at over 260,000 this month.” 

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      Mayor Adams warned last month that the migrant crisis will ‘destroy NYC’ and slammed the Biden administration for doing nothing about the problem they created.

      Even the liberals on The View don’t want migrants anymore

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      These migrants that Democrats welcomed into the US with open arms will be in for a cold awakening with the upcoming winter in NYC. 

      So what’s next? 

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      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 20:40

    • Victor Davis Hanson: California, The Great Destroyer
      Victor Davis Hanson: California, The Great Destroyer

      Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

      In 1996, the California legislature created the high speed rail authority.

      In 2008, voters passed a $33 billion bond to build an envisioned 800 mile project eventually to link Sacramento with San Diego.

      Fifteen years later, a scaled-down plan from Bakersfield to Merced remains not even half finished. Yet the envisioned costs will exceed that of the original estimate for the entire project.

      The rail authority now estimates that just the modest 178 mile route—only about a fifth of the authorized distance—will not be completed at least until 2030. Past high speed estimates of both time and cost targets have been widely wrong and perhaps deliberately misleading.

      Total costs for the entire project are now estimated at nearly $130 billion.

      Many expect that figure to double in the next quarter-century.

      Planners also concede there will likely not be much high speed rider demand from San Joaquin Valley residents willing to pay $86 to travel at a supposed 200 mph from Bakersfield to Merced.

      Nine years ago voters amid drought and water shortages also passed a state water bond, authorizing $7.5 billion in new water projects and initiatives.

      Some $2.7 billion was targeted for new dams and reservoirs. The current water storage system had not been enlarged since the early 1980s, when the state population was 15 million fewer residents.

      So far not a single dam or new reservoir has been built.

      And Californians expect more water rationing statewide anytime the state experiences a modest drought.

      In 2017, a $15 billion bond authorized a complete remodeling of Los Angeles International Airport—recognized as one of the more congested, disorganized, and unpleasant airports in America.

      Now the cost to complete the project has grown to an estimated $30 billion, with a proposed finish date of 2028—11 years after the project was authorized.

      And the ongoing LAX remake is considered one of California’s more successful public construction projects.

      In 2002, California began construction on the eastern span replacement of the iconic San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge—less than half of the bridge’s total length.

      It was scheduled to be finished in five years at a cost of $250 million.

      The job in fact took 11 years. And it cost $6.5 billion—a 2,500 percent increase over the estimate.

      In contrast, original construction of the entire Bay Bridge began in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression. Yet the job was completed in a little  more than three years.

      The list of such delayed, canceled, or prolonged projects could be expanded, from the proposed widening of the state’s overcrowded, antiquated, and dangerous north-to-south “freeways” to the now inert Peripheral Canal project that would have allowed the California aqueduct to transfer needed water southward by precluding the present inefficient pumping into and out of the San Francisco delta.

      So what happened to the can-do California of former governors Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, and Pete Wilson? They had bequeathed to the Baby Boomer generation a well-run state, renowned for its state-of-the-art infrastructure.

      All four governors, a Democrat and Republicans, had ensured the nation’s most sophisticated higher education system, iconic freeways, and model water transference systems.

      The current disaster has many parents.

      A coastal culture of globally rich elites began passing some of the most stringent environmental and zoning regulations in the nation. Such Byzantine roadblocks deliberately stalled construction and skyrocketed costs—all of little concern to the “not-in-my-backyard” wealthy in their secluded coastal enclaves who had ensured the virtual end of infrastructure investments.

      The state’s public unions and bloated bureaucracies guaranteed Soviet-style overhead, incompetence, and unaccountability. The more California raised its income taxes—currently the nation’s highest topping out at 13.3 percent—the more it borrowed, spent, and ran up huge annual budget deficits.

      The nation’s highest gasoline taxes along with steep sales and property taxes—coupled with unaffordable fuel and housing, a homeless epidemic, dismal public schools, out-of-control crime, and mass, illegal immigration—soon all led to a bifurcated state of rich and poor.

      The middle class either became poor or fled.

      Indeed, businesses and millions of the middle class hightailed it out of California over the last three decades in one of the greatest state population exoduses in our nation’s history. But they also took with them the very prior experience, expertise, and capital that had once made California the nation’s envy.

      In contrast, millions of impoverished illegal immigrants arrived over the last 30 years without legality, English, or high school diplomas.

      And thus millions were immediately in dire need of costly state-supplied health, education, housing, and food subsidies. Currently well over half of all California births are paid for by Medi-Cal. Well over a third of the resident population depends on the state to provide all their health care needs.

      Twenty-seven percent of California’s resident population was not born in the United States. That reality created a vast challenge of civic education to ensure assimilation and integration. Unfortunately, millions entered California at precisely the time of a new tribalism and racial essentialism that has taken hold of the state’s government, media, schools, and universities. Tribalism, not the melting-pot, is California’s paradigm.

      California is a one-party state.

      There are no statewide Republican elected officeholders. Progressive Democrats also enjoy a supermajority in both houses of the legislature. Only 12 of 52 congressional seats are held by Republicans. And almost all of California leftwing politicians are funded or influenced by Silicon Valley—the richest corridor in civilizational history, with $9 trillion in market capitalization.

      In sum, a now broke California became a medieval society of Leftwing ultra-rich and Leftwing ultra-poor.

      On one end, there was no longer the skill or expertise to modernize the state.

      And on the other, an elite became more interested in dreaming of heaven on earth for itself as it ensured a veritable hell for others.

      There is one thing, however, that California does quite well: demolition.

      Currently it is destroying four dams on the Klamath River that had provided clean hydroelectrical power, water storage, flood control, and recreation. The media, the bureaucracy, and the politicians acted with unaccustomed dispatch to obliterate the dams and thus supposedly to liberate salmon to swim better upstream.

      And the state is blowing up these dams partly by directing hundreds of millions of dollars voters had allotted for reservoir construction—adding insult to the injury of state voters.

      A haughty green California also regulated timber companies out of business. It ceased traditional selective logging and clearing of brush from its forests.

      It also limited cattle grazing of grasses and shrubs. And it embraced  new “natural” forestry initiatives that postulated that rotting dead trees, dense brush, and tall summer grasses—dry kindling for devastating forest fires—created a rich “sustainable” ecosystem for wildlife. Letting nature be would prompt occasional “natural” corrective fires as in the nineteenth-century past.

      The predictable results were massive, destructive—and once preventable—forest fires in the Sierra Nevada mountains and foothills. During California summers, their vast plumes of soot and smoke have polluted the skies for months and sickened residents, destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and wiped out billions of dollars in valuable timber even as lumber prices soared.

      And California’s lesson for the nation?

      If you want to topple a statue, re-label an historically named street, burn up millions of pine and fir trees, blow up a dam, turn parks and the public square into dangerous and toxic squatter cities, then the state can do all of that and in record time.

      But try building something to ensure Californians can travel quickly and in safety, or have affordable power, homes, and fuel, and assured water?

      All that is simply beyond the current state’s comprehension, ability, and desire. So like modern Vandals or Goths, contemporary Californians are far better destroying the work of others than creating anything of their own.

      And what is next? We await the 2024 national elections, when a few California politicians may run for our highest offices, no doubt with the campaign promise, “I can do to America what I did to California.”

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 20:20

    • Starlink Now Operational Across Entire US As Elon Musk Becomes 'Uncancellable'
      Starlink Now Operational Across Entire US As Elon Musk Becomes ‘Uncancellable’

      For those living off-the-grid or using Starlink as a network redundancy in case of a grid failure, the SpaceX-owned space internet company announced on X that the service is now available across the Lower 48 after deploying next-generation satellites. 

      “Deployment of our second generation Starlink satellites, which have 4x more capacity than the first gen, enable us to connect even more people no matter where they live,” Starlink wrote in the post. 

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      It added: “Starlink is now available across the United States.” 

      Before this announcement, large swaths of the US were pending service, with notes on the map that read coverage would expand by late 2023 or early 2024. 

      Data from the website Starlink Satellite Tracker shows that 5,039 satellites have been launched into low Earth orbit over the last several years.

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      Of that, 4,207 are active, 591 have burned up, and 241 are inactive. 

      In recent weeks, Starlink announced over 2 million active users on the network worldwide, a doubling in active users in only nine months. 

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      We noted in August that the number of Americans searching “live off-grid” on the internet rose to the highest level in five years. We said at the time, “The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while Democrat cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime.” 

      Here’s what X users are saying:

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      How are you going to get high-speed internet in the sticks? Well, not through Jeff Bezos’ Kuiper, but instead Musk’s Starlink. 

      Democrats have tried to cancel Musk over the Starlink controversy in Ukraine. The fact is, as of right now, that’s impossible as the Pentagon needs the billionaire’s rockets and space internet as world war threats continue to emerge (read: here). 

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 20:00

    • Gaetz Moves To Formally Remove McCarthy As Speaker
      Gaetz Moves To Formally Remove McCarthy As Speaker

      Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Monday moved to force a vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) after McCarthy enlisted Democrats to pass a Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded through mid-November, and cut a secret side-deal for Ukraine funding.

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      A vote on the motion will now be brought up within two legislative days, however the chamber can first use legislative maneuvering to kill or delay it, such as voting to table the resolution.

      Gaetz says he’ll try to oust McCarthy repeatedly, saying “Real chaos is when the American people have to go through the austerity that is coming.“

      https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOn Sunday, Gaetz appeared on ABC‘s “This Week” to say that McCarthy will get his wish, and that he was going to file the motion this week.

      In a Monday op-ed, Gaetz wrote:

      We have to stop the fiscal insanity in Washington and get our spending under control. I’m not voting for a continuing resolution that funds Jack Smith’s election interference, dangerous chaos on the southern border, and money for the endless war in Ukraine.

      Just think about what it means for Congress to govern by Continuing Resolution. Every time we vote for a continuing resolution, we make no changes in policy or spending. It’s a vote to continue the status quo. If that’s all Congress is going to do, just replace us with AI bots, because we aren’t doing anything. The hearings are fun, but it’s the budgets where real policy changes are made.

      Of course, there’s no Republican in the House who both wants the job and could get the votes, after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said he’s out.

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      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 19:30

    • NY Gov. Hochul Suddenly Shifts Gears On Illegal Immigration As Her State Is Overrun
      NY Gov. Hochul Suddenly Shifts Gears On Illegal Immigration As Her State Is Overrun

      Only a year ago NY Governor Kathy Hochul adamantly supported illegal immigration, and some argue she encouraged it by stating publicly that New York was “desperate for workers” and that the migrant were “good for the economy.”  However, as NYC and the state in general is being overrun with hundred of thousands of illegals, suddenly the governor has changed her tune – Now she believes at least “some restrictions” should be put in place to limit the number of people who enter the country. 

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      The abrupt change of heart follows a swiftly derailing situation in the sanctuary state, as local governments struggle to house and feed the surging invasion of asylum seekers demanding access to welfare services.  Reports from a year ago should have made the outcome obvious, with Illegals canvassing door-to-door in NYC asking for handouts and homeless shelters packed to capacity.  At the time, Hochul was more concerned with wristbands put on migrants bussed from Texas that had barcodes designed to show that they arrived safely to New York, calling the practice inhumane. 

      Today, Democrats from Washington DC to New York to Chicago are finally getting a taste of their own Robitussin and they really don’t like it.  The concept of open borders and sanctuary cities was perfectly acceptable to them, as long as they never had to deal with the direct consequences.  How quickly people adjust their thinking when the crisis they caused is on their doorstep.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 19:20

    • Sidney Powell Paid For Georgia Election Machine Examination Upon 'Threat', Her Lawyer Says
      Sidney Powell Paid For Georgia Election Machine Examination Upon ‘Threat’, Her Lawyer Says

      Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

      Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor charged with breaching election machines in Georgia, had nothing to do with the breach, save for paying for it after the fact, and only because the forensic firm that did it threatened to dump the data online, her lawyer said in a recent court filing.

      Sidney Powell, author of the bestseller “Licensed to Lie” and lead counsel in more than 500 appeals in the Fifth Circuit, in Washington on May 30, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

      Ms. Powell was charged as part of the election interference case against former President Donald Trump that was brought on Aug. 14 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. It alleges that the efforts of President Trump and 18 others, including Ms. Powell, to challenge the 2020 election results amounted to a racketeering conspiracy.

      Ms. Willis has accused Ms. Powell of participating in the alleged conspiracy and conspiracies to commit computer trespass, computer theft, computer invasion of privacy, election fraud, and defrauding the state.

      The charges are tied to a Jan. 7, 2021, incident in which personnel of data forensic company SullivanStrickler copied data from election machines and computers in Coffee County, Georgia.

      The lawyer for Ms. Powell, Brian Rafferty, has vehemently denied the allegations and is seeking dismissal of the charges.

      Mr. Rafferty has argued that examination of the machines wasn’t a crime because it was authorized by the Coffee County Election Board. Even if the board didn’t ultimately have the authority to allow the examination, the people involved operated under the belief that their action was authorized. For their actions to be criminal, they would have to have been undertaken with a knowing lack of authority.

      Further still, however, Ms. Powell didn’t organize or participate in the incident, Mr. Rafferty asserted.

      “There are no communications of any kind between Ms. Powell and any of the alleged coconspirators or unindicted coconspirators that evince any agreement by Ms. Powell to have SullivanStrickler personnel to travel to Coffee County or to contract for their services for Coffee County—much less to do so for any illegal purpose,” he said in a Sept. 28 filing.

      Ms. Powell challenged the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, but she never represented President Trump, he said.

      “It cannot be disputed that Ms. Powell went her own way following the election, and she never reached an agreement on a course of action with any indicted or unindicted coconspirator,” he said.

      She did share evidence used in her lawsuits, all of which failed, with President Trump and his aides, and she advised him on his authorities in case of foreign interference in the election, Mr. Rafferty acknowledged.

      “All those substantive communications, limited as they were, effectively ended by December 19, 2020,” he said.

      He also acknowledged that “Defending the Republic Inc., a non-profit Ms. Powell founded, paid a bill from SullivanStrickler,” but he added that it did so only upon the company’s “threat to post information publicly online after its technicians apparently collected data from Coffee County machines.”

      SullivanStrickler didn’t respond to a request for comment.

      “Ms. Powell did not request that trip; she did not even know of that trip—much less authorize it,” Mr. Rafferty said.

      “Accordingly, she did not agree with anyone to undertake the collection of Coffee County data—even though it was done with permission of Coffee County officials—and the State has no evidence she conspired with anyone to violate any law.”

      Ms. Powell and another defendant, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, asked for a speedy trial, which is scheduled to commence on Oct. 23. Other defendants will be tried separately, though it’s not clear when. Several defendants are also trying to have the case removed to a federal court. In some of the latest developments, lawyers for President Trump informed the court that they will not joint the removal effort.

      President Trump is facing another indictment for his election challenges in a federal court in the District of Columbia. He’s also fighting charges of illegal retention of defense information in Florida and more charges in New York for allegedly fraudulent bookkeeping entries. In a separate civil suit targeting his businesses, a New York judge recently ordered his businesses in the state dissolved.

      President Trump has denounced the legal cases against himself as politically motivated efforts to interfere with his 2024 presidential run.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 19:00

    • Fifth Circuit Court Rules Against Biden's ATF In Ghost Gun Case 
      Fifth Circuit Court Rules Against Biden’s ATF In Ghost Gun Case 

      The Fifth Circuit has partially granted, but essentially denied, the government’s motion to cancel a district court’s injunctions in the Firearms Policy Coalition’s lawsuit (VanDerStok v. Garland) challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “frame or receiver” rule. The injunctions will now only apply to two plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

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      The case involves so-called “ghost guns,” weapons that are sold in ready-to-assemble kits. President Biden has pushed hard to require background checks and serial numbers for buying sets of gun parts under the pretext that these are ‘readily convertible’ and, therefore, firearms. The ruling today means the plaintiffs, Defense Distributed and Blackhawk Manufacturing Group (incorporated, doing business as 80 Percent Arms), can sell every kind of ghost gun kit to their customers while the courts review ATF’s 98-page rule. 

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      Since the plaintiffs, Distributed and Blackhawk Manufacturing, were the only ones permitted to sell ghost gun kits, this essentially grants them a monopoly on selling the kits nationwide. The government, by implementing this rule, has essentially crushed the industry. But they’ve now inadvertently established a monopoly in the process.

      Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson explains more on this:

      “These are the kinds of accidents integral to Executive and agency overreach in the federal courts. Should have stayed out of the People’s business. Someone will have to break the bad news to Kamala and her lackeys in the new WH Office of Gun Violence Prevention.” 

      Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t even two weeks into her new role as ‘Gun Czar‘ and has already been delivered a blow as Biden’s war on guns has been squarely pointed at ‘ghost guns.’ 

      Remember this: 

      It’s likely that anti-gunner organizations like Giffords and Everytown and their billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg will be displeased with Defense Distributed being allowed to sell ghost gun kits again.

      Here is constitutional attorney Mark W. Smith breaking down what happened today: 

      Since this is a ruling in favor of the Second Amendment, we doubt Reuters, Bloomberg, and or any other left-leaning corporate media outlets will be reporting on this. 

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 18:40

    • Sisi Tells Egyptians 'Hunger A Price Worth Paying For Progress' In Bizarre Speech
      Sisi Tells Egyptians ‘Hunger A Price Worth Paying For Progress’ In Bizarre Speech

      Via Middle East Eye

      In a widely condemned televised speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has said his people should accept the prospect of going hungry as the price of the country’s success.

      In the remarks on Saturday, Sisi also called his opponents “liars, saboteurs and wicked”, as critics questioned the billions spent on infrastructure projects that he has undertaken as many Egyptians struggle to make ends meet. 

      AFP: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at a meeting with the French foreign minister in Cairo on 14 September 2023

      “Don’t you Egyptians dare say you would rather eat than build and progress,” Sisi said. “If the price of the nation’s progress and prosperity is to go hungry and thirsty, then let us not eat or drink,” he added.

      “Don’t undermine the cause of our nation and make us the world’s laughing stock. Stand fast and transform the cruel circumstances we are going through into a gift. The harder you stand fast, the sooner it [the economic crises] will pass.”

      In a meandering and times informal dialogue, the Egyptian president suggested ways in which he could “destroy” Egypt, if he were so inclined, by distributing pills to foster chaos in the country. 

      Sisi said that he spoke with the Supreme Judicial Council regarding how easy the country would be to destroy and had concluded that giving 100,000 people in “difficult circumstances” tramadol, a strong opioid, would do the trick at a cost of no more than $30m. It is unclear why he publicized such remarks but his comments were widely condemned online.

      Ahmed Tantawi, who is positioning himself as Sisi’s main opponent in the country’s upcoming election, condemned the president’s speech in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Directly addressing Sisi, he wrote: “Egyptians actually starved during your rule because of your administration. They did not see any of the development that was promised.”

      Tantawi further accused Sisi of spreading lies and accumulating “high-rise buildings, cities and palaces built in deserts, even if it is at the expense of [the ordinary] man and his right to a decent life and education”. “[The government] has stripped citizens of social protection, leaving two-thirds of Egyptians living below and around the poverty line, while the conditions of most of the remaining third has deteriorated dangerously,” he said.

      Other users on the platform said that Sisi represented the “cartoon of a madman” while another social media user said that the president’s comments could technically land him in jail. As Sisi faces a deepening economic crisis, his reaction to criticism has become increasingly erratic. 

      Egypt will hold a presidential election between 10 and 12 December, brought forward from the original date in 2024, with Sisi widely expected to win a third term.

      Looming economic crises

      Analysts have predicted that Egypt is the country second most at risk of a debt crisis, coming just after war-torn Ukraine. 

      Nevertheless, Sisi, who was undaunted about the mounting economic problems, asked the country: “What kind of country do you want to live in? Do you want to build Egypt and make it a nation of note, or not? Do you consider building an adventure? Do you consider reform an adventure?”

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      Egypt has been gripped by an economic crisis for years, a situation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has severely affected food prices in the country.

      Official figures showed annual inflation in Egypt reached a new record 39.7 percent in August, while the Egyptian pound has been on a dramatic slide against the dollar. A dollar buys 30 Egyptian pounds today compared to just under 20 exactly a year ago.

      Egypt has been dependent on bailouts from its wealthier allies in the Gulf and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in recent years, as investors pull billions out of the country.

      While the financial crisis has a range of causes, many opposition figures have pointed fingers at the increasing grip the military has held over the economy following the 2013 coup that ousted the elected government of Mohamed Morsi.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 18:20

    • Newsom Fills Feinstein's Empty Senate Seat With Wealthy Black Lesbian From Maryland
      Newsom Fills Feinstein’s Empty Senate Seat With Wealthy Black Lesbian From Maryland

      In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) vowed to replace any Senate vacancies with a black woman.

      On Sunday, he did just that following the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), appointing the first black lesbian to ever openly serve in Congress.

      Laphonza Butler, president of of pro-abortion organization EMILY’s List who served as a senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ very failed 2020 presidential campaign, and currently a resident of Maryland, was announced as Feinstein’s replacement in a Sunday night announcement by Newsom.

      Butler will finish Feinstein’s term, which runs until 2024, after which she may face off with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who had been hoping Feinstein would live till the election so he could slide into the Senate.

      “As we mourn the enormous loss of Senator Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for — reproductive freedom, equal protection, and safety from gun violence — have never been under greater assault,” said Newsom, adding “Laphonza will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.”

      Butler was born in Magnolia, Mississippi, where she began her career as a union organizer. In 2009, she moved to California, where she served as president of SEIU United Long Term Care Workers, where she was instrumental in raising minimum wage, and hiking taxes on wealthy Californians. She also served as a University of California regent for three years, until she moved to Maryland in 2001.

      After advising Kamala Harris on her 2020 campaign, Butler left SCRB strategies to become Airbnb’s director of public policy and campaigns in North America. Wile working for Harris, she was hired by Uber during an organized labor dispute – when Harris’s brother-in-law, Tony West, was Uber’s chief legal officer.

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      Many have made light of the fact that Butler doesn’t actually live in California.

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      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 18:15

    • 2-Out-Of-3 Gen Z-ers Still Get Financial Help From Their Parents
      2-Out-Of-3 Gen Z-ers Still Get Financial Help From Their Parents

      A recent poll surveying 1,000 U.S. residents reveals that a sizable number haven’t ventured as far from home as they once imagined they would. Close to one-third remain in the town where they grew up, and astonishingly, 40% of that group still share a roof with their parents.

      And the reason many haven’t left home seems to be clear: nearly 2 in 3 Gen Zers receive financial help from their parents. 29% of Americans still live in their home town, according to a newly released study and data aggregated by AllStar Home. 

      The median distance that U.S. residents reside from their birthplace is a mere 30 miles. Those who haven’t crossed state lines are, on average, just a 47-minute drive away from their original stomping grounds, the study found. 

      The report noted that of the 29% who haven’t left their hometown, 41% intend to stay put indefinitely, while a majority of 52% have plans to relocate within the next half-decade. Interestingly, more women (47%) than men (38%) expressed surprise at still living in their hometown at this point in their lives. The primary factors keeping people close to home include emotional attachment and a sense of comfort, followed by financial constraints, employment opportunities, and a general apprehension about venturing into the unknown.

      The term ‘townie,’ representing individuals who spend their entire lives in their birthplace, is embraced by nearly one in four respondents—24% to be exact. Among these self-identified townies, the majority are unapologetic about their lifestyle choice; a notable 51% claimed to wear the ‘townie’ label with pride.

      The study also found that among those who have stayed in their hometown, 38% have remained in the home where they grew up, and an additional 40% are still living with their parents. The trend is especially pronounced among Gen Z, where an eye-opening 86% who remain in their hometown also live with their parents. This compares with 28% of Millennials. Although 85% of people view it as socially acceptable in 2023 to reside with parents post-education for financial reasons, a third (30%) admit to feeling some level of embarrassment about it.

      In an intriguing twist dubbed the “reverse-boomerang effect,” it’s not just the young staying put; some parents are gravitating toward the places their adult children have moved to. Among those who have left their home state, 20% report that their parents followed suit. For Gen Zers who relocated out of state, this figure jumps to 40%.

       

      The predominant motive for parents’ migration is the desire to be nearer to their offspring. Others cited a fondness for the new state or said that necessity and caregiving responsibilities drove the move. As for financial support, while 19% of respondents have financially assisted their parents this year, parents are more likely to return the favor; nearly one-third (31%) state that they have received financial help from their parents in 2023.

      Half of the respondents identified as male, while 48% were female and a minority of 2% identified as nonbinary. The age spectrum of those surveyed spanned from 18 to 77 years, with the mean age landing at 43. In terms of generational representation, the pool was evenly divided: a quarter each from Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. When it comes to living arrangements, 64% reside in standalone houses, 24% in apartments, 5% in townhomes, 4% in mobile homes, and a mere 3% occupy condominiums. 

       

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 18:00

    • Unlocking The Psychology Of Bitcoin's Bear Market
      Unlocking The Psychology Of Bitcoin’s Bear Market

      Authored by Kane McGukin via BombThrower.com,

      Bear markets in Bitcoin are brutal… and long. They’ve historically seen prices fall 70-80%+ and last about 1,000 days.

      However, each time (3) the market tends to forget just how bad a Bitcoin bear market is. That’s where we are now.

      You’re hearing calls that this is the worst bear market ever and it’s so much longer than before. It’s not. It’s inline and has similar characteristics to all of the past Bitcoin bears. From a valuation standpoint, Bitcoin was this cheap on a relative basis back in 2011, ‘12, ‘15, ‘16, 2020, and now.

      Bitcoin is in that part of the bear, the last third, where you see everyone’s hands go up. Everyone throwing in the towel, even the most gung ho Bitcoin influencers begin losing their steam and questioning their maximalist stance. It’s not openly said, but you can tell by the posts or lack thereof. However, Bitcoin bears are when Bitcoin is built. So, there is a necessary beauty to this evil pain.

      In general, I get the psychological nature of it. We all do. Because losing’s no fun. Just ask Deion Sanders. He’s a winner first and only likes to win. He’s open about it. Flamboyant about it.

      Here are a couple of noteworthy quotes of his that help us relate.

      Time is a Wonderful Storyteller

      This really fits!! Bitcoin halvings, the epochs, each have its own story and they require time to be told properly. Relatively speaking, a lot of time… Four years worth of time.

      Each is slightly different, but yet is still the same as any other monetary story throughout history.

      All money stories are filled with one key ingredient – man’s battle with the highs and lows tied to greed. Bitcoin’s story just so happens to be telling us how we’re transitioning money from the physical world to a digital one.

      In the worst case, I believe it’s telling us how we’re building a parallel financial network that mimics the one we already know (image below). And at best, it’s telling us how we’ll fix broken money altogether.

      What’s a Bitcoin Halving? How Long Do They Last?

      In each Bitcoin block, the first transaction is a coinbase transaction that holds the block reward and fees for mining the block.

      The block reward, the amount of bitcoin in each block, halves roughly every 210,000 blocks or every 4 years.

      From this, we can make some assumptions related to how bear and bull markets work. Especially with 14 years and 3 halvings under our belt. P.S. the next, the fourth, is estimated to happen in April of 2024.

      Based on the data above and with a representative history of past Bitcoin bear and bull markets, we can make a fair number of assumptions and estimates about the life of a Bitcoin bear market.

      Additionally, we can add traditional charting techniques to further verify, support, or deny these assumptions. It’s just another tool in the belt.

      Putting it All Together

      • A full halving: 4 years or 210,000 blocks

      • bitcoin bulls (to high date): historically last 1/3 of a halving or an average of 73,832 blocks.

      • bitcoin bears (to next breakout, not low): historically lasts 2/3’s of the time or an average of 136,168 blocks.

      • On average, the bears have lasted roughly 979 days. That’s from the high day to the next breakout day. This is where the charts come into play.

      • If past patterns hold true, then we can expect this bear to last another roughly 300 days (almost a year) taking us to July 2024 or so (discussed a little more in the podcast above).

      • If this bear is like 2013 it last until around May 2024, just after the halving. If it’s like 2017, it could be September 2024.

      Either way, we don’t have to be 100% right. We just need to listen to what the markets are telling us, what the fundamentals are saying, and have a general understanding of how history has played out. That’s the goal.

      Will market action repeat, who knows? Will Bitcoin moon to an all-time new high? I don’t know that either. But, I do have enough information to see that Bitcoin is here to stay. The monetary rails we are comfortable using are being rebuilt to include this asset in one way or another.

      The fundamental signs are there and growing. Like the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s recent announcement in favor of accounting rules that pave the way for companies to hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet.

      Moves like this, along with a number of other fundamental cookie crumbs, don’t happen unless the table is being set for big boys, big banks, big funds, and big corporations to come to market.

      Let’s see how the next bull plays out… When it finally gets here 😉

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 17:40

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    Oct 02

    Today’s News 2nd October 2023

    • Excess Deaths From Cardiovascular Diseases Up 44% Last Year Among UK Citizens Aged 15-44: Report
      Excess Deaths From Cardiovascular Diseases Up 44% Last Year Among UK Citizens Aged 15-44: Report

      A new and disturbing analysis reveals that excess deaths from cardiovascular diseases have jumped in the UK over the past several years.

      Using official government data for deaths in England and Wales between 2010 and 2022, former BlackRock portfolio manager Ed Dowd and his partners at Phinance Technologies found that excess death rates from cardiovascular diseases were up 13% in 2020, 30% in 2021, and 44% in 2022, which “point to a worrying picture of an even greater acceleration in coming years of deaths & disabilities.”

      What’s more, they found that “deaths per year from cardiovascular diseases had been trending lower from 2010 to
      2019, with a significant downward slope,” until 2020, when the trend reversed. They also found that in 2022, men began outpacing women in cardiovascular diseases.

      The analysis also found that disabilities are skyrocketing.

      Dowd and co. conclude that: “When looking at excess deaths for cardiovascular diseases, the Z-score in 2020 was around 3, indicating that prior to the start of the vaccinations there was already a signal pointing to an increase in cardiovascular deaths. That trend however accelerated substantially in 2021 and 2022 where we observe Z-scores of around 7.5 and 10.5, respectively. These are extreme events that we believe need a thorough investigation.”

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 02:45

    • German Mayor Call Concerns Over Child Safety "Unfounded" Amid Plans To Accomodate 80 Asylum-Seekers At A Primary School
      German Mayor Call Concerns Over Child Safety “Unfounded” Amid Plans To Accomodate 80 Asylum-Seekers At A Primary School

      Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

      Outraged parents have condemned the local mayor’s decision to accommodate up to 80 asylum seekers in containers on the grounds of a primary school in the German town of Monheim am Rhein.

      Dozens of local residents attended a recent question time of the local council to voice their displeasure over the controversial move proposed by Mayor Daniel Zimmerman’s administration and expressed their concerns for child safety, calling the plans both inappropriate and unacceptable.

      Starting next spring, a cohort of migrants will reside in containers located on the school grounds, which are no longer used for educational purposes.

      In response to the protestations of locals, the council cited economic factors as a primary reason for the move, insisting that the estimated €150,000 it would cost to convert the containers into housing was substantially lower than the cost of renting private accommodations, where around 80 percent of the migrants recently received by the municipality currently reside.

      “We simply can’t keep up with renting anymore,” a city press spokesperson told parents at the meeting.

      Concerned parents told the council meeting that the housing of traumatized refugees in the vicinity of young children was wholly irresponsible, and expressed worries of potential conflict between the new arrivals and their children including the danger of rape or abuse.

      However, Zimmerman called these fears “unfounded” and insisted that the migrants are “people like you and me” and are not dangerous.

      “The safety of our children is the primary goal – I personally guarantee that,” the local mayor assured parents.

      He explained that with the municipality receiving significantly more refugees from Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan, private accommodation in Monheim has become saturated and the town is reaching its acceptance limits.

      The council therefore needs to resort to alternative measures to accommodate further arrivals.

      The mayor added that while he was open to discussing the matter further with concerned parents in the next few weeks, for instance at parent meetings, such correspondence will not change the city’s decision to repurpose the containers on the school grounds and considered the matter to be closed.

      Tyler Durden
      Mon, 10/02/2023 – 02:00

    • The Mad Propaganda Push To Normalize War-Profiteering In Ukraine
      The Mad Propaganda Push To Normalize War-Profiteering In Ukraine

      Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

      There’s been an astonishingly brazen propaganda push to normalize war profiteering in Ukraine as Kyiv coordinates with the arms industry and western governments to convert the war-ravaged nation into a major domestic weapons manufacturer, thereby turning Ukrainians into proxies of the military industrial complex as well as the Pentagon.

      At an event in Kyiv which hosted 250 “defense” industry corporations from 30 different countries on Friday, President Zelensky gave a speech urging war profiteers to open factories in Ukraine to cut out the middleman of securing and delivering so many weapons from abroad. This is an investment that the arms industry would ostensibly have plenty of time to set up, given that western officials are now going out of their way to communicate to the public that this war will stretch on for many more years to come.

      Zelensky’s speech twice made use of the phrase “defense-industrial complex”, and used the phrase “arsenal of the free world” no fewer than three times.

      “Ukraine is developing a special economic regime for the defense-industrial complex,” Zelensky said. “To give all the opportunities to realize their potential to every company that works for the sake of defense — in Ukraine and with Ukraine or that wants to come to Ukraine.”

      “Right now, the most powerful military-industrial complexes are being determined, as are their priorities and the global standard of defense. All of this is being determined in Ukraine,” Zelensky tweeted with photos from the event.

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

      This move has been accompanied in recent weeks by some of the most appalling mass media headlines that I have ever seen, all geared toward normalizing the military industrial complex in the eyes of the public.

      In an amazingly awful Wall Street Journal op-ed titled titled “In Defense of the Defense Industry” and subtitled “Populists of the right and left attack U.S. companies that make weapons. Who do they think protects us?”, Future of Capitalism’s Ira Stoll argues that the military industrial complex is actually a wonderful thing we should all love and support.

      “The weapons industry protects America and its allies, keeping us safe from ruthless enemies who would otherwise exterminate or enslave us,” Stoll writes. “Raytheon helps make weapons systems that defend Israeli civilians against attacks from Iran-backed terrorist groups. These include the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, SkyHunter interceptor systems and Tamir missiles. Raytheon also produces the Javelin antitank missile that Ukraine has used against Russian armor and the early-warning radars that would detect incoming missiles aimed at the U.S.”

      Stoll does not name the alternate universe he is describing in which the US military is used to keep Americans safe rather than to advance imperial interests abroad.

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

      Another recent Wall Street Journal article titled “The War in Ukraine Is Also a Giant Arms Fair” and subtitled “Arms makers are getting orders for weapons being put to the test on the battlefield” glorifies the way war machinery is being field tested on human bodies to the benefit of war profiteers.

      “The Panzerhaubitze howitzer is part of an arsenal of weapons being put to the test in Ukraine in what has become the world’s largest arms fair,” writes WSJ’s Alistair MacDonald. “Companies that make the weapons being used in Ukraine have won orders and resurrected production lines. The deployment of billions of dollars worth of equipment in a major land war has also given manufacturers and militaries a unique opportunity to analyze the battlefield performance of weapons, and learn how best to use them.”

      A Reuters article from two weeks ago titled “At London arms fair, global war fears are good for business” gushes over how much money is being raked in by arms manufacturers as a result of this war, with one unnamed arms industry executive telling Reuters, “War is good for business.”

      Just the other day CNN anchor Erin Burnett followed up some clips of “far right lawmakers” voicing their opposition to funding for the Ukraine proxy war by pausing to explain to her audience that this funding is actually good for Americans, because it goes straight into the US arms industry.

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

      “It’s worthwhile with all of this gaining some steam in public perception to be clear on some facts,” Burnett said. “First and foremost, the vast majority of this money is going to American companies and jobs, right, because those are the people that are making the Abrams tanks, the ammo and everything else. And you take Lockheed Martin, which makes the HIMARS, that have been core to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the company announced it’s going to increase its workforce in Camden, Arkansas, by 20 percent, just because of this new demand.”

      “That money is going to America,” Burnett added.

      All this propaganda energy is going into normalizing the act of war profiteering because if you let the idea stand on its own, it would make people scream in horror. The fact that a deliberately-provoked war is being used as a giant field demo to show prospective buyers and investors how effective various weapons systems can be at ripping apart human bodies in order to profit from all this death and destruction is more nightmarish than anything any dystopian novelist has ever come up with.

      Ukraine is a giant advertisement for weapons of mass slaughter, and the cost of that corporate ad is not money but human blood. If you look right at this thing it absolutely chills you to the bone. Which is why so much effort is being poured into making sure people don’t look at it.

      *  *  *

      My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

      Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 23:30

    • Charting The Depths: The World Of Subsea Cables
      Charting The Depths: The World Of Subsea Cables

      Data may be stored in the “cloud,” but when it comes to sending and receiving data, a lot of that action is actually happening along the depths of the ocean floor.

      Hidden beneath the waves, these subsea cables account for approximately 95% of international data transmission.

      As Visual Capitalists’ Bruno Venditti details below, these maps, by Adam Symington, use information from TeleGeography to show the distribution of subsea cables around the planet.

      Wired for Connectivity

      It’s estimated that there are nearly 1.4 million kilometers (0.9 million miles) of submarine cables in service globally. They ensure emails, content, and calls find their way, linking colossal data centers and facilitating worldwide communication.

      Currently, there are 552 active and planned submarine cables:

      Submarine cables harness fiber-optic technology, transmitting information via rapid light pulses through glass fibers. These fibers, thinner than human hair, are protected by plastic or even steel wire layers.

      Cables usually have the diameter of a garden hose, but often with added armor near the shore. Coastal cables are buried under the seabed, hidden from view on the beach, while deep-sea ones rest on the ocean floor.

      Length varies widely, from the 131-kilometer CeltixConnect cable, connecting Dublin, Ireland, and Holyhead, UK, to the sprawling 20,000-kilometer Asia America Gateway cable, connecting San Luis Obispo, California, to Hawaii and Southeast Asia:

      Asia America Gateway. Image: TeleGeography

      With the current technology, cables are designed to last 25 years at least but are often replaced because of damage. Nearly two-thirds of cable damage is caused by fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors.

      The Bottom Line

      Traditionally dominated by telecom carriers, the makeup of the subsea cable market has shifted over more recent decades. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon now heavily invest in new cables.

      With data demand surging, at least $10 billion is expected to be invested in subsea cables worldwide between 2022 and 2024, driven by cloud service providers and content streaming platforms.

      Even with the growth of satellites in telecom, cables still can carry far more data at a much lower cost than satellites. In fact, according to TeleGeography, satellites account for less than 1% of all U.S. international capacity.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 23:00

    • Why Did People Comply?
      Why Did People Comply?

      Authored by Maximilien Lacour via The Brownstone Institute,

      On Monday 16th of March 2020, when Boris Johnson first proclaimed, “You must stay home,” I very meekly said “OK!” And the chances are that you did too. 

      Polling from the time shows that self-reported compliance with the stay-at-home orders was high – a finding broadly corroborated by mobility data, which has the marked advantage of not depending on respondents’ honesty about following the law (Ganslmeier et al. 2022; Jackson and Bradford 2021). 

      In itself, however, this data alone does not tell us why an unprecedented suspension of our civil liberties enjoyed such high levels of compliance.

      There are, however, surveys that do provide some insight (see, for example, Jackson and Bradford 2021; Foad et al. 2021; and Halliday et al. 2022) and amongst their more surprising findings is that instrumental considerations – that is, personal fear of the virus or of coercion by the State – may have been relatively unimportant in driving compliance with the lockdown rules. Instead, they found that, in general, people followed the rules because (1) they were the law and (2) because they provided us with a shared understanding of what was good and right to do, which many of us seem to have internalised (Jackson and Bradford 2021).

      The first of these is not particularly surprising. The law enjoys a ‘reservoir of loyalty’ amongst Brits who are therefore already predisposed to respect its edicts just because they have been made law (Halliday et al. 2022, p.400). 

      This, however, does not explain the second driver of compliance. That is, it does not explain why we bought into lockdown laws and willingly accepted them as the basis of our public morality – to the point that we even often justified our non-compliant behaviours as nonetheless remaining within the ‘spirit of the law’ (Meers et al. 2021). It does not explain why we looked upon the sanitised, terrorised redrawing of society and saw that it was good. It is worth briefly revisiting, with the benefit of cooled heads and hindsight, what exactly this looked like. 

      Over the course of a week or so, our lives and concerns were dyed a COVID monochrome and narrowed down around a single, shared priority – slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, or, in the stock phrases of the time, “flattening the curve” and “bringing R below 1.” And, to achieve this, we were asked to abandon almost every single activity that make up our shared lives and distinguish us from battery-farmed animals, including but not limited to, seeing friends, going to school, shopping, going to the theatre, playing team sports, meeting for romance or sex, and just hanging about (Wagner 2022, p.61). 

      In a way, it also radically simplified our lives. 

      Under the radical, bewildering uncertainty of early 2020, the lockdown rules saved us from having to negotiate the perils and ambiguities of being mortal amongst mortals in time of plague, by telling us what we needed to do in most cases. Want to see Grandma? Simple! You can’t. Want to go shopping? Essentials only and follow taped lines across the floor! Want to continue an affair with the milkman or just see your girlfriend? Well, again, you can’t – and pray that you don’t live in Leicester. 

      Borrowing a term from moral philosophy, the lockdowns introduced a decidability (or, at least, the illusion of it) into our lives that would otherwise have been absent (Taylor 1997). Under its sway, we no longer had to engage with our lives as moral agents tasked with making imperfect judgements about what is right or wrong, as we could assume that those judgments had already been made by a higher authority and were reflected in its rules. Life under lockdown settled all philosophical difficulties and faced with a course of action, one wasn’t to ask, “Is this the right?” but “Does this Flatten The Curve?” 

      This decidability may go some way to explaining why we internalised the lockdown worldview so easily. In his 2005 essay, “Afraid to be Free: Dependency as Desideratum,” James Buchanan identified a widely shared set of expectations that he termed ‘Parental Socialism’ and described as: 

      … paternalism flipped over, so to speak. With paternalism we refer to the attitudes of elitists who seek to impose their own preferred values on others. With parentalism, in contrast, we refer to the attitudes of persons who seek to have values imposed upon them by other persons, by the state or by transcendental forces. (Buchanan 2005)

      Buchanan very loosely defines socialism as the range of political projects that seek to impose some kind of collectivized control over the individual’s liberty of actions and provides a list of its possible sources, which includes parental socialism. Unlike the other sources identified by Buchanan, however (which have to do with the structure and powers of the State), parental socialism concerns the expectations that citizens have of said State. Freedom and agency, observes Buchanan, come with responsibility.

      A free agent is forced to struggle with the complexities and ambiguities of his life and to come to a judgement about what matters – and bears responsibility for both struggle and judgement. This, observes Buchanan, is a heavy burden that many people are simply too afraid to shoulder. Instead, they (i.e. parental socialists or, more simply, us!) demand that the State be an engine of order and certainty in their worlds, much like a parent is in their child’s, and that it make and impose these judgments upon them. Parental socialists want to be told what matters by the State, told what is safe and right and what is risky and wrong, not given the freedom to deliberate themselves. 

      This amounts to demanding the sort of decidability provided by stay-at-home orders and, of course, means compromising on some of one’s freedoms. If Buchanan’s diagnosis is correct, we may have accepted the lockdowns because they fit with a long-standing pattern of expectation that we have of the State. Though the pandemic-management policies themselves were unprecedented and shocking, the role they gave to the State in our lives was not entirely, and thus may help explain why we accepted them so readily. 

      Now, this sits at odds with much of what is written by critics of lockdowns. For many of these (otherwise often insightful) writers, the lockdowns were an essentially top-down phenomenon, primarily driven and maintained by the machinations of politicians, scientific advisors, or some more obscure elite group. Explanations of this sort range from the conventional, like Laurent Mucchielli’s analysis of the French government’s centralising predisposition and the perverse incentives shaping WHO recommendations to the more unorthodox, like Michael P. Senger’s argument that Xi Jinping deliberately shut down the world on the pretext of a benign virus (Mucchielli 2022; Senger 2021). 

      However, if what I wrote above is correct, then, while these theories are not necessarily incorrect per se (well, Mucchielli’s isn’t), they are necessarily limited by their failure to consider the role of bottom-up forces like parental socialism in driving compliance with the lockdowns. They do not do justice to the way that lockdowns were both continuous with and made possible by a set of long-standing, popular expectations that we have of the State.

      This omission risks having deleterious consequences for the project of lockdown critique, assuming that its goals include preventing any future lockdowns. If lockdowns were made possible by popular parentalistic expectations, then legal reform, though obviously welcome, may prove insufficient and powerless against the very real threat of ‘voluntary’ lockdowns, whereby a population complies with a stay-at-home request without needing it to be made a legal requirement. 

      Consider the comments made by David Halpern, a prominent behavioural scientist and Chief Executive of the UK government’s notorious ‘Nudge’ unit, and reported in the Telegraph:

      Britain has been drilled to comply with lockdown under a future pandemic, the chief executive of the ‘nudge unit’ has said.

      Professor David Halpern told the Telegraph that the country had “practised the drill” of wearing face masks and working from home and “could redo it” in a future crisis.

      Speaking on the Lockdown Files podcast, the government adviser Prof Halpern predicted that the country would comply with another ‘stay at home’ order because they “kind of know what the drill is.”

      In an interview given before Mr Hancock’s testimony, the leading behavioural scientist even suggested that the nation’s prior experience made it “much easier to now imagine” the population would accept future local restrictions.

      Having been trained up by a first round of stay-at-home orders, our previously abstract paternalistic expectations of the State have been given a new form: in times of plague, lock down! Though Halpern does not say this explicitly (he still refers to a stay-at-home ‘order’), his remarks nonetheless suggest that future lockdowns may not even need to be legally mandated – we will just know what to do when recommended to by the State or Public Health. 

      The threat of voluntary lockdowns should lead lockdown sceptics to cast their net beyond the institutions of the State and bring them to confront the harder-to-limn, bottom-up drivers of lockdown like parental socialism. They need to find ways of addressing our collective self-infantilisation and to reemphasize the value and importance of free agency. 

      This does not mean rejecting any role for the State in our lives or condemning any socialist scheme (Buchanan himself is quite clear that his critical project remains compatible with aspects of social democracy such as redistribution through taxation). But it does mean trying to foster and perpetuate a popular scepticism of the State in its didactic and moralising functions. Critics of lockdown need to go beyond criticising the public institutions and individuals who designed COVID-19 policy, and to start attacking the popular mindset that made them thinkable and practicable in the first place. 

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 22:30

    • Putin Is Now Evading Western Sanctions On Almost All Oil Exports, And Using Yuan To Avoid Import Sanctions
      Putin Is Now Evading Western Sanctions On Almost All Oil Exports, And Using Yuan To Avoid Import Sanctions

      When western nations rolled out a grand plan to throttle Russian oil imports and impose sanctions on Kremlin energy exports, we – and many others – laughed: after all, we have repeatedly seen how toothless western sanctions are when seeking to contain “rogue regime” oil profits, from Iran (which is pretty much selling oil to China at max capacity) to Venezuela and onward. One year later, our laughter has been well justified, because as the FT reports, “Russia has succeeded in avoiding G7 sanctions on most of its oil exports”, a shift in trade flows that will boost the Kremlin’s revenues as crude rises towards $100 a barrel, and as Russian Urals prices hit $80, the highest level in over a year.

      According to the report, almost 75% of all seaborne Russian crude flows traveled without western insurance in August, the only lever used to enforce the G7’s $60-a-barrel oil price cap, according to an analysis of shipping and insurance records by the Financial Times. That is up from about about half this spring, according to data from freight analytics company Kpler and insurance companies. The rise implies that Moscow is becoming more adept at circumventing the cap, allowing it to sell more of its oil at prices closer to international market rates.

      More importantly, it means that few if any Russian clients are worried about retaliation by the Biden regime for purchasing Russian oil.

      The FT reports that the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) has estimated that the steady increase in crude prices since July, combined with Russia’s success in reducing the discount on its own oil, means that the country’s oil revenues are likely to be at least $15bn higher for 2023 than they would have been; it is also an indication that for all its talk and posturing the West is content with allowing Putin’s regime to benefit from surging oil prices as the far more draconian alternative of taking all Russian oil off the market, would have sent global oil prices much higher.

      Indeed, as the FT admits, while the EU and US have largely barred imports of Russian oil, the G7 price cap was designed to keep Russian oil flowing into global markets: “The aim was to prevent a squeeze on supplies and an economically and politically damaging jump in prices.”

      Providing western services such as shipping or insurance is allowed under the price cap as long as Russia’s oil is sold for less than $60 a barrel. Russian oil is now selling for $20 more.

      The shift is a double blow for western efforts to restrict Russia’s revenues from oil sales — which make up the biggest part of the Kremlin’s budget — following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

      Not only is a higher proportion of Russian oil being sold outside the cap, but Moscow’s increasing independence as a seller has coincided with a strong rally in oil prices, which topped $95 a barrel for the first time in 13 months this week.

      Worst of all for Western neocons, while Russia’s oil sector is still facing several challenges, including claims of shortages in its domestic refined fuels market and a dip in export volumes overall, the figures still suggest more oil revenues will be flowing into the Kremlin’s war chest.

      Ben Hilgenstock, an economist at the KSE, said: “Given these shifts in how Russia ships its oil, it may be very difficult to meaningfully enforce the price cap in future. And that makes it even more regrettable that we did not do more to properly enforce it when we had more leverage.”

      Meanwhile, in further weaponization of its commodities (in response to the US weaponization of the US Dollar), Russia this week banned the export of diesel and other fuels, a significant move from one of the biggest global sellers of diesel. The move has raised fears that Russian president Vladimir Putin is trying to disrupt the oil market as he did with natural gas, sparking last year’s energy crisis.

      And while the Kremlin is steamrolling western export sanctions, it is Beijing that is allowing Russia to evade import sanctions.

      A new study has found that Russia is using Chinese currency for at least a fifth of its imports, illustrating both Moscow’s increasing reliance on Beijing and its efforts to evade western sanctions.

      As a reminder, sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU, US and others as a result of its war against Ukraine have made it increasingly difficult for Russia to get hold of large amounts of western imports. It’s also made it more expensive for it to trade using the dollar, euro or other western currencies, especially after Russia was effectively kicked out of SWIFT and its banks can no longer transact in dollars.

      What happened then? Well, by the end of 2022, 20% of Russia’s imports were invoiced in yuan — up from 3% a year previously, according to a research paper published this morning by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the FT reported.

      While some of that increase is owing to increased imports from China itself, the use of yuan to settle imports from third countries rose to 5% from just 1% before the war was launched in February 2022.

      “Yuan is being used as a vehicle currency,” said Beata Javorcik, the EBRD’s chief economist and one of the paper’s authors. “Russia is now the third-largest clearing centre for offshore yuan transactions.”

      Asking trade partners to invoice them in yuan is just one way Moscow is evading sanctions, alongside tactics such as importing products through middleman countries or exporting its oil on tankers that sail without western insurance.

      The EBRD paper makes stark just how much Moscow is avoiding western banks when trying to bypass sanctions: when it comes to sanctioned goods and dual-use equipment, which can be used by civilians but also to make weapons, “the increase in [yuan] invoicing was more pronounced,” the paper found. The research also strikes a warning for any western policymakers who might see the data as a sign that their measures are working.

      “Rising geopolitical tensions in general, and the use of trade sanctions in particular, may reduce the attractiveness of the use of the US dollar as a vehicle currency in international trade,” they write. “This, in turn, might lead to a greater fragmentation of global payment systems.”

      Yet despite all the signs, in a few years there will still be those who are stunned to learn that the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 22:00

    • China Investors Say Worst Yet To Come For Property
      China Investors Say Worst Yet To Come For Property

      By John Liu and April Ma, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and strategists

      China’s property sector has yet to see the worst of the crisis that has cast a pall over the nation’s economy and helped drive an exodus of global funds from the world’s second-largest stock market.

      That’s the view from nine of 15 respondents in an informal Bloomberg News survey of analysts and money managers based in Hong Kong and mainland China. Six of them listed housing woes as the biggest risk for equities for the final quarter of 2023, followed by geopolitical tensions.

      The results are a reflection of the worsening malaise in China’s real estate industry, as policymakers appear reluctant to undertake more aggressive stimulus measures lest they may fuel long-term financial risks. Sentiment worsened last week as worries about liquidity and weak housing demand intensified, sending a Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of property stocks to its lowest level in 12 years.

      Pessimism over the property sector aside, the informal survey showed investors have otherwise turned optimistic on the overall market given a series of recent policy support measures and inexpensive valuations. Roughly around 70% of the respondents said they plan to add stock positions both onshore and in Hong Kong.

      “We are in the worst of this cycle and we are not out of woods yet. It’s going to take a long time for the current property crisis to be over,” said Kenny Wen,  head of investment strategy at KGI Asia Ltd. who participated in the informal poll. “Before the property crisis is properly handled, it’s unlikely for the stock market sentiment to recover meaningfully.”

      Investors may be staring at an added level of uncertainty after China Evergrande Group — an indebted real estate conglomerate which sits at the center of the sector’s years-long crisis — said Thursday that its billionaire chairman Hui Ka Yan is suspected of committing crimes. Meantime, Country Garden Holdings Co., formerly China’s biggest developer, continues to fight an uphill battle to avert a public bond default.

      The CSI 300 Index benchmark is down 4.7% so far in 2023, on track for an unprecedented third straight year of losses. That’s dragged the gauge’s valuation to 10.8 times its estimated earnings for the next 12 months, almost two points below the five-year average.

      The CSI 300 is expected to end the year at 4,100, based on the median forecast of the informal poll, implying a potential gain of about 11% from the latest close. The Hang Seng Index is projected to hit 20,500, indicating upside of around 15%, the results showed.

      More than half of the informal survey’s respondents said they see equities as the best investment option at the moment, versus cash or commodities. Nine out of the 15 polled also ruled out the need for state-backed funds to support the market in the fourth quarter.

      Overseas investors sold about 37 billion yuan ($5.1 billion) of mainland China stocks on a net basis in September via trading links with Hong Kong. That’s after a record 90 billion yuan selloff last month, which drove their positioning to the lowest since October 2022, when the nation’s reopening from stringent Covid curbs sparked a sharp rebound over the next three months.

      The continued selling by foreign funds has driven bets that the worst of outflows may be over. Less than a third of those surveyed expected fund flows via the so-called Stock Connect program to turn negative on a net basis for the year.
      “Yuan assets, especially A shares, are currently very cheap and many pockets of the market are oversold,” said Zhu Houzhong, a fund manager at Shanghai Youpu Investment Co. who took part in the informal poll.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 21:30

    • Federal Prosecutors Push For Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks
      Federal Prosecutors Push For Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks

      Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

      Federal prosecutors have urged the federal judge to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election interference case, citing the “prejudicial extrajudicial statements” he made on social media.

      Former President Donald Trump appears in court at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 4, 2023. (Steven Hirsch/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

      The special counsel team filed the request for a gag order against Mr. Trump on Sept. 15 to restrict him from making “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers, and other people involved in the criminal case.

      Prosecutors said on Sept. 25 that Mr. Trump continued to wage “a sustained campaign of prejudicial public statements regarding witnesses, the court, the district, and prosecutors” even after the proposed order.

      “The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others—whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own—feign retraction,” they said in a court filing (pdf).

      “No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either,” it added.

      They referred to recent posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, including one on Sept. 22 in which Mr. Trump accused departing Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley of committing treason.

      In the post, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Milley’s alleged “treasonous act” could have led to “a war between China and the United States.” He also suggested that Mr. Milley should be executed for his alleged conduct.

      Prosecutors also mentioned a video posted by Mr. Trump’s spokesman claiming that Mr. Trump had bought a Glock gun in South Carolina. The post was later removed, and the spokesman retracted his remarks, saying that Mr. Trump had only indicated his interest in buying the gun.

      Despite the spokesman’s retraction, prosecutors said that Mr. Trump “re-posted a video of the incident” posted by one of his followers with a caption that suggested he had indeed bought the weapon.

      “The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the prosecutors stated.

      Mr. Trump’s lawyers have objected to the request, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday set courtroom arguments for Oct. 16.

      Prosecutors Try to Silence Trump With Gag Order

      Mr. Trump’s lawyers have previously denounced the gag order request as an attempt to “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech. They called the request a “desperate attempt at censorship.”

      “The prosecution would silence President Trump, amid a political campaign where his right to criticize the government is at its zenith, all to avoid a public rebuke of this prosecution,” his lawyers wrote (pdf) on Sept. 25.

      “However, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.

      “The prosecution may not like President’s Trump’s entirely valid criticisms, but neither it nor this Court are the filter for what the public may hear,” they added.

      Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the proposed gag order was “sweepingly broad” and that “many of its terms are undefined.”

      If the order is granted, Mr. Trump would be forced to dramatically limit the type of comments he makes about the case even as he seeks to turn his criminal woes — the Washington prosecution is one of four that he currently faces — to his political advantage while running to reclaim the White House in 2024.

      His attorneys filed court papers on Sept. 27 saying that more time is required to deal with procedures for reviewing classified information in the federal case in which the former president is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

      Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 21:00

    • Morgan Stanley Warns Of A "Chilly Season for Travel" As Middle-Class Consumers Falter
      Morgan Stanley Warns Of A “Chilly Season for Travel” As Middle-Class Consumers Falter

      Morgan Stanley US equity strategist Michelle Weaver joins a growing number of Wall Street analysts warning about deteriorating conditions for consumers. Weaver wrote in a recent note to clients that travel companies exposed to “lower-income consumers” are beginning to experience “demand weakness.” 

      Weaver’s note, published on Sept. 21, follows JPMorgan consumer trader Brian Heavey’s truth bomb on Sept. 20 when he turned extraordinarily negative on the US consumer. Since then, Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer, penned a note about the ‘consumer falling off a cliff.’ 

      “A significant proportion of US Consumers have drawn down their Covid era excess savings and our US Economics team estimates that lower-income households have fully exhausted their excess savings, while middle- and higher-income households are less willing to spend their excess savings on consumption,” Weaver told clients. 

      Her note was published after the Fed’s latest beige book that warned: “Some Districts highlighted reports suggesting consumers may have exhausted their savings and are relying more on borrowing to support spending.” And a period when credit card growth wanes, and the consumer has never been in worse shape. 

      Also, the three-year pause in student loan payments has expired, as some 28 million borrowers are imminently facing a restart in payments. This will add a $15.8 billion monthly headwind – or $190 billion per year – to US consumer spending. 

      Understanding all of this, Weaver’s view is that some of the first impacts of a slowdown will be “travel companies exposed to the lower-income consumer showing indications of demand weakness.” 

      Here’s more from the note:

      • Low-Cost Airlines Slowing. A number of major airlines attended Morgan Stanley’s Industrials Conference last week and there was a marked difference in tone between the Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCCs) and Legacy Airlines. Two high-utilization ULCCs noted that demand has taken a significant, sharp turn down and these companies now expect pre-tax margins to be significantly lower. These companies may have higher exposure to low-income consumers (though we note that some other ULCC carriers with potential exposure to low-income consumers said that demand was trending in line with expectations). Meanwhile, the legacy carriers were much more positive on the demand environment and their primary concern remains higher fuel costs.

      • Hotels Are Showing Signs of Demand Weakening.TheGaming&Lodging industry has also been cooling especially in the economy segment of the market. Overall revenue per available room (RevPAR) for US hotels has been tracking at a lower trajectory for 3Q vs 2Q and hotel occupancy is down vs 2019. Economy RevPAR has been consistently down 3-4% yoy since April. While on the high-end, luxury RevPAR was down 4% in April, then flat to -2% through summer and down -3% MTD for September. Economy and luxury hotel demand is driven by leisure, consumer travel rather than business travel. There has also been weakness in the regional casino space over the past 6 months, which is primarily exposed to lower- and middle- income consumers.

      • Consumers Intend to Shift to Cheaper Modes of Travel. Our most recent AlphaWise Consumer Survey shows that consumers want to keep traveling and 58% of respondents are planning to travel over the next 6 months. Net spending plans for international travel declined from 0% last month to -8% this month, while domestic travel plans without a flight moved higher. This indicates that consumers want to keep traveling but are increasingly looking at taking cheaper trips and are choosing destinations they can drive or take a train to vs having to fly.

      She added:

      Travel has shown signs of cooling, led by areas exposed to low-income consumers. This problem could broaden out crimping company margins and earnings. We believe there could be more downside ahead and are underweight the Consumer Discretionary sector.

      None of this is a surprise, as we’ve already reported in July, “Airline Stocks Hit Turbulence After Alaska Air Signals Slowing Demand,” and last month, “American Airlines Cuts Earnings Forecast As Headwinds Hit Airline Industry.” In mid-July, we said, “Cash-Strapped Consumers Travel By Bus To Destination Hotspots.” 

      Still no recovery in airline stocks. 

      Meanwhile, last week, Personal Consumption data in the latest GDP revision collapsed in a stunning 9-sigma miss to expectations. 

      … and there goes the “strong” Bidenomics economy as “strong” data points only last about a month and then are downgraded. 

      Beware of a faltering consumer. 

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 20:25

    • For Some, Open Border Chaos Is The Goal
      For Some, Open Border Chaos Is The Goal

      Authored by Pete McGinnis via RealClearPolitics.com,

      Beware, the crisis at the southern border may be much worse than it appears…

      Free Apple watches, bus and plane tickets all across the continental United States, and sophisticated lawyers standing by to counsel migrants on how to best navigate border officials’ scrutiny of asylum on the occasions when they are actually required to defend their asylum claims. These benefits being offered to illegal border crossers have left the public shocked, angry, and in many cases, feeling the issue closer to home than ever before. Many cities and states have also been overwhelmed as the consequences of the crisis have migrated well beyond the southern border states. Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made news when he emphatically declared that the now-regular stream of migrants into the Big Apple “will ruin the City!”

      It’s not just local budgets and social services that are being squeezed to the breaking point, although those are nothing to sneeze at and will have to be addressed. The increase in crime may be the biggest concern. Violent crime rates are up, and violent incidents are prominent on the nightly news. Less visible are the other criminal enterprises causing ripple effects. Human trafficking has gained more attention as its shocking reality is (very) slowly exposed. The recently released independent film, “The Sound of Freedom,” struck a chord for this very reason – human trafficking is striking too close to home for most Americans’ peace of mind. 

      Then there are the drugs. The opioid epidemic has gotten substantially worse in the last few years, with annual overdose deaths, after a slight decline from 2017 through 2019, increasing dramatically in the last several years. As if this isn’t bad enough, the opportunities for smuggling in other illegal contraband have increased as well.

      Experts speculate that the drug cartels have collaborated with hostile actors, including Chinese Communists, to further take advantage of what they (rightly) view as a U.S. government intent on not enforcing the laws at our southern border. Notably, illicit tobacco and vaping products appear to have become a prime fundraising target for the burgeoning Chinese drug cartel alliance. While teenage vaping and flavored tobacco products have become a major concern for federal regulators, it is projected that most vaping products being sold are illegal and that 90% of the vaping products originate in China. Ironically, the reaction of federal authorities and policymakers has been to propose more prohibitions on legal products – overwhelmingly used by adults and lifetime smokers to transition away from cigarettes – rather than addressing the source of the problem: the flood of illegal products through our open border. It’s another example of the dangers that come from a dysfunctional government.

      To elaborate, federal tobacco regulators appear set on using the robust cartel-supported black market in vaping products aimed at kids to further their long-time prohibitionist agenda (and one of Michael Bloomberg’s favorite pet projects). These regulatory efforts have been bolstered by user-fee supported special interest groups who fund splashy ad campaigns highlighting teen vaping use as the basis for their actions. Yet, the regulatory agenda seeks to outlaw a whole host of products used by adults, for which abolition seems certain to offer an even greater market opportunity for the Chinese drug cartel alliance and likely to increase access to illicit products by youth.

      This may be a shocking observation to some, but this example and others indicate that senior government officials may see the lawlessness stemming from the border as a feature rather than a bug. Take Claire Trickler-McNulty, the Biden administration’s assistant director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials like Ms. Trickler-McNulty appear set on turning law enforcement agencies into social services organizations. Before joining the Biden administration, Trickler-McNulty worked for an organization that advocated for the abolition of the agency she now helps lead – in the spirit of the “defund the police” movement. Unsurprisingly, the overrun southern border has given her social service aspirations lots of prospective “clients” seeking federal assistance.

      While Trickler-McNulty has faced criticism for the so-called transition from a traditional law enforcement focus, she appears unfazed. The same could also be said of her former employer, Kids in Need of Defense, a major recipient of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation that has also benefited handsomely from its influential role in the Biden administration’s open border policy with a $13 million contract.

      The ways in which American families and businesses are being harmed by the open border policies could fill volumes. But it’s clear that state budgets, neighborhood safety, and our children’s futures are all being endangered while the drug cartels and our most powerful foreign adversaries become enriched and empowered. Instead of using these tragedies to advance the special interest agendas of Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, perhaps we could all agree that the American chapter on human trafficking, opioids, and open borders should be relegated to the history books.

      Pete McGinnis is director of communications at the Functional Government Initiative.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 19:50

    • Canada To Create Registry Of Podcasters In Potential Censorship Initiative 
      Canada To Create Registry Of Podcasters In Potential Censorship Initiative 

      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking Canada down a dangerous path of censorship to regulate streaming services and social media platforms. The next regulation phase comes as some podcasters will soon have to register with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

      The Online Streaming Act, formerly Bill C-11, goes into effect on Nov. 28, meaning any online streaming service that operates in Canada and generates revenue of more than $10 million in a given year will have to register with CRTC. 

      The Canadian government pitches the new rule as a “modern broadcasting framework that can adapt to changing circumstances. To do that, we need broad engagement and robust public records.” It requires those podcasters to register with CRTC ‘only once’ and “collects basic information” from them, such as:

      “First, the CRTC is setting out which online streaming services need to provide information about their activities in Canada.”

      So what’s with the government creating a database of prominent podcasters?

      One potential reason could be for the Liberal government to censor unapproved government narratives quickly. Having a registry of podcasters and the type of content they create makes it much easier for those in the government’s censorship department. 

       “The CRTC now wants to regulate podcasts,” Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley posted on X, adding, “Here is my simple message to them. Go to hell.” 

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      On Sunday morning, Elon Musk chimed in on the conversation, responding to X account Wall Street Silver: “Regulate podcasts!?” 

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      While Trudeau has called everyone under the sun a ‘Nazi,’ from a Jewish member of parliament named Melissa Lantsman to “Freedom Convoy” trucker protesters, the radical leftist prime minister recently applauded a literal Waffen-SS Nazi with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Canada’s Parliament. 

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      Trudeau immediately blamed “Russian disinformation” for applauding the Nazi. 

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      Even though Trudeau eventually apologized for applauding the Nazi, his attempt to distort reality is another sign that the government routinely engages in mass censorship campaigns and further wants to regulate what podcasters have to say. 

      Remember, building a registry makes the job much easier for the government. 

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 19:15

    • AOC Defends Lawmaker Who Pulled Fire Alarm To 'Open Door' And Totally Not Disrupt The Democratic Process
      AOC Defends Lawmaker Who Pulled Fire Alarm To ‘Open Door’ And Totally Not Disrupt The Democratic Process

      Democratic lawmaker Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) thinks we’re all idiots, after offering an unbelievable excuse after he was caught on CCTV pulling the fire alarm in a House office building while Democrats were trying to delay a House vote on the stopgap bill which eventually passed at the 11th hour.

      Bowman – who founded a school that would have held several fire drills per year, wants us to believe he mistook this fire alarm…

      …for an automatic door opener that he was trying to use to open a clearly marked emergency exit.

      In a Saturday statement, Bowman said “I want to personally clear up confusion surrounding today’s events,” adding “Today, as I was rushing to make a vote, I came to a door that is usually open.” (it’s not)

      “I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door.”

      U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) speaks to reporters in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 22, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

      And of course, galaxy brain AOC had to chime in…

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      And now, Bowman has found himself under investigation.

      “Rep (Jamaal) Bowman pulled a fire alarm in Cannon this morning,” said House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), who added that “An investigation into why it was pulled is underway.”

      As the Epoch Times notes; The fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building, often called the “Old House Office Building,” was triggered around noon, leading to an evacuation of the entire building while the House was in session. The building was reopened an hour later, after Capitol Police determined the situation was not a threat.

      Capitol Police said in a statement late Saturday that an “investigation into what happened and why continues.”

      The fire alarms in the Old House Office Building are pull down triggers encased in bright red boxes that read “FIRE.”

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      The Epoch Times has reached out to the Capitol Police for further comment.

      At the time of the evacuation, Democrat lawmakers in the House were working to delay a vote on a 45-day funding bill to keep federal agencies open. They said they needed time to review the 71-page bill that Republicans had just released to avoid a shutdown.

      The stopgap funding bill was ultimately passed in a 335-91 vote. Mr. Bowman and a majority of Democrats voted in support of the bill.

      Lawmakers in the Senate in a vote late Saturday night passed the measure, sending it to President Joe Biden to sign in order to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. President Biden signed the measure late Saturday night.

      After the bill passed the House, a number of Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), criticized Mr. Bowman for having triggered the fire alarm.

      Mr. McCarthy on Saturday afternoon called for an investigation into Mr. Bowman, telling reporters at a press conference, “I think ethics should look at this.”

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      He noted Mr. Bowman’s action was caught on camera and said it “should not go without punishment.”

      Turley opines

      According to constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley;

      In D.C., this would constitute a criminal misdemeanor. It would also obviously be treated as sanctionable conduct under the House rules. Even without addressing any attempt to cause fear or panic, here is the most obvious crime:

      § 22–1319. False alarms and false reports; hoax weapons.

      (a) It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully or knowingly give a false alarm of fire within the District of Columbia, and any person or persons violating the provisions of this subsection shall, upon conviction, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not more than the amount set forth in § 22-3571.01 or by imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Prosecutions for violation of the provisions of this subsection shall be on information filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

      (a-1) It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully or knowingly use, or allow the use of, the 911 call system to make a false or fictitious report or complaint which initiates a response by District of Columbia emergency personnel or officials when, at the time of the call or transmission, the person knows the report or complaint is false. Any person or persons violating the provisions of this subsection shall, upon conviction, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not more than the amount set forth in § 22-3571.01 or by imprisonment for not more than 6 months. Prosecutions for violation of the provisions of this subsection shall be on information filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

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      Let’s see if Bowman, who by the transitive properties of bullshit is now an insurrectionist, will face justice.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:55

    • Things Are Going So Well For Biden That…
      Things Are Going So Well For Biden That…

      By Mish Shedlock of Mishtalk

      Let’s count the ways…

      Key Ideas

      • Voters are now more likely to see the Republican Party as capable of governing, tackling big issues and keeping the country safe compared with the Democratic Party.
      • By a 9-point margin, voters also see the Democratic Party as more ideologically extreme than the GOP.
      • The trends against the Democratic Party are largely driven by worsening perceptions among its own voter base, which suggests that the party will have to rely more than ever on negative partisanship to keep control of the White House.

      Those are not my thoughts. That’s what the latest Morning Consult poll shows.

      In a significant reversal from the last presidential election year, U.S. voters are now more likely to see the Republican Party as capable of governing, keeping the country safe and tackling the big issues compared with the Democratic Party. These crossing trend lines provide a stark contrast from the lead-up to 2020, when Morning Consult surveys showed public opinion on the same questions was more static.

      Both parties are also trending in different directions on two other characteristics that voters favored Democrats on in 2020. Voters have become less likely to see the GOP as stale, and more likely to say this descriptor fits the Democratic Party. And over that same time frame, voters increasingly say the GOP is responsible.

      It’s not just that some voters have lost faith in the Democratic Party’s stewardship of the country — they also see the party as moving asymmetrically away from ideological moderation.

      By an almost double-digit margin, voters are now more likely to say the Democratic Party is “too liberal” than they are to say the GOP is “too conservative.” That’s another big change from 2020, when roughly equivalent shares viewed both parties as too ideologically extreme.

      Claim Everything is Working

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      People elected Biden (barely) for two reasons. The first being he wasn’t Trump. The second being they expected him to be a moderate.

      Then instead of bringing the nation together as promised, Biden morphed into the Progressive’s dream candidate stoking inflation with every decision.

      Voters are upset. They want action on the border. They want better schools. They are fearful of inflation.

      They don’t want to give up their gas stove. They don’t want to be forced into a high-priced EV when the infrastructure isn’t ready.

      They did not expect Biden to be like Trump.

      Biden is telling people how great the Bidenomics economy is, how he’s providing the most jobs, that he is best this and the best that, and the economy is humming, and he is bringing inflation down at the fastest pace in history.

      Whatever. It seems so hollow because it is hollow. And voters see right through it.

      Other than being much more polite in his delivery, Biden may as well have said, “I built a wall and Mexico paid for it”.

      Somehow it seems harder to lie and get away with it when you are in power than when you aren’t.

      Bidenomics In a Nutshell

      1. Hand out free money via unwarranted subsidies to ease the pain of stupid regulations
      2. Stoke massive inflation in the process
      3. Brag that it is working.

      Here’s the deal. You can run against Trump once and win if your key message is “I’m not Trump.”

      But can you do it twice with nothing more than inflation and a more polite delivery to back it up?

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:40

    • Michigan Teen Who Clocked Teacher In Head With Metal Chair Arrested On Felony Assault Charges
      Michigan Teen Who Clocked Teacher In Head With Metal Chair Arrested On Felony Assault Charges

      A 15-year-old Michigan teen is two facing felony assault charges after she was caught on video launching a metal chair at her teacher’s head during a heated argument with another student.

      The teacher, who attempted to break up the fight, turned her back to the assailant when the chair was hurled at the educator, striking her in the head and causing her to drop to the floor where she did not move for approximately seven seconds.

      The Genesee County Prosecutor’s office made the arrest following the “unacceptable act of violence,” which went viral last week, ABC 12 reports.

      The teacher was found lying on the ground by the school resource office, who entered the classroom to break up the fight, according to Flint Police Chief Terence Green. 

      Both girls involved in the fight were placed under arrest, while the unnamed teacher was quickly rushed to the hospital. She has since been released and is “doing well.”

      “We are committed to ensuring that our schools are safe and conducive to learning for all scholars, and we take this responsibility very seriously,” wrote the district’s superintendent, who said that the girl who threw the chair will be held accountable.

      As the NY Post notes, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig said “This video perfectly captures the sad state of Education in Michigan – no sense of order or direction, no respect for teachers, and worst of all, NO LEARNING,” adding “Failure to educate young Michiganders is a recipe for increased CRIME, upticks in UNEMPLOYMENT, and SOCIETAL DISORDER. Michiganders deserve better.”

      Craig is planning to run as a Republican in the upcoming Senate race.

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      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:05

    • 20th Busload Of Illegal Immigrants Arrives In Downtown Los Angeles
      20th Busload Of Illegal Immigrants Arrives In Downtown Los Angeles

      Via The Epoch Times,

      Yet another bus carrying illegal immigrants arrived in downtown Los Angeles Sept. 30, marking the 20th such arrival since June.

      “One bus with migrants on board from Texas arrived around 1:45 p.m. today at Union Station,” read a statement from Mayor Karen Bass’s office.

      “This is the 20th bus that has arrived. The city has continued to work with city departments, the county, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year. As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.”

      When three busloads with 109 illegal immigrants arrived Friday, Ms. Bass noted that “Governor [Greg] Abbott continues to put vulnerable lives in jeopardy with limited food and water on multi-day bus journeys to Los Angeles.”

      On X, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) confirmed the arrival of 27 asylum-seekers Saturday with no children. It did not specify from which nations they had come.

      While the collective expected 109 illegal immigrants to arrive Friday, it only assisted 65, citing that some of them may have been picked up by family members or sponsors, or some left immediately upon their arrival at Union Station.

      Of the 65 illegal immigrants, 16 were children and there were 35 family-units, meaning migrants who traveled with a spouse, partner, a child or children. Additionally, 36 were female and 29 were male.

      According to the CHIRLA, which is a member of the L.A. Welcomes Collective, a network of nonprofit, faith groups, and city and county services that respond to the arrival of migrant buses, a third of all illegal immigrants arriving in Los Angeles by bus have been children.

      “When migrants arrive in California—more than 434,000 have arrived in California since 2019—we receive them, integrate them into society, and they in turn contribute positively to our way of life. The Golden State is an immigrant state and that will not change,” CHIRLA wrote on X.

      Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks onstage during EMILYs List’s 2023 Pre-Oscars Breakfast at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 7, 2023. (Araya Doheny/Getty Images for EMILYs List)

      The Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice, another member of the collective, wrote on X they learned of two of Friday’s buses early Friday morning. The lack of information resulted in “stretching our resources for greeting people with dignity and respect, helping them reunite with family and connect with sponsors,” according to CLUE Justice.

      “It is abhorrent and cruel of Gov. Abbott to send human beings who are tired, hungry and yearning for a safe haven on a 30-hour bus ride without regard for their care, journey or destination,” CHIRLA wrote on X.

      “It is clear he is trying to disrupt our efforts, but we will persevere.”

      Jorge-Mario Cabrera, director of communications for CHIRLA, told City News Service since June a third, 35 percent of illegal immigrants arriving on buses from Texas are children, which is one of many reasons the collective condemns Mr. Abbot’s actions.

      Mr. Cabrera also noted some “folks [illegal immigrants] told us that L.A. was not their destination. They were just told to get on that bus.” Many had not eaten in three days, he added.

      The collective usually gets tips hours ahead from volunteers, organizations or from good Samaritans about the arrival of a bus. The route of buses from Brownsville are easier to predict, Mr. Cabrera said, but when they are sent from different cities like Del Rio, it’s “difficult to guess when they’ll arrive.”

      Migrants who have crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2023, enter a Border Patrol vehicle to be taken to a processing facility. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

      Illegal immigrants received a medical check up, and no one was in need of serious medical attention. Mr. Cabrera reiterated the collective will support them with basic needs as they are met by their family or sponsors.

      Mr. Cabrera said he hopes the buses will slow down and stop altogether because Gov. Abbott is using illegal immigrants as “political pawns” without regard to their health. But he knows that is less than likely as the political season takes shape.

      Texas Gov. Abbott has been arranging the trips under Operation Lone Star (OLS), saying Texas’s border region is “overwhelmed” by immigrants crossing the Mexican border. OLS is a joint operation between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department along the southern border between Texas and Mexico.

      In a recent interview with Fox News, Mr. Abbott said “What we’ve seen is when Democrats have to face up to the reality of what Texas has to deal with every single day, they adopt the same approach that Texas has.”

      “We need the president to start enforcing the immigration laws of the United States of America, period,” he added.

      Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a news conference in Beaumont, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

      Ms. Bass has complained that Mr. Abbott’s office does not share enough information with Los Angeles about the shipments. She told KNX that if Mr. Abbott’s concerns and actions were legitimate and sincere, then “someone in the government and Texas would notify us and coordinate with us.”

      “We hear about the buses headed our way when they’re on the way. We have no idea who’s going to be on the bus, how many people it is or what condition they’re going to be in when they get here,” she said.

      “Sometimes they haven’t had any food, barely had enough water.”

      The Los Angeles City Council approved a motion on June 9 seeking to formally establish the city as a sanctuary city.

      Last month, the council approved a motion calling for the City Attorney’s Office to investigate whether crimes were committed on or before June 14, when Mr. Abbott sent 42 illegal immigrants to Los Angeles in the first of the shipments.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 17:30

    • Trump Receives Cheers From CA Crowd After Arguing In Favor Of Shooting Looters
      Trump Receives Cheers From CA Crowd After Arguing In Favor Of Shooting Looters

      Donald Trump is, if anything, very skilled at reading the room, or in this case reading the overall mood of the country.  In 2015, suggesting that looters become free game for law enforcement and that they should fully expect to be shot while leaving stores might have been the kind of comment that lost him the election.  Or at least it would have garnered a tidal wave of outrage and debates over police overreach.  Today, the public is tired of certain groups of malcontents being allowed to do whatever they please whenever they please without consequences simply because of their supposed victim group status.

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

      In this day and age, skipping past the arrest process and shooting looters sounds reasonable even to crowds in Anaheim, California.  The pendulum always swings the other direction, and in some cases it swings hard.

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

      With numerous Democrats either lying about the ongoing spike in crime across the country or defending the practice of mass theft as a form of righteous “reparations” or activism, the perception among criminals is that it is now open season, and perhaps they are even justified in their actions.  According to Dems, the criminals are the good guys.

      The perception among conservatives and moderates is that progressives fully intend to let America burn while gaslighting the public about how the fire is not that hot.  Americans are obviously not buying it.  Since 2022, polls show that at least 78% of Americans believe crime is rising across the nation with 56% saying they have seen a direct increase where they live. 

      These poll results led to an extensive corporate media campaign over the course of 2023, in which journalists used faulty and incomplete stats to argue that crime is actually going down.  In reality, a host of Democrat run cities and states are withholding full reports on their crime statistics while the Federal Government adjusts the manner in which they collate the data.  This readjustment conveniently started during the covid lockdowns as crime began to skyrocket. 

      Needless to say, the country is fed up.  However, it should be noted that Trump seems to focus particularly on law enforcement as being held back from doing their jobs while overlooking the reality that property owners in many areas hit with theft are also held back from defending themselves and their businesses.  Fear of targeted prosecution is real, with blue cities aggressively pursuing jail time for people stopping a crime, specifically if a minority happens to be harmed.   

      The first line of defense is not local law enforcement, it is the property owner.  When something bad happens, they will be the first people on the scene.  The question of freeing up police to do their jobs is secondary to the question of the attempted degradation of the right to self defense.  Making shop owners safe to shoot looters regardless of the kinds of politicians and prosecutors that run the cities they live in would more likely have the kind of impact on crime that Trump describes.  

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 16:55

    • "Who Do Americans Think They Are?" Charles Nenner Warns "It's Over, They Can't Rule The World Anymore"
      “Who Do Americans Think They Are?” Charles Nenner Warns “It’s Over, They Can’t Rule The World Anymore”

      Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

      Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning his war cycles were turning up. 

      Nenner says, “It happens like clockwork in the second decade of a new century.” 

      Nenner says it’s a lot like the stock market running out of gas, and he warns,

      “It’s like a stock market that is topping.  First, the weak stocks go down.  Then, the indexes are still holding up, and then the big ones go down. 

      Now, you see for instance, Apple also came down, but first, the small stocks came down.  It’s already happening, but you only see the results suddenly when the whole thing crashes…

      Americans seem to have no worries about the war that could be coming. I don’t want people to lose sleep, but the pact is forming. 

      It is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.  They are going against the United States that does not have a functional army anymore…

      Who do the Americans think they are?  It’s over, they can’t rule the world anymore.  If they are going to fight all these countries, I don’t think it is going to end well.”

      Does Nenner see the American Empire ending?  Nenner says,

      “I think it ended already, but we just don’t know it yet. 

      One of the signals of end of empire is bad education, which we have. 

      Another signal is the lifespan of people is shorter than for the people before. 

      What do you want me to say?  It does not look good, does it? 

      Another signal is your children have it worse than the generation before. 

      So, there is a whole list of signals, and it points to the United States is in trouble…

      I would be short America . . . and I would go long the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India China).

      Nenner says the stock market is on its way to being “substantially lower, but not just yet.” 

      Nenner also sees the cycles for gold, silver, bonds and real estate all going lower from here, but gold and silver will be going back up longer term.  The only thing Nenner likes right now are short-term Treasury bonds.  The dollar will hold up for now, but it is headed much lower in the not-so-distant future.  Nenner also likes energy, but it is cycling down at the moment. 

      Nenner says, “Inflation goes up and down” and warns, “Inflation is starting another up trend.”

      This round of inflation is probably going to be very painful for the common man.

      There is much more in the 41-minute interview.

      Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with renowned cycle analyst and financial expert Charles Nenner for 9.30.23.

      *  *  *

      To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

      There is free information and analysis on CharlesNenner.com.

      You can also sign up to be a subscriber for Nenner’s cutting edge cycle work with a free trial period by clicking here.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 16:20

    • "Premiums Are Going Nuts Everywhere": Plunging US Supply Sends Oil Prices Around The World Soaring
      “Premiums Are Going Nuts Everywhere”: Plunging US Supply Sends Oil Prices Around The World Soaring

      Buyers of physical oil across the planet are experiencing an acute supply shortage and are facing some of the highest premiums for supplies they’ve seen in months as plunging stocks at the largest US crude storage hub send shockwaves cross markets from Asia to Europe and the Middle East.

      As Bloomberg reports, US crude cargoes on offer in Asia are being offered at the costliest premium this year. The spread between Brent and Middle East oil has jumped to the highest since February while the premium for near-term US supply is close to the highest since July 2022.

      Behind the soaring premiums is Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for benchmark US crude futures, which helps to set the price of oil across the Americas and beyond. As we have noted in recent weeks, inventories at the hub are now sitting just above seasonal lows last seen in 2014, and are effectively at the level known as “tank bottoms” below which inventories are for the most part unusable.

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

      Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma tumbled below 22 million barrels last week, the lowest since July 2022, and have dropped for seven straight weeks, reaching the lowest level at this time of the year since at least 2018. At these levels, many traders consider inventories to already be at the lowest levels that allow tanks to function normally.

      The situation is forcing some traders to pay up big for last-minute supplies at Cushing. The prompt futures spread, which closely tracks supply and demand at the site, surged above $2 a barrel on Wednesday, the highest since July 2022.

      Meanwhile, the US refinery maintenance season is getting underway, which will prevent the storage hub from draining to absolute lows. Still, exports remain a wild card for balances, given that demand for American oil is high amid OPEC+ supply curbs, meaning domestic users will likely have to pay up to keep barrels in the US.

      Operationally, pulling oil out of tanks when levels fall below the so-called “suction line” is difficult and expensive, and the quality of crude can be compromised by the presence of water and sediment. For now, traders are expecting stockpiles to halt their decline by October and possibly start building up again, depending on how exports shape up. Indeed, this week’s drawdown was less than 1 million barrels — the first time that’s happened since early August.

      Cushing’s role in global oil markets has also diminished in recent years since the US lifted an export ban. Most barrels now flow straight from the prolific oilfields in Texas’ Permian Basin to the coast, where they are shipped to overseas buyers.

      “Cushing can stay at minimum operating operating levels for an extended period of time,” said Scott Shelton, an energy specialist at ICAP. “It’s now a transit point to the US Gulf Coast and a supply point for Cushing-based refiners.”

      The latest surge in US crude spreads also fueled a jump in Brent spreads, with the prompt spread climbing above $2 as well, to the widest in a year.

      All that’s happening just as the world was already facing a tight supply situation with Saudi Arabia and Russia cutting output. In recent months, the US had helped fill a void left in the market, routinely sending more than 4 million barrels every day to sate global appetite. Between overseas shipments and strong domestic demand, stockpiles quickly declined in the US. Now there’s a question of whether those flows will continue.

      “We’re running out of oil – you can see how low storage is at Cushing,” said Gary Ross, a veteran oil consultant turned hedge fund manager at Black Gold Investors LLC. “If we’re running out at Cushing, then we’re running out in Europe, because it relies on US exports. If the US exports less, then where is Europe going to get its oil from?”

      As supplies collapse, cargoes of WTI Midland crude for January delivery to Asia are being offered for sale at premiums of $9 a barrel above benchmark Dubai oil, according to traders who buy and sell the grade. That would be the highest premium seen this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Actual trading will likely start next week, giving more clarity on how much stronger the market for US barrels has gotten.

      Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude also surged against Dubai on the ICE Futures Abu Dhabi exchange. Although spot cargoes of Middle Eastern crude will only begin trading in the coming weeks, the premium of the grade — often compared with WTI Midland — increased to the highest since February/

      In the futures market, the surge is already apparent. The tightness in US supplies narrowed the gap between US crude and international benchmark Brent to under $3 a barrel, the smallest since May last year. Meanwhile, the spread between Brent and Middle East’s Dubai marker — also known as Brent-Dubai EFS — has skyrocketed

      While there’s been a lot of angst over the shrinking US inventories, there are yet to be any concrete signs of a slowdown in American exports.

      “Waterborne exports in October are still likely to come in close to 4 million barrels a day,” said Matt Smith, oil analyst at Kpler. “The lagged impact of the tightening Brent-WTI spread means we may not see the full impact until November’s loadings.”

      For November and beyond, it’s still likely exports will hover around the 4 million barrels a day level, Smith said, citing strong domestic shale production.

      Traders also point to inventories being fairly robust in the Gulf Coast region as a sign that US exports could continue to remain strong for a few weeks. At the same time, heavy seasonal refinery maintenance work in the US alongside turnarounds in Europe should also offer a cushion and free up some supplies.

      Already, prices for WTI in Midland and WTI at Houston are weakening relative to prices at Cushing. If that continues, it could re-open the arbitrage window to ship crude profitably to Asia. It should also help to send more barrels to Cushing.

      Still, there are signs that some European refiners are having to pay up for immediate supplies.

      Angola’s Sonangol sold four cargoes as much as $1.50 a barrel above offer prices over the past week, with three of the shipments likely going to Europe. Those cargoes would usually be destined for Asia — the atypical trade pattern reflects some of the market’s sharp swings this week.

      “The premiums are going nuts everywhere,” Ross said. “The Saudis have tightened this market up dramatically.” Almost as if Saudi Crown Prince MBS doesn’t care much for Joe Biden’s sole election “strategy” of keeping gas prices low – fist bumps notwithstanding…

      … especially now that the US SPR is half-empty and any continued drainage would lead to catastrophic collapse at the salt caverns that hold US emergency inventories, sending oil prices to new record highs.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 15:45

    • Over 277,000 'Vaccinated' COVID-19 Cases Hidden By CDC In 2021: Newly Obtained Files Show
      Over 277,000 ‘Vaccinated’ COVID-19 Cases Hidden By CDC In 2021: Newly Obtained Files Show

      Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

      More than 277,000 COVID-19 cases among people who received COVID-19 vaccines were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2021 but not disclosed to the public, newly obtained files show.

      Some 144,349 cases among partially vaccinated people were reported by 32 jurisdictions to the CDC across three months in 2021, according to some of the files, which were acquired by The Epoch Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

      Partially vaccinated has been defined by the CDC as a person who received at least one dose of a vaccine. People were described as fully vaccinated if at least 14 days had elapsed since they completed a primary series.

      The Moderna and Pfizer primary series consisted of two doses while Johnson & Johnson’s consisted of one dose.

      The cases were recorded in California, Maryland, New York, Texas, and 28 other jurisdictions in April, May, and June 2021 and reported to the CDC.

      The CDC never disclosed the numbers to the public.

      “These data on partially vaccinated persons were not reported publicly but rather, were collected to ensure that that they were being appropriately excluded from the numbers of vaccine breakthrough cases as described as a best practice on the CDC website,” staffers at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases told The Epoch Times in a letter.

      On a webpage advising state and local officials on how to analyze patterns of COVID-19 by vaccination status, the CDC recommends excluding people who only received one Moderna or Pfizer dose or analyzing them separately.

      The exclusion is recommended “because only people that have received all of the recommended primary series doses and have had the required duration of time to form a protective immunological response after vaccination (14 days, per the definition) would be expected to receive the full benefit of the COVID-19 vaccination,” the CDC said. “In general, the immunological response to a primary vaccination series usually takes 2–4 weeks. Only partial protection is provided to partially vaccinated persons.”

      Stopped Reporting

      The CDC stopped reporting post-vaccination infections among the fully vaccinated, or breakthrough cases, in May 2021, after disclosing that 10,262 breakthrough infections were reported to the agency by 46 jurisdictions through April 30, 2021.

      The CDC said that 995 of the cases resulted in hospitalization and 160 resulted in death.

      The CDC said it shifted to only reporting breakthrough cases that resulted in hospitalization or death “to help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance.”

      It’s not clear how many infections in the partially vaccinated that the CDC did not disclose before led to hospitalization or death.

      The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

      Changed Definition

      The CDC initially defined a breakthrough case as people who tested positive seven or more days after completing a primary series but changed the definition to testing positive at least 14 days after completion of a primary series after emailing about “vaccine failure,” documents obtained by The Epoch Times showed.

      “CDC made the change to the definition of a breakthrough infection time period due to the most current data that showed that the 14-day period was required for an effective antibody response to the vaccines,” a CDC spokesman told The Epoch Times recently via email.

      The CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases falsely said in the new letter that it never changed the definition.

      “Since COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough surveillance began (January 2021), the definition of a breakthrough infection has been the same,” the center claimed.

      The CDC has not sent a correction as of yet. It has made other false claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which remain uncorrected.

      The CDC also said that some of the partially vaccinated numbers were reported on one of its webpages, but a review of archived versions of that page did not show that to be the case. The page, which has been taken down, said that cases among the partially vaccinated were excluded.

      Hid Other Cases

      Another 133,000 post-vaccination cases occurred among Medicare beneficiaries through September 2021, according to Humetrix, a contractor that analyzed the data. The case count excluded partially vaccinated people.

      Humetrix provided the data to the CDC in August 2021, according to other documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

      The CDC spoke in meetings with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the CDC’s panel of vaccine advisers, and the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after receiving that data but did not present it to either one.

      The meetings resulted in the approval of Pfizer’s vaccine and the authorization of a Pfizer booster. The CDC then recommended both for wide swaths of the U.S. population.

      The CDC declined to comment on withholding the Humetrix data.

      Tyler Durden
      Sun, 10/01/2023 – 15:10

    Digest powered by RSS Digest

    Oct 01

    Today’s News 1st October 2023

    • Escobar: Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire
      Escobar: Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire

      Authored by Pepe Escobar,

      China’s State Council has released a crucial policy paper titled ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’ that should be read as a detailed, comprehensive road map for a peaceful, multipolar future.

      That is if the hegemon – of course faithful to its configuration as War Inc. – does not drag the world into the abyss of a hybrid-turned-hot war with incandescent consequences.

      In sync with the ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership, the white paper notes how “President Xi Jinping first raised the vision of a global community of shared future when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.”

      That was ten years ago, when the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched: that became the overarching foreign policy concept of the Xi era. The Belt and Road Forum next month in Beijing will celebrate the 10th anniversary of BRI, and relaunch a series of BRI projects.

      “Community of Shared Future” is a concept virtually ignored across the collective West – and in several cases lost in translation across the East. The white paper’s ambition is to introduce “the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future.”

      The five key points include building partnerships “in which countries treat each other as equals”; a fair and just security environment; “inclusive development”; inter-civilization exchanges; and “an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first,” as Xi detailed at the 2015 UN General Assembly.

      The white paper forcefully debunks the “Thucydides Trap” fallacy: “There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past.”

      While criticizing the “zero-sum game” to which “certain countries” still cling to, China completely aligns with the Global South/global majority, as in “the common interests of all peoples around the world. When the world thrives, China thrives, and vice versa.”

      Well, that’s not exactly the “rules-based international order” in play.

      It’s All About Harmony

      When it comes to building a new system of international relations, China prioritizes “extensive consultation” among equals and “the principle of sovereign equality” that “runs through the UN Charter.” History and realpolitik, though, dictate that some countries are more equal than others.

      This white paper comes from the political leadership of a civilization-state. Thus it naturally promotes the “increase of inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony” while elegantly remarking how a “fine traditional culture epitomizes the essence of the Chinese civilization.”

      Here we see a delicate blend of Taoism and Confucianism, where harmony – praised as “the core concept of Chinese culture” – is extrapolated to the concept of “harmony within diversity”: and that is exactly the basis for embracing cultural diversity.

      In terms of promoting a dialogue of civilizations, these paragraphs are particularly relevant:

      “The concept of a global community of shared future reflects the common interests of all civilizations – peace, development, unity, coexistence, and win-win cooperation. A Russian proverb holds, ‘Together we can weather the storm.’

      “The Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse proposed, ‘Serve not war and destruction, but peace and reconciliation.’ A German proverb reads, ‘An individual’s effort is addition; a team’s effort is multiplication.’ An African proverb states, ‘One single pillar is not sufficient to build a house.’ An Arabian proverb asserts, ‘If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’

      “Mexican poet Alfonso Reyes wrote, ‘The only way to be profitably national is to be generously universal.’ An Indonesian proverb says, ‘Sugarcane and lemongrass grow in dense clumps.’ A Mongolian proverb concludes, ‘Neighbors are connected at heart and share a common destiny.’ All the above narratives manifest the profound cultural and intellectual essence of the world.”

      BRI Caravan Rolls On

      Chinese diplomacy has been very vocal on the need to develop a “new type of economic globalization” and engage in “peaceful development” and true multilateralism.

      And that brings us inevitably to the BRI, which the white paper defines as “a vivid example of building a global community of shared future, and a global public good and cooperation platform provided by China to the world.”

      Of course, for the hegemon and its collective West vassals, BRI is nothing but a massive debt trap mechanism unleashed by “autocrat China”.

      The white paper notes, factually, how “more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations” had joined the BRI, and refers to the sprawling, ever-expanding connectivity framework of six corridors, six routes, an array of ports, pipelines and cyberspace connectivity, among others via the New Eurasian Land Bridge, the China-Europe Railway Express (a “steel camel fleet”) and the New Land-Sea Trade Corridor crisscrossing Eurasia.

      A serious problem may involve China’s Global Development Initiative, whose fundamental aim, according to Beijing, is “to accelerate the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

      Well, this agenda has been designed by the self-described Davos elites and conceptualized way back in 1992 by Rockefeller protégé Maurice Strong. Its inbuilt wet dream is to enforce the Great Reset – complete with a nonsensical zero-carbon green agenda.

      Better Listen to Medvedev’s Warning

      The hegemon is already preparing the next stages of its hybrid war against China – even as it remains buried deep down into a de facto proxy hot war against Russia in Ukraine.

      Russian strategic policy, in essence, completely aligns with the Chinese white paper, proposing a Greater Eurasian Partnership, a concerted drive towards multipolarity, and the primacy of the Global South/global majority in forging a new system of international relations.

      But the Straussian neocon psychos in charge of the hegemon’s foreign policy keep raising the stakes. So it’s no wonder that after the recent attack on the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a new National Security Council report leads to an ominous warning by Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev:

      “NATO has turned into an openly fascist bloc similar to Hitler’s Axis, only bigger (…) It looks like Russia is being left with little choice other than a direct conflict with NATO (…) The result would be much heavier losses for humanity than in 1945.”

      The Russian Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, has revealed that Ukraine has suffered a staggering 83,000 battlefield deaths since the start of the – failed – counteroffensive four months ago.

      And Defense Minister Shoigu all but gave away the game in terms of the long-term strategy, when he said, “the consistent implementation of measures and activity plans until 2025 will allow us to achieve our goals.”

      So the SMO will not be rounded up before 2025 – incidentally, much later than the next US presidential election. After all, Moscow’s ultimate aim is de-NATOization.

      Faced with a cosmic NATO humiliation on the battlefield, the Biden combo has no way out: even if it declared a unilateral ceasefire to re-weaponize Kiev’s forces for a new counteroffensive in the spring/summer of 2024, the war would keep rumbling on all the way to the presidential election.

      There’s absolutely no way some sharp intellect in the Beltway would read the Chinese white paper and be “infected” by the concept of harmony. Under the yoke of Straussian neocon psychos, there are zero prospects for a détente with Russia – not to mention Russia-China.

      Both the Chinese and Russian leaderships know quite well how the Ray McGovern-defined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) works.

      The kinetic aspect of MICIMATT is all about protection of the global interests of big US banks, investment/hedge funds and multinational corporations. It’s not a coincidence that MICIMATT monster Lockheed-Martin is mostly owned by Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. NATO is essentially a mafia protection racket controlled by the US and the UK that has nothing to do with “defending” Europe from the “Russian threat.”

      The actual MICIMATT and its NATO extension’s wet dream is to weaken and dismember Russia to control its immense natural resources.

      War Against the New ‘Axis of Evil’

      NATO’s incoming graphic humiliation in Ukraine is now compounded with the inexorable rise of BRICS 11 – which embodies a lethal threat to the hegemon’s geoeconomics. There’s next to nothing the MICIMATT can do about that short of nuclear war – except turbo-charging multiple instances of Hybrid War, color revolutions and assorted divide-and-rule schemes. What’s at stake is no less than a complete implosion of neoliberalism.

      The Russia-China strategic partnership of true sovereigns has been coordinating full-time.

      Strategic patience is the norm. The white paper reveals the magnanimous facet of the number one economy in the world by PPP: that’s China’s response to the infantile notion of “de-risking”.

      China is “de-risking” geopolitically when it comes to not falling for serial provocations by the Hegemon, while Russia exercises Taoist-style control to not risk a kinetic war.

      Still, what Medvedev just said carries the implication that the hegemon on desperation row could even be tempted to launch WWIII against, in fact, a new “axis of evil” of three BRICS nations – Russia, China and Iran.

      Secretary of the [Russian] National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev could not have been more crystal clear:

      “In its attempts to maintain its dominance, the West itself destroyed the tools that worked better for it than the military machine. These are freedom of movement of goods and services, transport and logistics corridors, a unified system of payments, global division of labor and value chains. As a result, Westerners are shutting themselves off from the rest of the world at a rapid pace.”

      If only they could join the community of shared future – hopefully on a later, non-nuclear, date.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 23:30

    • How Sick-Day Culture Differs Around The World
      How Sick-Day Culture Differs Around The World

      Just over half of South Koreans do not take sick leave.

      At least, that’s what the results of a survey of adults aged 18 to 64 carried out by Statista as part of its Consumer Insights show.

      As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, another Asian country also displayed a high shares of people who said they had not taken sick leave in the previous 12 months, with Japan at 45 percent.

      In South Korea, employers are not obliged to grant their employees time off for non-work-related illnesses or injuries.

      Infographic: How Sick Day Culture Differs Around the World | Statista

      You will find more infographics at Statista

      At the other end of the scale, Australian respondents mirrored a different sick day culture, with only 14 percent reporting an absence-free 12 months.

      It’s a similar, if less pronounced, story in Germany, Sweden, Canada and the United States, where between 20 and 23 percent of respondents reported the same.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 22:45

    • Solutions Are Scary: Part 2 – Economic Rebellion And Black Markets
      Solutions Are Scary: Part 2 – Economic Rebellion And Black Markets

      Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

      In the first article in this series I examined the issue of militias and the public taking its security into its own hands.  I did this because frankly, without security, you have nothing.  There are millions of people out there, each with their own pet concerns and many of these people think their primary issue is the secret silver bullet solution to everything.  It’s not.  Security comes first, everything else is secondary.  That said, the most important factor next to physical safety is economic preparedness.

      If you were to examine the entire spectrum of globalist policies and programs from the US to Europe to Asia, including climate controls and carbon credits, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), cashless societies, vaccine passports, biometrics, agricultural controls, the “Great Reset,” the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI monitoring of transactions, etc. you will come to the same conclusion I have – Almost everything they do revolves around locking down and micromanaging trade and access to resources.

      Not just international trade and the import/export of resources, but ALL trade including the average person’s grocery purchases and private barter. If they get their way you won’t even be allowed to grow a garden in your backyard. Think I’m exaggerating? Just look at what happened during the attempted covid lockdowns – There were leftist state governments trying to deny people access to jobs and food without vaccination status, and at least one (Michigan) tried to stop people from buying garden seeds.

      In many places (including Hawaii), they tried to arrest people simply for being outside in parks and beaches. Keep in mind, it is nearly impossible to contract or transmit a virus in the outdoors where open air and sunlight actively kill diseases. Yet, the science was completely ignored in order to control people’s behavioral patterns, social interactions and economic participation.

      I have long argued that one of the primary purposes of the covid lockdowns was to acclimate the public to the idea of rationing – The government takeover of production and consumption as a means to bottleneck trade. Rationing erases any last vestiges of the free market and turns the buying of necessities into a privilege instead of a right. It was also an attempt to demonize the concept of prepping as a form of “hoarding.” In other words, if you planned ahead and bought food and medical supplies years in advance, you were a selfish person withholding valuable goods from others in dire need.

      I think the chaotic flurry of activity during 2020 and 2021 had a lot of people confused; many have forgotten how incredibly close we came to full authoritarianism, including total economic tyranny.

      The purpose of economic controls is obvious: If you control people’s access to supplies and income then they are far less likely to rebel against you when you turn the screws and take their freedoms. This has been the strategy of every communist/socialist regime around the world since the 20th Century, and was a mainstay of feudal empires in the Middle Ages. The process of trade controls is at the core of the agenda of our modern day oligarchy – Ruling at the barrel of a gun is not as viable a strategy today (at least for now), so, they are opting to used indirect methods to gain compliance until the population can be completely disarmed.

      This trend forces the liberty minded to adopt alternative economic systems. If we do not, then we will not be able to maintain our ability to fight back against authoritarianism. If you can’t feed yourself, then you can’t fight. But what would these alternative systems look like?

      Essentially, they would be black markets. Study the tactics of gun runners and drug dealers of the past several decades and the alternative economy of the future will probably look similar, though on a much larger scale. Most of what we do will eventually be treated as illicit unless it is specifically sanctioned by local or state governments, but this will not stop centralized authorities from doing everything they can to shut down private production and trade.

      Then there is the issue of economic collapse, which we are already beginning to experience in the form of a stagflation crisis. Trust me, it’s going to get a lot worse in the next couple of years, so establishing alternatives today should be our top priority. If your currency is consistently losing value, prices are rising and you have to work harder everyday to attain the same amount of resources then the end game will be slavery and servitude – Unless you can walk away from the broken economy.

      Here are the steps that would be necessary to defeat the socialization of trade, and all of them will require a certain level of risk.

      Localized Resource Production And Taking Back The “Commons”

      Large groups of people in counties and states will have to organize the extraction of vital resources from areas typically managed by the federal government. Meaning, if your state produces a lot of oil, or timber, or coal, or copper, or steel, etc., then the production will have to focus on domestic markets rather than foreign export. Americans either at the state or county level will need to ignore federal restrictions on resource management that favor large corporations and create a supply chain for domestic use only.

      The more groups at the county and state level do this, the larger the resource network will become and the harder it will be for federal or global interests to shut down wider production of goods and services. If you want to bring back an economy of independent producers and tradesman in the US, it all starts with localized resources and the end of access for government protected corporations that siphon wealth out of communities.

      Barter Markets

      I’ve been writing about the value of barter markets as a means of rebellion for almost 20 years now, and I continue to believe that this tactic is an incredible tool for defeating economic tyranny. The bottom line is this, though: Barter markets need producers in order to stay viable. They need people who make things, grow things, fix things and teach things. It can’t just be about trading goods you already have on hand; you have to be willing to add value to the market by creating useful items and services.

      Barter markets can operate on a small neighborhood scale up to a county level, while states can trade with each other to stockpile vital commodities. All of this, though, would have to act as a stopgap because barter relies on an erratic value system – Any item or service is going to be worth something different to each person, making standardized prices difficult. In the end, some kind of universal trade mechanism (currency) will have to be introduced that functions outside the failing dollar system and separate from CBDCs.

      Alternative Currency System

      Yes, this concept has been discussed at great length from every angle within the liberty movement for years. Most of the talk has revolved around cryptocurrencies, though, which I view as a distraction from legitimate solutions. Almost no one you run into on a daily basis owns or trades crypto; why would they when it is a currency based in virtual reality? People want the option to hold their buying power in their hand, to know that their wealth is tangible.

      This means a convertible currency mechanism, either a cryptocurrency or physical note that is backed by a commodity or a basket of commodities that are held in escrow safely and securely. These commodities would have to have storage capacity and be relatively portable; gold, silver and copper, wheat, oil, rice, and so on. A basket averaging out relative values can be used to determine buying power of the new currency.

      Of course, such a system would have to be developed at the state level. It’s unlikely that counties and cities will have the resources to create such a system on their own. Though, localized script might become common in smaller towns if they are highly organized. This is an idea that needs to be pursued now, BEFORE an economic collapse and dollar collapse play out.

      A “Reset” Of The Tax And Corporate Model

      If taxes are to exist at all, they should be limited to the local level and the benefits of those taxes should be readily visible to the local population. Federal income taxes should not exist (they didn’t exist permanently until the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1913-1916). They only serve to feed the authoritarian apparatus and grow government ever larger. Federal operations, if they are to exist at all, should be funded through tariff’s on foreign goods as was the practice in the US decades ago.

      Corporate charters should no longer exist. Corporations are a socialist concept given protection and special treatment from governments. They should be replaced by legal partnerships and no longer be treated as “too big to fail.” Also, when business management knowingly commits a crime, they should be prosecuted, not protected by limited liability.

      The tax model and the corporate model are both massive drains on the modern economic system. They disrupt the buying power and the production power of the average citizen, thereby keeping entrepreneurs from advancing due to rigged competition and dragging down the consumer with steady wealth depletion.

      If we are to save the economy, or build any kind of functional alternative, then these two millstones will have to be removed from our collective necks.

      Decentralization Prevents Genocide

      The greater issue at hand is what happens when governments and oligarchies are allowed to wield centralized authority over resources.  Usually, the end result is the exploitation of those resources as a weapon to punish part of the population or all of the population until they submit.  Often, genocide is treated as a viable option.

      Looking at the communist engineered famines in Soviet Russia or Maoist China, we can see the same elements forming today in the west.  The difference is that we have historic reference and the means to prevent it from happening again.  Make no mistake, there are psychopaths in leadership today that have no qualms whatsoever in using food or economic access as leverage against the people that oppose them.  We saw them try it during covid, and they are going to keep trying under the guise of climate change.

      But really, these are only mechanisms for garnering popular acceptance of socialized resources.  “We’re all in this together…right?”  No, we’re not, and the notion of sacrifice for the greater good is a farce created by parasites trying to convince the host that the bloodletting and feeding is “moral” and necessary.  These parasites serve no purpose.  The collectivists serve no purpose.  There are numerous ways for the economy and society to function happily and successfully without them and their centralized agenda.

      But to get rid of them we have to first protect ourselves, and establishing a solid alternative trade framework is a major step towards eliminating the parasites forever.

      *  *  *

      If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 22:00

    • US Dominates World University Rankings
      US Dominates World University Rankings

      The latest global university ranking has been released by Times Higher Education, putting the UK’s Oxford University at the top of the pile once again.

      Infographic: The Best Universities in the World | Statista

      You will find more infographics at Statista

      While the UK features quite heavily at the sharp end of the list, it’s the United States that utterly dominates, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong illustrates in the following infographic.

      Infographic: The U.S. Dominates the World University Ranking | Statista

      You will find more infographics at Statista

      Based on five indicators (teaching, research environment, research quality, international outlook and industry), the U.S. has an incredible 19 universities inside the top 30 – compared to the UK’s five.

      China has the third most institutions in this part of the ranking, with Tsinghua University and Peking University in 12th and 14th place, respectively.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 21:25

    • A Climate Of Fear
      A Climate Of Fear

      Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

      The medical, media, and political elites’ focus has shifted from facts to fomenting and magnifying fear.

      In Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in 1933, the new president told a nation in the depths of the Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

      Those words were true and rightfully spoken at that time. Roosevelt knew that fear is a powerful emotion that limits our ability to reason, act wisely, and work together. It’s also an emotion that’s contagious and not easily diminished or dissipated.

      The Power of Fear to Fragment Society

      Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s words are even more applicable today.

      On a personal level, decisions made under the emotional duress of fear are rarely the best ones and often the worst. Fear can bring out the best in us, but can often bring out the worst. That’s more likely to occur the more fragmented a society becomes. Fear among different groups of people creates an us-versus-them context in the minds of individuals, or even an “every-man-for-himself” attitude, which pits one group against another or even each of us against each other.

      Now elevate that sense of fear to the level of the national electorate. A people or a nation that’s paralyzed with fear makes rash decisions based on their fears of what could happen, not necessarily what the current situation truly is. When that happens, a society can quickly degenerate, where our base instincts determine our behavior in a law-of-the-jungle social environment.

      Roosevelt knew this, as do our leaders today. The difference is that today, rather than seeking to dispel fear, our political and media elites create it, expand it, and revel in it. Rather than promote hope and strength of character in us, in a Roosevelt- or even a Reagan-like fashion, they traffic in fear and its fellow traveler social division in order to fragment our society.

      It’s the old but effective divide-and-conquer strategy, and sadly, it works far too well. The mechanism for divide and conquer is the constant drumbeat of the Big Lie, which is also a tried and true method for controlling society. It was first practiced and perfected by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany using the mass media, but has been successfully used by the USSR and every other communist and dictatorial regime in the world since the 1930s.

      Social Media Is Magnitudes More Powerful Than Legacy Media

      The difference today is the massive and pervasive presence of social media. Its reach and social saturation throughout society are magnitudes greater than have ever been possible before. What’s more, our political and media elites create and exaggerate fear without even mentioning the word. “Fear” is driven into our collective psyches under the guise of our government keeping us “safe,” while demonizing anyone who challenges that narrative.

      The repetition by the media and the pharmaceutical industry of how to stay safe from COVID-19 always involves more drugs and less freedom. That’s by design. The elites that run society know that once enough of our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others with whom we interact become more fearful than rational, they’re easily manipulated and divided into confrontational groups.

      Does that sound like a conspiracy theory?

      Yes, it probably does, but it’s also how the Stasi, the East German security agency, turned virtually every neighbor into an informant. The result was that people were fearful of doing anything that could be construed as being against the communist East German government. In light of what we’ve been through the last three years—and what looks to be on the horizon—the conspiracy theory accusation has lost its sting.

      From Conspiracy Theory to Fact

      Recall, for example, how those who received the COVID-19 vaccine turned against those who remained unvaccinated. The contrast and social division couldn’t have been clearer or more deliberate. Vaccinated people were characterized by the media and government agency spokespeople as selfless, smarter, and better human beings than those who refused the vaccine.

      On the flip side, the “anti-vaxxers,” as they came to be called, were publicly derided by the medical, pharmaceutical, media, and government elites. They were accused of being low-intelligence conspiracy theory nuts who wouldn’t or couldn’t “follow the science,” even when they followed the science from experts such as Robert Malone, one of the inventors of the mRNA technology, and other medical doctors in Europe and Asia, including former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Michael Yeadon, all of whom were de-platformed from mainstream media and social media.

      In fact, any “alternative” remedy to the experimental and highly dangerous mRNA vaccines, such as ivermectin, was summarily dismissed, even though nations that used ivermectin had the lowest mortality rates. As noted above, many media personalities and even medical experts with contrary opinions were silenced, shamed, and shunted into professional oblivion, being substituted by compliant replacements. That practice continues to this day, with Russell Brand being the latest example of being de-monetized by YouTube.

      In light of vaccine injuries and deaths, and the staggering profits that vaccines have delivered to the pharmaceutical industry, the number of people who believe the mainstream media, the government, and in the vaccines, is much smaller today than three years ago.

      Conspiracy theory narratives have become conspiracy facts.

      The Endgame of Fear

      So, what’s the endgame of promoting and enforcing a climate of fear throughout society?

      It’s simple. Fearful people are far more compliant and, therefore, are easily controlled, pacified, monitored, and dehumanized. Next thing you know, we’ll all be eating bugs and liking it.

      The antidote to fear, of course, is freedom and access to real and contrary information so that each person can make up his or her own mind. The encouragement, enablement, and empowerment of private individuals to exercise informed judgment about their health and their livelihoods are also part of the solution. A vibrant, thinking, and active society of informed individuals isn’t nearly as vulnerable to the polarizing climate of fear our elites are foisting upon us.

      In short, to live in fear is to live in bondage.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 20:50

    • These Are The World's Top Diamond-Mining Countries, By Carats & Value
      These Are The World’s Top Diamond-Mining Countries, By Carats & Value

      Only 22 countries in the world engage in rough diamond production – also known as uncut, raw or natural diamonds – mining for them from deposits within their territories.

      This chart, by Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao and Sam Parker illustrates the leaders in rough diamond production by weight and value. It uses data from Kimberly Process (an international certification organization) along with estimates by Dr. Ashok Damarupurshad, a precious metals and diamond specialist in South Africa.

      ℹ️ Carat is the unit of measurement for the physical weight of diamonds. One carat equals 0.200 grams, which means it takes over 2,265 carats to equal 1 pound.

      Rough Diamond Production, By Weight

      Russia takes the top spot as the world’s largest rough diamond producer, mining close to 42 million carats in 2022, well ahead of its peers.

      Russia’s large lead over second-place Botswana (24.8 million carats) and third-ranked Canada (16.2 million carats) indicates that the country’s diamond production is circumventing sanctions due to the difficulties in tracing a diamond’s origin.

      Here’s a quick breakdown of rough diamond production in the world.

      Rank Country Rough Diamond
      Production (Carats)
      1 🇷🇺 Russia 41,923,910
      2 🇧🇼 Botswana 24,752,967
      3 🇨🇦 Canada 16,249,218
      4 🇨🇩 DRC 9,908,998
      5 🇿🇦 South Africa 9,660,233
      6 🇦🇴 Angola 8,763,309
      7 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 4,461,450
      8 🇳🇦 Namibia 2,054,227
      9 🇱🇸 Lesotho 727,737
      10 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone 688,970
      11 🇹🇿 Tanzania 375,533
      12 🇧🇷 Brazil 158,420
      13 🇬🇳 Guinea 128,771
      14 🇨🇫 Central
      African Republic      		 118,044
      15 🇬🇾 Guyana 83,382
      16 🇬🇭 Ghana 82,500
      17 🇱🇷 Liberia 52,165
      18 🇨🇮 Cote D’Ivoire 3,904
      19 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo 3,534
      20 🇨🇲 Cameroon 2,431
      21 🇻🇪 Venezuela 1,665
      22 🇲🇱 Mali 92
        Total 120,201,460

      Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated.

      As with most other resources, (oil, gold, uranium), rough diamond production is distributed unequally. The top 10 rough diamond producing countries by weight account for 99.2% of all rough diamonds mined in 2022.

      Diamond Mining, by Country

      However, higher carat mined doesn’t necessarily mean better value for the diamond. Other factors like the cut, color, and clarity also influence a diamond’s value.

      Here’s a quick breakdown of diamond production by value (USD) in 2022.

      Rank Country Rough Diamond
      Value (USD)
      1 🇧🇼 Botswana $4,975M
      2 🇷🇺 Russia $3,553M
      3 🇦🇴 Angola $1,965M
      4 🇨🇦 Canada $1,877M
      5 🇿🇦 South Africa $1,538M
      6 🇳🇦 Namibia $1,234M
      7 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe $424M
      8 🇱🇸 Lesotho $314M
      9 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone $143M
      10 🇹🇿 Tanzania $110M
      11 🇨🇩 DRC $65M
      12 🇧🇷 Brazil $30M
      13 🇱🇷 Liberia $18M
      14 🇨🇫 Central
      African Republic      		 $15M
      15 🇬🇾 Guyana $14M
      16 🇬🇳 Guinea $6M
      17 🇬🇭 Ghana $3M
      18 🇨🇲 Cameroon $0.25M
      19 🇨🇬 Republic of Congo $0.20M
      20 🇨🇮 Cote D’Ivoire $0.16M
      21 🇻🇪 Venezuela $0.10M
      22 🇲🇱 Mali $0.06M
        Total $16,290M

      Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated. Furthermore, numbers have been rounded and may not sum to the total.

      Thus, even though Botswana only produced 59% of Russia’s diamond weight in 2022, it had a trade value of nearly $5 billion, approximately 1.5 times higher than Russia’s for the same year.

      Another example is Angola, which is ranked 6th in diamond production, but 3rd in diamond value.

      Both countries (as well as South Africa, Canada, and Namibia) produce gem-quality rough diamonds versus countries like Russia and the DRC whose diamonds are produced mainly for industrial use.

      Which Regions Produce the Most Diamonds in 2022?

      Unsurprisingly, Africa is the largest rough diamond producing region, accounting for 51% of output by weight, and 66% by value.

      Rank Region Share of Rough
      Diamond Production (%)      		 Share of Rough
      Diamond Value (%)
      1 Africa 51.4% 66.4%
      2 Europe 34.9% 32.9%
      3 North America 13.5% 52.8%
      4 South America 0.2% 2.4%

      However diamond mining in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, fewer than 200 years old. Diamonds had been discovered—and prized—as far back as 2,000 years ago in India, later on spreading west to Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire.

      By the start of the 20th century, diamond production on a large scale took off: first in South Africa, and decades later in other African countries. In fact between 1889–1959, Africa produced 98% of the world’s diamonds.

      And in the latter half of the 20th century, the term blood diamond evolved from diamonds mined in African conflict zones used to finance insurgency or crime.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 20:15

    • 11 Assumptions About The Future
      11 Assumptions About The Future

      Authored by Matt Smith via InternationalMan.com,

      If you watch our podcast Doug Casey’s Take, you already know. We’re in the middle of a complex and destructive phase full of unknowns.

      Our goal with The Phyle is to focus on solutions. To make progress, we must clearly articulate the problem.

      Amidst this chaotic phase, it’s impossible to predict even the near future. The best we can do is form a hypothesis and orient our actions around it.

      Today I’m going to lay out my process and conclusions. I hope that they will be as useful to you as they have been to me.

      Assumptions

      We’ve been taught that assumptions are bad. They make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. But, that’s not always true. I developed a set of assumptions about the future to build a framework of understanding. I use that framework to identify what IS in my control and what is NOT in my control.

      The things outside our control, we can stop worrying about. They’re not up to us. Instead, our concern is what IS in our control and all our energy and resources should be dedicated there.

      Before I get to the assumptions I’m operating under. Let me say – They are assumptions not predictions. I could be wrong. Hell – I hope I’m wrong. But with nearly three years of the “Great Reset” under our belt, I bet you’ll agree – they have merit.

      None of this should be taken as a blackpill. No problem can be solved without sober identification and acceptance. of the nature of the challenge. That’s all we’re doing here.

      With that in mind, here are the 11 assumptions I’m using today to guide my actions.

      1. Less Freedom of movement. There will be more effort so to restrict and regulate our freedom of movement. From Vax passports to increased visa requirements and 15-min city initiatives – a grid is being constructed to regulate our freedom of movement.

      2. A CBDC is coming. Cash will be eliminated. How restrictive it may end up being, I don’t know. But, CBDC is a foregone conclusion. Timing? BIS publishes estimates of 14 retail CBDC and 9 wholesale by 2030. And there are indications that the major economies are working to be ready to deploy by 2025.

      3. The digital ID is already here. Biometrics are the future. If you have a government issued ID associated with your photograph, you are in the system already. How the ID is deployed and enforced is the only question.

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      4. GFC 2.0 and/or the Greater Depression. Timing is hard. But, can any thinking person imagine how the outcome can be avoided altogether. Simon Hunt suggests a market pullback of up to 30% between now and early 2024 followed by a pump and a deflationary wipeout in 2025.

      5. Most of my financial assets will disappear at some point. Inflation, bank bail-in, market wipe out, or Great Taking. I don’t know the cause, but I assume physical assets are where I need to be, ultimately.

      6. Increasing crime & disorder. You’ve seen the videos. Whether, driven by economic desperation, mass migration, the inversion of law, or in the name of social justice. Crime and disorder will grow and lead to greater physical threats to our lives and property from our fellow man. This makes urban environments, especially but not exclusively, a real risk.

      7. Supply constraints are increasing around all commodities – from food to energy. Tight supplies are showing up everywhere. Live Cattle, long dormant, hit an all-time high recently. Oil Prices are up 30% in the last three months. 40% of Argentina’s wheat crop is in poor to fair condition and protectionist policies are on the rise globally.

      8. WW3 is coming. A good case can be made that it’s already begun. The Army War College recently published a study suggesting that the All Volunteer Force had reached the end of its useful life. With the military struggling with recruiting, conscription is likely at some point.

      9. Censorship and Digital Control will enter a new phase. Deplatforming, de-banking, shadow banning, and social media account suspensions will increase. Centralized digital services of all kinds should be considered suspect and, very likely, dangerous to use in the future.

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

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      UN Chief calls “dis-information” a clear and present global threat.

      10. The US election – regardless of the outcome – is an inflection point and potentially a flash point. IF it happens, the outcome will not be accepted by half of the country. I’ve heard from more than one source, publicly and privately, that there may not be a 2024 election. Who knows? We can be sure of is that running up to and shortly after the election, things could get wild. In advance of the 2020 election we had Covid and BLM. Shortly after, J6 and state overreach. What will 2024 bring

      11. There is a war happening today. It’s a war on us. The primary battleground is within the sphere of 5GW – informational/psychological. Where I’ve been wrong in the last three years, it’s been in my assumption that kinetic coercion would be utilized. As we can see, much progress has been made in the Great Reset without the need for kinetic tactics. For most of this cycle, they will rely on this same approach. If/When we see a move toward kinetic force, we should be alarmed because we will have entered a new and more dangerous phase.

      Do you disagree with any of my assumptions? Did I miss anything? Let me know.

      I see all of the assumptions as “Out of my control”. They may not come to pass, but whether they do or not is not up to me. Of course, I’ll continue to speak out against them. If enough of us do, it may help. Possibly.

      Since these unfortunate outcomes are out of my control, I don’t worry about them. And free from the burden of unsolvable problems, I can fully devote my energy and resources to what IS within my control.

      Members of The Phyle have been doing exactly that over the last year. Much progress has been made. And there’s much more we can do. Let’s focus there.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 19:40

    • Biden Embarrassingly Reverses Plan To Defund Schools With Archery & Hunting Programs
      Biden Embarrassingly Reverses Plan To Defund Schools With Archery & Hunting Programs

      The White House told Fox News that President Biden is expected to sign legislation overturning his administration’s previous decision to defund hunter and archery programs at schools nationwide. 

      A White House spokesperson said Biden will support the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act that ensures proper funding via the Department of Education for elementary and secondary school hunting and archery programs. This comes after the anti-Second Amendment administration withheld funding for these programs earlier this year. 

      Last week, the US Congress unanimously passed The Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act. 

      The bipartisan legislation passed unanimously in the Senate on Wednesday evening and passed the House in a 424-1 vote one night prior. The bill had been championed by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who said a 2022 gun control law had been misinterpreted by the administration to restrict students’ access to enrichment programs like hunting safety, archery and even culinary classes. -Fox News

      “The bill had been championed by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who said a 2022 gun control law had been misinterpreted by the administration to restrict students’ access to enrichment programs like hunting safety, archery and even culinary classes,” Fox News noted. 

      … we’re sure the administration “misinterpreted” the gun control law as these anti-gunners wage war on law-abiding/tax-paying gun owners while only emboldening criminals through disastrous social justice reforms that have triggered a crime tsunami across failed progressive metro areas nationwide. 

      “Thankfully, President Biden saw the political writing on the wall after getting humiliated by an overwhelming vote of disapproval in the House. So, he has announced that he will sign this bill into law. But we all know that the embarrassing vote in the House could have been easily avoided if he simply wasn’t so hellbent on attacking guns and our heritage everywhere he possibly can. Gun Owners of America is proud to have played a role in ensuring our children can continue to participate in the quality hunter education and shooting sports programs that they very much enjoy,” Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, told us. 

      Remember, GOA was one of the first to bring to light the Biden administration’s reckless war on firearms that targeted archery and shooting sports in K-12 schools (read: Biden Targets Schools: Pulls Plug On Archery & Hunting Programs). 

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      Children have become responsible hunters and firearm owners through these programs that have existed for decades. Hunting and archery programs will continue to be a permanent fixture at schools. 

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 19:05

    • Is The US Military Laying The Groundwork To Reinstitute The Draft?
      Is The US Military Laying The Groundwork To Reinstitute The Draft?

      Authored by Zachary Yost via The Mises Institute,

      The most recent edition of the US Army War College’s academic journal includes a highly disturbing essay on what lessons the US military should take away from the continuing war in Ukraine.

      By far the most concerning and most relevant section for the average American citizen is a subsection entitled “Casualties, Replacements, and Reconstitutions” which, to cut right to the chase, directly states, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”

      An Industrial War of Attrition Would Require Vast Numbers of Troops

      The context for this supposed need to reinstate conscription is the estimate that were the US to enter into a large-scale conflict, every day it would likely suffer thirty-six hundred casualties and require eight hundred replacements, again per day. The report notes that over the course of twenty years in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US suffered fifty thousand casualties, a number which would likely be reached in merely two weeks of large-scale intensive combat.

      The military is already facing an enormous recruiting shortfall. Last year the army alone fell short of its goal by fifteen thousand soldiers and is on track to be short an additional twenty thousand this year. On top of that, the report notes that the Individual Ready Reserve, which is composed of former service personnel who do not actively train and drill but may be called back into active service in the event they are needed, has dropped from seven hundred thousand in 1973 to seventy-six thousand now.

      Prior to the Ukraine war, the fad theory in military planning was the idea of “hybrid warfare,” where the idea of giant state armies clashing on the battlefield requiring and consuming vast amounts of men and material was viewed as out of date as massed cavalry charges. Instead, these theorists argued that even when states did fight, it would be via proxies and special operations and would look more like the past twenty years of battling nonstate actors in the hills of Afghanistan. In a recent essay in the Journal of Security Studies, realist scholar Patrick Porter documents the rise of this theory and the fact that it is obviously garbage given the return of industrial wars of attrition.

      As military planners have woken up from the fevered dream of imagining that modern war consisted of chasing the Taliban through the hills with complete and overwhelming airpower, they have similarly started to wake up to the idea that industrial war has vast manpower requirements and that seemingly the only way to fill these requirements is by forcing young people into the ranks. That has certainly been the only way Ukraine has been able to maintain its forces, although it has required increasingly draconian measures to do so as conscripts face attrition rates of 80 to 90 percent by Ukraine’s own admission.

      Obviously, the reintroduction of conscription is an extremely disturbing prospect given America’s propensity for getting involved in meaningless wars that accomplish nothing other than empowering our enemies, killing and maiming our soldiers, and wasting vast resources.

      This is especially true given the unstated assumptions implicit in this paper. Who is the enemy that would be inflicting thirty-six hundred casualties a day? A war in the Pacific against China would primarily be a naval and airpower war with an extremely limited role for the army (even the current inept regime seems unlikely to be stupid enough to try and wage a land war against China) which obviously leaves Russia as the main adversary that would require the US Army to round up conscripts to feed into the attritional meat grinder.

      There Is No American National Interest That Requires a Standing Army

      However, while these manpower shortages may be a valid concern for someplace like Russia, Ukraine, or Poland, we here in the US are quite fortunate that we have no compelling national interest that would require us to engage in an industrial war of attrition in Eastern Europe.

      To the extent we are at risk of becoming involved in such a disastrous mess, it is entirely of our own doing via the entangling alliance known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and our leader’s own messianic gnostic crusades for democracy or whatever pseudo religious ideology is presently in vogue.

      The US is blessed as being the most secure power in history. We are the hegemon of the western hemisphere, with vast moats in the form of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that no other state has the capability to project military force across, and all our neighbors are weak and relatively friendly. We are not at any risk of being forced to fight an industrial land war on the home front. Any war the army would be used in would be as an expeditionary force fighting in the eastern hemisphere, where we have no compelling defensive need to do so.

      From the beginning of the US, there have been warnings against the dangers of both entangling alliances and standing armies. The best solution to the military recruitment crisis is to simply abolish the standing army and not plan to wage a costly and pointless war on the other side of the planet that would result in trillions of dollars down the drain and who knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans being killed, maimed, and psychologically scarred.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 18:30

    • "More Deceit": Gaetz Rages Over McCarthy-Ukraine Side Deal To Pass Stopgap
      “More Deceit”: Gaetz Rages Over McCarthy-Ukraine Side Deal To Pass Stopgap

      Update (2155ET): Following the Senate’s passage of the Continuing Resolution, Rep. Matt Gaetz took to Twitter, where he was enraged over a side deal made between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Democrats for Ukraine funding, which Gaetz says he “didn’t tell House Republicans” about until after the vote. 

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      Gaetz was responding to Punchbowl News‘ Jake Sherman, who related a message from House Democratic leadership.

      “When the House returns, we expect Speaker McCarthy to advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote that supports Ukraine, consistent with his commitment to making sure that Vladimir Putin, Russia and authoritarianism are defeated. We must stand with the Ukrainian people until victory is won.”

      Nine Senate Republicans voted against the bill; Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and J.D Vance (R-Ohio).

      *  *  *

      Update (2109ET):  The Senate has voted 88-9 to pass the House’s Continuing Resolution stopgap funding bill, which stripped out funds for Ukraine, includes $16 billion for disaster relief, and will keep the US government running for another 45 days.

      Among the Senate “Yea” votes was Michael Bennet (D-CO), who was absolutely flipping his lid over the lack of Ukraine funding earlier in the day.

      The bill, which passed the House earlier in the day by a bipartisan vote of 335-91, was passed with just three hours to go before a shutdown.

      Just before the vote, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed to keep fighting for more US taxpayer dollars for Ukraine, saying that he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have “agreed to continue fighting for more economic and security aid for Ukraine.”

      “We support Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereignty against Putin’s aggression,” said Schumer – to which McConnell said he’s “confident” that the Senate can pass more “urgent assistance to Ukraine later this year. But let’s be clear,” that the “alternative,” a shutdown, “would not just pause our progress on these important priorities, it would actually set them back.”

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      *  *  *

      Update (1755ET): After an afternoon of theatrics from Rep. Jamal Bowman (D-NY), it appears that the stopgap legislation to keep the government running through November 17 will now pass at the 11th hour.

      According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill to keep the government funded past 12:01 Sunday includes $16 billion in disaster relief, but does not include Ukraine funds.

      The House voted 335-91 for the funding measure, which includes $16 billion in disaster relief but omits aid for Ukraine. It also excludes border-security measures sought by Republicans. The margin exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to clear the bill through the House, which considered the legislation under special procedures requiring a supermajority of votes. All but one Democrat voted in favor of the measure, while nearly half of Republicans voted against it. -WSJ

      While White House officials say President Biden supports the measure, the Senate has reportedly been lax in quickly taking up the measure late Saturday, raising the possibility of further malarkey.

      Developing…

      *  *  *

      (Update 1655ET): So let’s get this straight. In the home stretch of negotiations over the House’s GOP stopgap bill – while Democrats were actively trying to stall the vote so they could actually read it – a widely reported phenomenon, Rep. Jamal Bowman (D-NY) pulls the fire extinguisher.

      His excuse is that he wasn’t actually trying to stall the the vote, and that he’s essentially an idiot…

      “Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote. The Congressman regrets any confusion,” said a spokesperson.

      Yes. Because this happens all the time.

      MSNBC breathlessly repeats the Simple Jack defense.

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      House Speaker Kevin McCarthy capitalized on the incident, comparing Bowman to a January 6th insurrectionist.

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      As we noted below… Bowman used to be a public school principal before he was elected to Congress, who rallied against standardized testing, at a private school he founded that has a 27% literacy rate, so… maybe?

      Then again, he would be no stranger to fire drills, no?

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      *  *  *

      House before the House finally approved a ‘clean’ stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown (which has since been sent to the Senate for consideration before the midnight funding deadline), Socialist Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was caught pulling the fire alarm in a House office building Saturday in order to try and delay a vote on ta House GOP stopgap spending bill.

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      The incident in the Cannon Building was caught on camera and confirmed by several witnesses, Politico reports.

      “This is the United States Congress, not a New York City high school. To pull the fire alarm to disrupt proceedings when we are trying to draft legislation to AVERT A SHUTDOWN is pathetic…even for members of the socialist squad,” Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

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      “Rep Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm in Cannon this morning,” House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil wrote on X. “An investigation into why it was pulled is underway.”

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      According to Bowman spox Emma Simon, “Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote. The Congressman regrets any confusion.”

      In other words, he’s claiming to be too stupid to have known what he did – and don’t believe your lying eyes!

      Granted, Bowman used to be a public school principal before he was elected to Congress, who rallied against standardized testing, at a private school he founded that has a 27% literacy rate, so…

      Needless to say, the memes are already flying.

      .

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      Meanwhile, the House cleared the ‘clean’ stopgap bill without funding for Ukraine or the border, by a vote of 335-91. One Democrat and 90 Republicans voted against the measure.

      *  *  *

      Update: (1335ET): With a government shutdown just hours away, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has turned to Democrats for help passing a temporary bill, after House Freedom Caucus members dug their heels in over no funds for Ukraine.

      “What I am asking, Republicans and Democrats alike, put your partisanship away,” said McCarthy. “Focus on the American public.”

      McCarthy needs a two-thirds majority to pass their Continuing Resolution (CR), which would require a significant number of Democrats – who have strongly supported more Ukraine aid – to cross the aisle.

      The House GOP bill would be a ‘clean’ Continuing Resolution, which won’t include Ukraine funding or border assistance.

      “We will put a clean funding stopgap on the floor to keep government open for 45 days for the House and Senate to get their work done,” said McCarthy following a meeting. “We will also, knowing what had transpired through the summer, the disasters in Florida, the horrendous fire in Hawaii, and also the disasters in California and Vermont. We will put the supplemental portion that the president asked for in disaster there too.”

      “Keeping the government open while we continue to do our work to end the wasteful spending and the wokeism and most important, secure our border,” McCarthy said.

      If the bill does not pass, Republicans plan to bring up several measures to mitigate the effects of a government shutdown, multiple members said. 

      Those include bills to continue paying service members and extending authorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Flood Insurance Program, both of which are also set to expire at midnight unless Congress takes action. Republicans are also examining measures to continue pay for border patrol agents. –The Hill

      The Democrats, meanwhile, have been using parliamentary tactics to slow down the vote so they can more carefully read the GOP proposal.

      Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of the key holdouts in the House, called McCarthy’s bipartisan appeal “disappointing,” and said that McCarthy’s speakership is “on tenuous ground.”

      When asked what his next move will be, Gaetz said “I guess we’ll have to see how the vote goes.”

      What’s next?

      According to Goldman, there’s a 90% probability of a shutdown before the Oct. 1 deadline.

      That said, there will be three upcoming catalysts in the next few weeks that may result in passage.

      1) All members of the US military are due to be paid on Oct. 13, and a missed pay date would have serious political ramifications; there is a good chance the House will vote to reopen before or shortly after that date; 

      2) A few House Republicans have said they might bring a “motion to vacate” that would remove McCarthy as Speaker unless a majority of the House supports him. Whatever the outcome of such a vote, getting past it could set the stage for a reopening; 

      3) There are procedural moves (a “discharge petition” is the most frequently discussed) that Democrats can make to pass an extension of spending authority in the House over Speaker McCarthy’s objections. However, this would require support from at least 5 House Republicans (assuming that all Democrats sign on). This will not help avoid a shutdown, but could come into play over the next two weeks, as political pressure to reopen grows (particularly when combined with the first point on military pay). 

      In light of the above, Goldman doesn’t expect this to last more than 2-3 weeks, and that the Oct. 13 military pay date will become a focal point in the timeline.

      *  *  *

      Update (2157ET): It looks like the Senate isn’t willing to strip Ukraine funds from the continuing resolution. In a Friday night tweet, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said that the “misguided Senate bill has no path forward and is dead on arrival.”

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      Meanwhile, according to Punchbowl News‘ Jake Sherman and Josh Bresnahan, McCarthy is floating a CR that would last until Nov. 17 at FY2023 funding levels, which would not include border funds or Ukraine funding.

      *  *  *

      In an 11th hour Hail Mary in the hopes of averting a government shutdown, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced that the only way the House will pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through October is to drop Ukraine funding.

      “I think if we had a clean one without Ukraine on it, we could probably be able to move that through,” McCarthy told CNN‘s Manu Raju.

      The comment comes hours after McCarthy lost a game of chicken with the House Freedom Caucus, failing to pass a CR which left McCarthy will few options to try and avert a shutdown in less than 36 hours. McCarthy was hoping that the House bill’s border security provisions would win over enough holdouts to pass.

      Meanwhile, the White House slammed the failed bill over the ‘elimination of 12,000 FBI agents,’ and ‘almost 1,000 ATF agents.’

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      Of note, House Republicans on Thursday narrowly passed the annual defense spending bill, but only after they removed $300 million in Ukraine aid from the legislation (which then cleared in a separate vote because a bunch of Democrats then voted).

      Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who failed twice last week to advance the bill to the floor, finally locked down enough Republican votes to pass the bill after the House stripped $300 million to arm Ukraine from the text.

      The separate bill carved out to allocate those funds for Kyiv passed Thursday in a 311-117 blowout bipartisan vote. Republicans had won a close procedural vote earlier in the day to separate the Ukraine money from the Pentagon bill, a move meant to flip a handful of GOP holdouts. –Politico

      Democrats framed the optics as Kremlin-friendly, with House Armed Services ranking Democrat Adam Smith saying “The Russians are good at propaganda… It will be played as America backing off of its commitment for Ukraine.”

      Republicans responded that by carving Ukraine out of the defense bill, it allows opponents of either measure (Ukraine aid or the defense bill) to voice their opinions on each independently.

      “Why don’t we make sure this gets through? I mean, I’m just mystified that this is somehow a problem,” said House Rules Chair Tom Cole (R-OK), according to Politico. “We guarantee you something you want is going to pass the House and you’re upset about it.”

      And now, McCarthy says there’s no way to avert a government shutdown unless the House, and the Senate, agree to nix Ukraine aid from the 30-day stopgap.

      Fire and Brimstone…

      On Friday, White House top economic adviser Lael Brainard said that a shutdown would pose an “unnecessary risk” to what he described as a resilient economy with moderating inflation.

      Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen then chimed in, warning that all of Bidenomics could be negatively impacted.

      “The failure of House Republicans to act responsibly would hurt American families and cause economic headwinds that could undermine the progress we’re making,” Yellen said from Port of Savannah, Georgia, adding “A shutdown would impact many key government functions from loans to farmers and small businesses, to food and workplace safety inspections, to Head Start programs for children.

      “And it could delay major infrastructure improvements.”

      Goldman has predicted that a shutdown will last 2-3 weeks, and that a ‘quick reopening looks unlikely as political positions become more deeply entrenched.’ Instead, as political pressure to reopen the government builds, pay dates for active-duty military (Oct. 13 and Nov. 1) will become key dates to pay attention to.

      In addition, they think a shutdown could subtract 0.2pp from Q4 GDP growth for each week it lasts (adding the same to 1Q2024, assuming it’s over by then).

      What’s more, all data releases from federal agencies would be postponed until after the government reopens.

      More via Goldman:

      What are the odds the government shuts down?

      A shutdown this year has looked likely for several months, and we now think the odds have risen to 90%. The most likely scenario in our view is that funding will lapse after Sep. 30, leading to a shutdown starting Oct. 1. That said, a short-term extension cannot be entirely ruled out. In the event that Congress avoids a shutdown starting Oct. 1, we would still expect a shutdown at some point later in Q4.

      While there is likely sufficient support in both chambers of Congress to pass a short-term extension of funding—this is known as a “continuing resolution” (CR)—that is “clean” with no other provisions attached, the majority of that support would come from Democrats. The Senate is considering a CR that includes aid for disaster relief and Ukraine. House Republican leaders are under political pressure to pass a CR that includes Republican policy priorities that can pass with mainly or exclusively Republican support. At the moment, neither chamber looks likely to pass the other chamber’s CR.

      The outlook seemed bleak ahead of the debt limit deadline earlier this year, but Congress resolved it in time; why shouldn’t we expect a last-minute deal once again?

      The smaller economic hit from a shutdown puts less pressure on Republican leaders to override the objections of some in their party to reach a deal. Ahead of the debt limit deadline earlier this year, Republican leaders reached a deal over the objections of some in their party because the potential hit to the economy from an impasse would have been unpredictable and severe, and even lawmakers most strongly opposed to a compromise agreed that the debt limit must be raised. By contrast, the economic hit from a shutdown would be smaller and more predictable, as there have already been two protracted shutdowns over the last decade. While most lawmakers on both sides of the aisle would prefer to avoid a shutdown, both sides appear more willing to take the chance it occurs.

      *  *  *

      Stay tuned…

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 17:57

    • Hunter Biden's Daughter Was Living In White House While Representing Peruvian Government
      Hunter Biden’s Daughter Was Living In White House While Representing Peruvian Government

      The Biden family may have some more explaining to do over their international affairs, after the NY Post reports that Naomi Biden (Hunter’s eldest daughter, not the grandchild Joe Biden mouth-kissed during the 2020 election), was living in the White House while representing the government of Peru in a legal case.

      According to a review of public records, the 29-year-old has been working for DC-based law firm Arnold & Porter since January 2021, the same month her grandfather was sworn in as the 46th US president, after interning for the firm in 2019.

      In September 2021, Naomi appeared in a legal filing disclosing her involvement in a case brought by Worth Capital Holdings 27, LLC, a Delaware firm which claimed that the country was interfering in the operation of their oil refinery located in the southern Amazon. Worth has sought $590 million in damages.

      Of note, Arnold & Porter specializes in foreign litigation, and has defended dozens of sovereign states – including Venezuela, Bulgaria and Hungary. Interestingly, the Post notes that Naomi doesn’t have a public page on the firm’s website, unlike other firm attorneys.

      Which begs the question, particularly in light of questions over the entire Biden family’s foreign dealings, should Naomi have registered under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act)? That would of course depend on the circumstances and extent of her work.

      “Everywhere we look it seems there are major conflicts of interest in which the Biden family leveraged their name, access, and patriarch’s power to benefit personal business dealings. All of this must continue to be investigated and exposed – perhaps Biden’s granddaughter should be the next person to come before the Oversight Committee,”

      In November 2022, Naomi Biden married another up-and-coming attorney, Peter Neal, at a ceremony at the White House.

      The Biden granddaughter lived at the first residence from August 2022 to March 2023. A rep for Naomi Biden insisted she only worked on the case for “three weeks” in September 2021 — and not while living at the White House.  -NY Post

      “Naomi Biden’s international arbitration work doesn’t include matters involving the United States government — she is a junior lawyer and a member of international arbitration teams involving private sector plaintiffs. She doesn’t discuss confidential client work with anyone inside or outside the White House,” a spokesman for Arnold & Porter told The Post, while the law firm wouldn’t say if Naomi had represented any other foreign nations since joining.

      The Post also notes that Naomi had quite the nice ride to the elite law firm – having attended the capital’s elite Sidwell Friends School in the summer of 2011 while Joe Biden was Vice President. She then worked as an aide for then-Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

      More recently, Naomi was pictured and videotaped posing with Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky, and having a conversation with his daughter, Karina Zlochevsky.

      “She is very excited to join us. Maybe we can find her a job now that she’s graduating college,” Hunter Biden wrote to Burisma CFO, Vadym Pozharsky, according to emails from his abandoned laptop, the Post further reports.

      What a small world!

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 17:55

    • What Is The Top Priority Or Number One Concern Of Most Americans?
      What Is The Top Priority Or Number One Concern Of Most Americans?

      Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

      Think about the headline question at a personal level and also how you think the average person might answer.

      Image from YouTube video below.

      In answer to my lead question, I would expect a huge variety of opinions including but not limited to: Inflation, putting food on the table, rent, student loans, US debt, rising deficits, Social Security running out of money, broken political system, care of a sick or dying loved one, climate change, Trump, Biden, gas prices, crime, education, employment, unaffordable housing, saving for retirement, the UAW strike, auto repairs, home repairs, the cost of an auto, lack of saving, finding a job after college, credit card debt, and gasoline prices.

      That’s over 20 legitimate concerns off the top of my head. Assistance to Ukraine as the #1 top priority is one thing that would not have crossed my mind until I saw this Tweet.

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      Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says “Providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans“.

      Would assistance to Ukraine be your number one priority? Top 10? Top 20? On your list at all?

      Q: Are politicians that seriously out of touch with what people’s concerns are?

      A: Of course they are.

      It’s not just McConnell, or Republicans, or Democrats. It’s the whole stinking collective lot of them.

      They all make decisions based on their priorities, not yours, often based on which donors are giving them the most money for their election campaigns.

      CBO Debt to GDP Estimates

      Debt-to-GDP image from the Congressional Budget Office, annotations by Mish.

      Debt to GDP Alarm Bells Ring, Neither Party Will Solve This

      On September 7, I commented Debt to GDP Alarm Bells Ring, Neither Party Will Solve This

      US Debt held by the public is soaring out of sight. It’s even worse than it looks for reasons I explain.

      Yet, despite deficit spending and the national debt being enormous problems, I wonder how they would rate in a national poll.

      The last concern of those struggling to put food on the table, pay rent, take care of elderly parents, pay down credit card or student debt, or pay the bills in general, is sending $100 billion and counting to Ukraine.

      No One Will Fix This

      Compromise is always more spending for this in return for more spending on that.

      Bnd both parties want to spend more on the military.

      “Neither party will fix the deficits. Neither party will do anything about mounting debt. No one will do anything about anything because the political system is totally broken.” Mish

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 17:20

    • Victor Davis Hanson Blasts "The Most Politicalized & Weaponized 4-Star Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Ever"
      Victor Davis Hanson Blasts “The Most Politicalized & Weaponized 4-Star Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Ever”

      Via American Greatness,

      Victor Davis Hanson criticized Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, for Milley’s retirement speech in which he blasts “Trump without mentioning Trump.”

      “As Gen. Milley leaves office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on his last day he goes out ranting about his loyalty to the Constitution and not  to a ‘dictator’ – blasting Trump without mentioning Trump, and thus trumping as it were Trump’s own excesses with those of his own,” Hanson posted on X.

      “So transits the most politicalized and weaponized 4-star Joint Chiefs of Staff since the office was created.”

      “Would that instead Milley had at least explained the 2021 historically disastrous flight from Kabul and defeat in Afghanistan, or the radical implementation of woke agendas into the Pentagon retention and promotion policies, or why he felt the illustrious and renown Professor Kendi, of current Boston University ‘Center for Antiracist Research’ infamy, should be required reading for the U.S. military at time when its recruitment is descending into historical lows and its deterrent reputation is seriously questioned,” posted Hanson.

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      In his speech at a Friday ceremony honoring his retirement, Milley said:

      “We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or dictator. We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution.”

      So what about Milley’s own “constitutional” legacy? Victor Davis Hanson asks:

      “Is it that an officer who deems his civilian President and Commander in Chief dangerous – as diagnosed by 4-star psychiatrist, state department diplomat, and now theater commander Milley – has a right to commandeer the chain of command, usurp powers that are expressly by law denied to him, and then take it on himself in a time of Chinese-American tensions to freelance, by contacting his communist counterpart to warn him about his own president’s diagnosed volatility,  and to reassure the hardened Stalinist that Dr/Gen. Milley will inform him first of any precipitate action from the White House.”

      Dictatorial much?

      Hanson suggests Americans ask the departing Milley, two questions:

      1) if Trump is reelected in 2024, will a retired General Milley, as did his retired 4-star colleagues in 2020, violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and repeat his current charges against a second-term President Trump – matching the previous invective of his colleagues’ accusations of “liar”  or “Mussolini”?.

      And

      2) what would Milley have done had a subordinate like himself, say a 3-star general, decided that Gen. Mark Milley’s Beijing gambit and his arrogation of command powers that were not legally his own, posed a grave threat to the republic? And thus would such a 3-star call up theater commanders to warn them to resist Milley’s reckless orders and to report to him first, followed by his  phone call to the top Chinese PLA general to assure them that if Milley somehow gave an order deemed by the 3-star to be dangerously provocative, then he would not only not obey it but rather first warn the Chinese military of Milley’s unstable state of mind.

      Is that the kind of military Milley wishes to leave as his legacy, as he departs barking accusations at the moon?

      *  *  *

      In addition to being an American Greatness columnist, Hanson is a renowned American military historian, columnist, former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illy Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Hanson has authored several books, including “The Second World Wars,” “The Case for Trump,” and the recently released “The Dying Citizen.” His insights and analyses on political and historical matters are widely respected and sought after in academic and media circles.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 16:10

    • Wheat Prices Record Most Consecutive Quarterly Declines Since GFC Meltdown 
      Wheat Prices Record Most Consecutive Quarterly Declines Since GFC Meltdown 

      Russia’s second consecutive bumper wheat harvest has cemented it as the top producer of the grain, with the surplus leading to a three-year low in prices, overshadowing any concerns about tensions in the Black Sea between Ukraine and Russia. As the quarter ends on Friday, wheat prices are on track to record the longest quarterly slump in 14 years. While this development is favorable for consumers, traders must closely watch prices. 

      Bloomberg reports wheat futures in Chicago have tumbled about 11% in the past three months and are set for the fourth quarterly decline. Even though Russia terminated a safe-passage deal in July that allowed bulk carriers to export Ukraine’s grain via the Black Sea to the rest of the world, prices have remained under pressure – mainly because Russia has had a record bumper harvest. 

      “What the events around the start of the Ukraine conflict showed is that in this day and age, the world, by and large, has a way of getting grain to the people who need it,” said Michael Whitehead, the head of agribusiness insights at ANZ Group Holdings Ltd. He continued, “This may be the new, low price level for wheat.”

      Bloomberg recently noted last year’s invasion of Ukraine, which “hobbled Ukraine’s food exports, helping cement Russia’s domination of the global wheat market. That’s reflected in record Russian shipments, as the nation’s traders overcome the financing and logistical challenges some faced in the aftermath of the invasion.”

      “We have seen wheat prices substantially decline basically as a result of Russia,” said Michael Magdovitz, senior commodity analyst at Rabobank.

      However, the Financial Times pointed out some “analysts warn that prices could rapidly rise if the war spills out across the Black Sea. Russia’s Black Sea ports handle about 70 percent of its wheat exports, making it a crucial artery for the global supply of grain.” These low prices could be a potential entry point for traders looking for an area of value. 

      The slide in wheat prices coincides with the UN’s global food price index, hitting lows not seen since the early days of the invasion. 

      This is a welcoming sign not just for inflation trends but also for consumers worldwide. 

      However, there are risks, as Morgan Stanley warned clients: El Nino could spark another “inflation shock.” 

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 15:35

    • Arab Gulf State Demands Israel's Shadowy Nuclear Weapons Program Be Subject To IAEA Safeguards
      Arab Gulf State Demands Israel’s Shadowy Nuclear Weapons Program Be Subject To IAEA Safeguards

      Via The Cradle,

      Qatar has called for intensifying international efforts to subject all Israeli nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

      The demand was put forward on Friday by the Chairman of Qatar’s National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons, Abdulaziz Salmeen al-Jabri, at the annual general conference of the IAEA currently underway in Vienna.

      Image source: US Department of Defense

      Jabri stressed these were legitimate demands that had been confirmed by “international legitimacy resolutions [that were passed] half a century ago,” including “resolutions of the UN General Assembly [that have been passed] since 1974, [United Nations] Security Council Resolutions 487 of 1981 and 687 of 1991, numerous IAEA resolutions, and the resolution of the Review Conference of the Middle East Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995.”

      He also said that bringing the Israeli nuclear program under international safeguards “is a prerequisite for establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in [West Asia].”

      “Confronting nuclear proliferation in [West Asia] is at the core of the tasks assigned to the IAEA,” he stressed.

      Estimates of Israel’s nuclear stockpile range between 80 and 400 warheads, which can be delivered via aircraft, submarine-launched cruise missiles, and the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.

      Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967, making it the sixth country in the world to have developed them.

      Israel has never openly tested its nuclear weapons nor signed the NPT, making it the world’s only unacknowledged nuclear power.

      “The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran,” the late former US state secretary Colin Powell wrote in a 2015 leaked email to business partner and democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds just months before Washington sealed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran – also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

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

      While Israel and its vast nuclear arsenal have never been subjected to IAEA oversight, over a quarter of the 2,000 inspections carried out worldwide by IAEA in the past three years were conducted in Iran.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 15:00

    • Satanic Pedophile Extortion Cult Uncovered By FBI After NY Arrest
      Satanic Pedophile Extortion Cult Uncovered By FBI After NY Arrest

      A November 2021 arrest in Queens, New York led to the discovery of a satanic cult of pedophile extortionists known as 764, which has been linked to significant criminal activity around the globe. The organization, which goes byseveral aliases, was uncovered by the FBI while investigating alarming posts on social media made by 23-year-old Angel Almeida of Astoria, Queens, The Guardian reports.

      Prosecutors allege Almeida convinced a girl to cut herself, record the act on camera and send it to him. Photograph: Department of Justice

      Almeida was flagged to the FBI by an anonymous tipster who was concerned over his social media accounts, which contained images of violence against children and animals. In one post, he expressed support for Charleston mass-murderer Dylann Roof. Another post showed him talking around with a shotgun while wearing a “a skull mask and crossed bandoliers of rifle ammunition across his chest with a flag in the background featuring an Order of Nine Angles symbol.”

      Almeida served 18 months in prison for third degree burglary in 2018, and was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was detained in Brooklyn’s metropolitan detention center. In February 2023, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment on child pornography and exploitation charges related to his involvement in the cult, as well as hundreds of thousands of digital files recovered from his residence.

      In new charges, Almeida is accused of coercing a teenage girl into having sex with an older man, and convincing another girl to cut herself on camera and send it to him.

      In one post, Almeida posts “For the 2k pedophile haters,” showing his finger over the trigger guard of a Taurus handgun.

      When the FBI searched his New York apartment, they found a 9mm handgun, ammunition, books pertaining to the Order of Nine Angles (a satanic occultist group). They also found a flag with the insignia of a US -9A offshoot, the Tempel ov Blood, according to a November 2021 detention memorandum.

      The most telling item was an O9A “blood covenant” featuring a blood-smeared drawing of a hooded figure with glowing red eyes surrounded with sigils for four O9A deities and the caption Vindex, Nythra, Satan and Abatu. At the bottom of the page is an oath: “A covenant signed in blood. May the DEVIL walk with you always – SATANAE MANIBUS” (“by Satan’s Hand” in Latin). Similar indicia have been found in possession of O9A-influenced killers in Britain and Canada. -The Guardian

      According to the agency, the group is “deliberately targeting minor victims on publicly available messaging platforms to extort them into recording or livestreaming acts of self-harm and producing child sexual abuse material.“

      Using manipulative tactics, the gang operated on several platforms, including Roblox, Discord, Twitch and SoundCloud – but the group’s main platform has been Telegram.

      764 uses “threats, blackmail and manipulation” to convince underage victims to record videos showing acts of self-harm, animal cruelty, sexual acts and even suicide. The footage is then circulated among members, who then further exert control over the victims. Members share “gore” videos depicting all sorts of horrific acts, in order “to gain notoriety and rise in status within their group.”

      Documents and sources familiar with 764 indicate the group is an offshoot of the Order of Nine Angles (O9A), a violent, subversive amalgam of esoteric Hitler worship, Satanism and Wiccan tenets that American authorities recognize as a terrorist ideology and that has been connected with murders and attempted terrorist attacks in countries including the US, Britain, Germany, Canada and Russia. -The Guardian

      In one case, a German teenager allegedly connected to the group was accused of murdering his foster family in Romania, according to Der Spiegel and Libertatea.

      Several books connected to satanism were also recovered.

      The Stain Account

      According to the detention memorandum:

      Law enforcement also reviewed the publicly accessible portions of an Instagram profile with the name “Stain_Lord_352” (the “Stain Account”). That review revealed that Almeida acknowledged that the account belonged to him, admitted to owning and took pictures with a firearm, posted pictures depicting violence against animals, and threatened violence against police if they attempted to apprehend him. For example, on or about November 2, 2021, Almeida posted on the Stain Lord Account a photograph of a masked individual holding a firearm with the same mask and Order of Nine Angles flag depicted in photographs on the Sargent Account, which also appears to be the same mask that Almeida purchased from Amazon in June 2021 and had shipped to his residence.

      Hardcore Kiddie Fiddler

      In November 2021, Almeida posted a photograph of an individual in front of a Nazi flag while wearing a shirt that reads “Kiddie Fiddler,” and standing in front of a sign that rads “I’M ADDICTED TO HARDCORE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.”

      Earlier this month, Almeida was deemed fit for trial despite repeated violent behavior in the courtroom – including attempts to attack a DOJ staffer as well as his own court-appointed counsel, his fourth attorney since his 2021 arrest. His trial is currently scheduled for December 4. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 14:25

    • Time To End The Fed And Its Mismanagement Of Our Economy
      Time To End The Fed And Its Mismanagement Of Our Economy

      Authored by EJ Antoni and Peter St.Onge via The Epoch Times,

      Every major economic downturn of the last 110 years bears the mark of the Federal Reserve.

      In fact, as long as the Fed has been around, it has swung the economy between inflation and recession. Yet Americans, surprisingly, have tolerated it.

      But we shouldn’t expect that to go on forever. We had three central banks before the Fed, and confined each to the ash heap of history. The problems inherent to central banking are cause to scrap the Fed as well.

      Central banking dates to 1694, when the Bank of England was founded for the purpose of creating the hidden tax of inflation to provide cheap money to government—above all, for Britain’s many foreign wars. In exchange, the central bankers were paid well with interest.

      Like any government-favored bank, the Bank of England lent money it didn’t have, lending far more than the silver in its vaults. The British government endorsed this fraud because the king and Parliament wanted the money.

      But the fraud went further still: The Bank of England was allowed to use its new government bond holdings to back private loans, which meant creating even more money with no silver behind it to lend to private banks. This, too, earned interest, even though the money was created out of nothing.

      The explosion of money caused a tissue fire in the British economy—a short period of fast growth followed by rampant inflation and an economic collapse. The boom-bust cycle was born, what we now call the “business cycle.”

      When the Bank of England didn’t have enough silver to exchange for all the money it created, the British government pulled the 18th-century equivalent of a bailout by suspending specie redemption, allowing the Bank of England to stop repaying in the silver it had promised.

      Central banking was imported to the New World before the Constitution was even written. The Bank of North America, our first central bank, copied the Bank of England and created hyperinflation under the Articles of Confederation. At that point, the Founding Fathers scrapped both the Articles of Confederation and the bank.

      Thinking that the bank needed a replacement, Congress created the First Bank of the United States in 1791 to consolidate the various currencies and debts from the states and to provide short-term loans to the government.

      The First Bank was forbidden from buying government bonds to avoid its predecessor’s hyperinflation. But when the government needed more revenue, Congress decided to sell its shares in the bank, and the charter wasn’t renewed. The central bank was dead, and the U.S. economy boomed until the War of 1812.

      To finance that war, the government borrowed heavily from regional banks, which created money out of nothing for the government. That meant that much more paper money was in circulation than gold and silver in bank vaults. When people tried to redeem their paper for specie, the banks didn’t have enough, and many failed.

      To bail out the banks, Congress created another central bank in 1816, the Second Bank of the United States.

      The Second Bank curtailed excessive lending by regional banks, but only after first encouraging it. The result was a debt-fueled boom followed by a bust in 1819 that sparked the nation’s first depression.

      Many in Congress were tolerant of the violent economic spasms caused by the central bank because it provided money for them to spend without overtly raising taxes. But the people were not fooled and would not tolerate it. They elected Andrew Jackson to do battle with the beast, and he ensured the bank’s charter wasn’t renewed in 1836.

      That ushered in some of America’s greatest decades of economic growth.

      The Golden Age came to an end in 1907 when mismanagement by major banks touched off a bank crisis that required a herculean rescue effort by J.P. Morgan and Co. In response, J. Pierpont Morgan wanted the government to sanction a private “bank for bankers” to respond to such crises.

      The progressives in Congress refused because, as Sen. Nelson Aldrich (R-R.I.) said, “We may not always have Pierpont Morgan with us to meet a banking crisis.” And so, shortly after Morgan’s death in 1913, the politicians created a fully government-run institution to bail out government and bad banks alike: the Federal Reserve.

      The boom-bust cycle was on steroids from that moment on.

      The Fed ominously began with an inflationary boom to pay for World War I, ending in the depression of 1920. It created another inflationary boom to keep Britain afloat in the late 1920s, which set off the Great Depression. Every five to 10 years for the last century, the Fed has created, then popped, bubble after bubble, each time taking down swatches of the American economy.

      Just in the past three decades, the Fed’s low interest rates caused the dot-com bubble in the 1990s, then the housing bubble and a global financial crisis in 2008. Today, there’s an “everything bubble” from the Fed’s panic-printing to bribe voters into lockdowns, yielding the combined risks of 1970’s stagflation and a 2008-style bank collapse.

      Since its founding, the Fed has stolen 98% of the value of a dollar. It has used those profits to repetitively launch boom-bust cycles and to transfer trillions to the federal government, special interests, and wealthy borrowers.

      Jackson did not tolerate such thieving rampages from his central bank. And we need not either.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 13:50

    • Putin Signs Decree To Draft 130K Young Men In Fall Conscription
      Putin Signs Decree To Draft 130K Young Men In Fall Conscription

      In a fall call-up, Russia is drafting 130,000 more young men for compulsory service, based on a decree signed by President Putin on Friday. Men aged 18-27 will be recruited for a one-year period from Oct.1 and Dec.31, however, this latest conscription drive will not involve sending this new batch to fight in Ukraine, the Kremlin said. 

      Deputy head of the military’s mobilization department, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, sought to assure in a briefing, “There are no plans for additional mobilization measures.”

      Conscripts are seen at a railway station. Source: Sergei Malgavko via Zuma

      The defense ministry previously said they are taking long-term steps to reach Putin’s goal of increasing the national armed forces’ combat personnel from 1.15 million to 1.5 million.

      The last draft came in the spring, which conscripted 147,00 men, and thus with this new fall drive a total of 277,000 will have been conscripted in 2023.

      While new conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, for the first time they will be drawn from the newly “reunited” regions of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts:

      Conscription for military service in what Moscow describes as Russia’s new regions is regulated by a so-called constitutional law on admission to the Russian Federation, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

      According to the law, the autumn 2023 conscription round will include the newly annexed territories for the first time.

      Russia is meanwhile celebrating one year since these territories were declared ‘legally’ part of the Russian Federation, according to remarks of Putin Saturday.

      “A year ago, on September 30, a defining and truly historic event took place when agreements were signed to incorporate four new constituent entities into the Russian Federation,” he said in a video address, according to TASS.

      He hailed the occasion on which “millions of residents of Donbass and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions made their choice to be with their Fatherland,” saying further: “This conscious, long-awaited, hard-won and genuinely popular decision was made collectively through referendums in full compliance with international norms.”

      One year ago it was noted by media sources that Russia was annexing lands roughly the size of Portugal…

      “People showed courage and integrity in the face of attempts to intimidate and deprive them of their right to determine their own future, their destiny, and to take away something every person values, namely, culture, traditions, and mother tongue, in a word, everything that was loathed by nationalists and their Western patrons who orchestrated a coup in Kiev in 2014 and then unleashed a full-scale civil war and terror against dissenters and organized blockades, constant shelling, and punitive actions in Donbass,” Putin described, reiterating his rationale for the “special military operation”.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 13:15

    • Turley: Ten Reasons Why The Biden Impeachment Inquiry Is Justified
      Turley: Ten Reasons Why The Biden Impeachment Inquiry Is Justified

      Authored by Jonathan Turley,

      There have been repeated references to the ten facts that I alluded to in my congressional testimony as establishing an ample basis to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. I have received emails asking about those ten developments so I wanted to post them. They are found in my written testimony, but I did not have time to go through them all in the course of my oral statement before the Committee.

      While many have noted that I stated that I do not view the current evidence as sufficient for articles of impeachment, that is hardly surprising. This was the first hearing of the inquiry and was called to address why the threshold for an inquiry had been established. I was also asked to address the constitutional standards and best practices going forward. Indeed, I criticized the last two impeachments for prematurely declaring impeachable conduct without fully developing a record to support such articles. This hearing returned the impeachment process to a type of regular order in reserving judgment until all of the evidence could be acquired by the three committees.

      Here are the ten developments that I cited as justifying an impeachment inquiry (a view with which my fellow witness University of North Carolina Professor Michael Gerhardt disagreed):

      The record currently contains witness and written evidence that the President

      (1) has lied about key facts in these foreign dealings,

      (2) was the focus of a multimillion-dollar influence peddling scheme, and

      (3) may have benefitted from this corruption through millions of dollars sent to his family as well as more direct possible benefits.

      The President may be able to disprove or rebut these points, but they raise legitimate concerns over his role based on the accounts of key figures in the matter.

      Consider just ten of the disclosures from the prior investigation:

      1. Hunter Biden and his associates were running a classic influence peddling operation using Joe Biden as what Devon Archer called “the Brand.”[1] While this was described as an “illusion of access,” millions were generated for the Bidens from some of the most corrupt figures in the world, including associates who were later accused of or convicted of public corruption.[2]

      2. Some of the Biden clients pushed for changes impacting United States foreign policy and relations, including help in dealing with Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin investigating corruption.[3]

      3. President Biden has made false claims about his knowledge of these dealings repeatedly in the past, including insisting that he had no knowledge of Hunter’s foreign dealings which Archer has declared “patently false.”[4] The Washington Post and other media outlets have also declared the President’s insistence that his family did not take money from China as false.[5]

      4. The President had been aware for years that Hunter Biden and his uncle James were accused of influence peddling, including an audiotape of the President acknowledging a New York Times investigation as a threat to Hunter.[6]

      5. President Biden was repeatedly called into meetings with these foreign clients and was put on speakerphone.[7] He also met these clients and foreign figures at dinners and meetings.[8]

      6. Emails and other communications show Hunter repeatedly invoking his father to secure payments from foreign sources and, in one such message, he threatens a Chinese figure that his father is sitting next to him to coerce a large transfer of money.[9]

      7. A trusted FBI source recounted a direct claim of a corrupt Ukrainian businessman that he paid a “bribe” to Joe Biden through intermediaries.[10]

      8. Hunter Biden reportedly claimed that he had to give half of his earnings to his father[11] and other emails state that intermingled accounts were used to pay bills for both men, including a possible credit account that Hunter used to allegedly pay prostitutes.[12]

      9. At least two transfers of funds to Hunter Biden in 2019 from a Chinese source listed the President’s home in Delaware where Hunter sometimes lived and conducted business.[13]

      10. Some of the deals negotiated by Hunter involved potential benefits for his father, including office space in Washington.[14] At least nine Biden family members reportedly received money from these foreign transfers, including grandchildren.[15] For Hunter Biden, this included not just significant money transfers but gifts like an expensive diamond and a luxury car.[16]

      These are only some of the serious corruption allegations facing the President, but each could raise impeachable conduct if a nexus is established to the President.

      Tyler Durden
      Sat, 09/30/2023 – 12:40

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